For years, I kept a journal. It’s a great way to express yourself and think through what’s going on in your life. I even consider Ira Progoff to be one of the people who was fundamental to my ‘adulting’ process. But when I’m Notebooking in public and someone comes up to chat and says, “Oh, you keep a journal too?”, it takes all the willpower I can muster not to give a lengthy speech of clarification.

Notebooking is different from journaling. Why? A few reasons…

Both involve “expression”, but they don’t express the same thing

A quick perusal of journaling ‘how-to’s will lead you down the path of self-expression. The goal of journaling is to take all the thoughts and emotions that are clogging up your brain, and getting them out on paper so that you can engage in reflection and self-care. It’s very therapeutic. Notebooking isn’t about therapy. It’s about creativity. The goal is still expressing yourself, but you’re expressing yourself by recording hobbies, humor, creative writing, profound thoughts and personal projects. Which leads us to the next difference between the two:

Notebooks are multi-faceted. Journals have a singular focus.

One of the core ideas of Notebooking is that you want to start with a Content List. While it’s not against the rules to Notebook on a single subject¹, our system works best with having multiple subjects going at any one time. It’s perfectly appropriate to have a recipe on one page, followed by the first draft of a wedding toast, followed by a conversation you overheard at Starbucks that morning. Variety is the spice of life, and we like our Notebooks spicy! But journals are geared to pick a topic and stay on topic. Whether it’s working through your anxiety, recording your dreams each night, or recalling conversations and writing down what you wish you had said, journaling is designed to keep these topics separate, each in their own book.

Journaling is meant to be private. Not so with Notebooking!

Most journaling websites will encourage you to keep your journal to yourself. While you’re allowed to share it with someone you love and trust, the idea is that journals are for your eyes only! Here at NotebookingNerds, we encourage you to make your notebooks “Stranger Safe”. You’re not necessarily writing to show off, but you shouldn’t be embarrassed if someone picks up your notebook unexpectedly. Personally, I’m happy to share my notebook with anyone who asks. This wouldn’t be the case if it was filled with my deepest, darkest, most intimate thoughts.

But while journaling is inwardly focused, Notebooking is outwardly focused.

This is perhaps the most crucial difference between the two. Journaling touches on the outside world, but only enough to focus on one’s own opinions, emotions, reflections, and reactions. Notebooking touches on ourselves, but the center of the action is engagement with the world. Whether it’s describing a scene, recording an event, recalling humorous interactions, or pursuing goals, the focus of Notebooking is outside of ourselves. Journaling centers the action inside your own head.

Ultimately, this makes all the difference when it comes to the tone of your writing…

The number 1 rule of Notebooking is “No Whining!”. When you’re engaged with the outside world, and the action is centered beyond yourself, this is easy. All it takes is a bit of grace and a modicum of tact. However, journaling lends itself to whining. Because the goal of journaling is to honestly express your every thought about the world, the only way to avoid whining is to be so overwhelmingly pollyannish that nothing ever disturbs you or gets you down. That’s an unrealistic and impossible standard for anyone.

All of this isn’t to say that journaling can never be useful. If you have issues you want to work through, or find that writing your thoughts down on paper helps you to make sense of your life, then go ahead and keep a journal. But if you want to be more creative, more engaging, more social, and more interesting, then Notebooking is the avenue you should pursue.

1. Over the years, I’ve kept many notebooks designed with a singular purpose, be it Traveling, Working Out, Wine & Beer, and of course, notebooks actually designed to take notes in a class. But none of these were really reflective of the NotebookingNerds system. They just happened to be kept in notebooks, and could just as appropriately be called ‘journals’.