Artline Monday - Quick journalling

Sometimes journalling can feel like hard work.  It isn't always easy to think of things to write and it can become just one more task you have to complete instead of a way to reflect on and record your day.  Last year I came across a quick and easy method to record my feelings in my travellers notebook that I want to share with you today.  It is called My year in pixels and once you have created your layout journalling will only take you a couple of minutes each day.

Quick journalling with my Artline pens

The great thing about My year in pixels is that you can use it in any kind of journal or diary.  It is perfect for bullet journals, notebooks, TNs and planners so whatever system you use you can give it a go!  You can also start it at any time of year so you don't have to wait until January rolls around again.

Draw a grid 31 x 12 squares

The first thing you need to do is draw a rectangle, I have found grid or dotted paper is the easiest to use for this but if have plain paper you can measure it out with a ruler.  Make your rectangle so you have 31 boxes by 12, you can do this either vertically or horizontally it is up to you which way you prefer it.  I drew mine on dotted paper so I used a ruler to join all the dots together to give me a proper grid.  

Each small square or pixel in the grid represents one day, label the 12 squares with the months (so if you want to start journalling today start with February and label through to January) and the 31 squares with 1 through to 31.  If your boxes are quite small like mine you might want to just label every 5 days like I have done as it's hard to squish all the numbers in.  For the months that have less than 31 days in them cross out the extra boxes or use some skinny washi tape to cover them up.  You should then be left with 365 days to colour in.

Journalling key

The next step is to create the key for your pixels.  Choose six different colours and label them with sets of feelings.  You want the feelings represented by the same colour to be similar to each other so for example you shouldn't make happy and sad both the same colour otherwise when you look back at your journal you won't know if you had a good or bad day.  I have split my six colours into two sets of brilliant and happy feelings, two sets of okay and fair to middling feelings and two sets of sad and anxious feelings.  I think these sets cover all of my emotions so they work well for me.  If you usually have more happy and upbeat days than sad or upset days (yay!) then you will want more colours that represent positive feelings and less for the negative ones. 

When I used this system last year I coloured the squares in with pencil crayon but I found as time went on the crayons looked wishy-washy and I wrinkled the paper by colouring harder to make the colours brighter.  This year I am using my Artline200 fineliners as the nibs are nice and small for the boxes and the colours really standout on the pages.

You can decorate the blank spaces on your pages if you want to, I used some washi tape and stickers but you can paint, draw or doodle on them if you are more artistic than me!

My year in pixels

Now you have set up your yearly grid all you need to do is take some time each evening to reflect on your day and then choose a colour that most represents how you have been feeling.  Once you have decided use that colour to fill in the pixel for the day and you are done!  It takes up so much less time to journal this way but you still get a record of how your year has been.

So does this way of journalling appeal to you or do you prefer to write down how you have been feeling and what you have been up to each day?

Thanks for stopping by!