Pocket Journal Ideas for Capturing and Creating Everyday Beauty

7 Simple prompts for turning a small notebook into a daily practice of attention

These are my two pocket journals. Both paper republic grand voyageurs. One in the color ‘Red’ and the other ‘Venezia’

Earlier this year I resolved to make better use of my pocket journal and in so doing, I spent some time crawling the internet for ideas. Since I’ve been so delighted by all the content my fellow journal enthusiasts have come up with, I wanted to throw (or rather, gently place) my fountain pen into the ring and add some of my own suggestions.

I’m so proud of my pocket journals. They feel so chic to have as an everyday carry, but more importantly, keeping them has been a deliberate discipline for training my attention to notice and delight in beauty. Who doesn’t need more of that, honestly?

As someone who’s been journaling since childhood, I have carried around journals of all types and sizes. My childhood was quite lonely, so it was a beautiful way of passing the time with a familiar companion. At the time, I would write down ideas for commercials, sketch fictional characters, design ball gowns, and jot down jokes of the knock-knock variety. Keeping a pocket journal as an adult feels like a nod to that little girl who just wanted room to leave her creative mark.

I have also found them to be a really effective way to replace uses for my phone, so I want to share some of the ideas I have come up with for how you can use one that I think are easy and enjoyable:

1. A Poetry or Sonnet Notebook

This idea was inspired by The Living Page by Laurie Bestvater. I started this practice with my children in our commonplace books years ago, but I only recently realized it would be a great use for a pocket journal. It is as simple as it sounds—copy poems by hand that you enjoyed, read, loved, or want to study or memorize. After starting the challenge by Heather Colley to read a Shakespeare sonnet a day recently, I’ve decided copying sonnets would also be a lovely use for my pocket journal.

I copied a poem called Violets by Mary Oliver because Voilets remind me of my daughters. We love to pick violets in the wild and add them to our salads. On the right is Sonnet 2 by Shakespeare.

2. Word study

Some of you might know that I spent a few years teaching Spanish, and as part of the philosophy of language learning that I taught, my students were encouraged to keep a word journal because this was a crucial way to pick up a new language. One day I had the realization that there’s nothing stopping me from creating a word journal in languages I’m fluent in. Think of it as a personal dictionary where you can collect words you find to be beautiful, unknown, strange, offensive, interesting along with their meanings—you get to decide.

This is the word journal that started it all, before I decided to transition to a travel journal system.

3. Vision Scripting

Vision scripting is my take on a manifesting notebook—similar in spirit but different in aim. I use vision scripting to picture success in situations that are hard for me to navigate, mostly relational ones, where I lack confidence because I either wasn’t shown what success looks like or haven’t had the experience yet to know. Playing the scene forward, imagining a confident, well handled version, and writing it down in narrative form in present tense gives me the courage to act as I mean to.

I’ve scripted hard conversations with my husband, conversations with friends where I hold a boundary clearly and kindly, or unfamiliar leadership situations I didn’t feel fully ready to take on. Instead of walking in nervous and unprepared, I walk in already believing it will go well, and trusting that everyone involved means well, too.

I’m not prepared to share my entries for this particular notebook, but I can tell you it fills up fast. I use a dotted insert from this one.

4. An album of pressed flowers

My family and I go tent camping a couple of times each year, and occasionally I have the fortune of traveling outside of the state. Every so often I pick wildflowers when I’m visiting a new destination and press them (the express route in the microwave), using glue tape to stick them to the page. I identify them and include a little memory or blurb about where I found them or what I discovered about them. Much like a nature journal, these are scientific records, so as much detail as I can add to them makes for delightful data points to return to throughout the years.

These are flowers I found in Sicily. Wildflowers are typically ok to pick, but if you come across any that aren’t meant to, you can sketch them like I did the Bermuda Buttercup!

5. Personalized Color Swatches

Through my practice of self-studying art, I’ve come to have a new relationship with color, and a better eye for noticing repetition in palettes used by my favorite artists (Mary Cassatt being one of them). I thought it would be fun to create some pages with beautiful combinations of colors, and naming them whatever I wanted to! It feels like an enchanting dose of whimsy, and easy enough to do when I’m feeling overstimulated. I used acrylic paint markers for the pages pictured below, but oil pastels, markers, and really any medium that can capture the color you’re going for work.

I found both Folk Art, and Impressionist paintings to be captivating in their color usage, so I created these palettes to showcase the colors I love most in them.

6. Penmanship or Calligraphy Practice

Sometimes when people share ideas for journal spreads, they are often accompanied by pictures of nearly perfect pages, so here’s my way of dispelling any ideas of superiority you may have about me and showing you just what a novice I am with a calligraphy marker.

This was my first page of handwriting practice, and while I did get better, I have not been consistent, so my progress is to be determined. Either way, I love to have pages dedicated to handwriting practice for when I want something to focus on that is soothing and easy enough to begin on the go. Sometimes I use it to practice calligraphy, other times to work on my penmanship.

This was done using a tombow fudenosuke brush pen, which I have very little experience with, but I’m proud to say I’m getting better!

7. Nature Journaling

Before I moved to a travel journaling system, I always kept a separate nature journal, and I find that keeping a pocket sized notebook is less intimidating and more encouraging of a consistent practice of recording beautiful species of plants or animals I encounter in nature. My absolute favorite guide for learning how to keep a nature journal is The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling. I use it to learn and teach my own children how to keep nature journals.

This is a picture I took on a camping trip to Tomoka State Park years ago. I like to spread out with all of my resources and sketch and paint what I see, using reference materials to identify and learn more about what’s native to the area.

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I hope you’ve found some ideas here that inspire you to fill your own pocket journal pages with things that bring you joy and delight in everyday life. Feel free to share some of your own ideas below!

Warmly,

Lilly