My New Discbound Journals

I’ve really been enjoying discbound journals in recent years. So much so, that this week I created 5 new ones! I find them so versatile because I can add or remove pages as and when necessary and I can move pages around if I change setup or need a page to be somewhere else in the future. I can also create partitions without worrying about how many empty pages I might need to leave between tabs or cover pages. It’s just so much more flexible.

Why Do I Need 5 New Journals?

Of course I don’t need 5, but I chose to create 5 because I have so many interests and hobbies to keep track of, and I thought it would make more sense to keep them separate.

I tend to switch focus pretty frequently between my various hobbies. I get hyper-fixated on one or two things at a time as if the thing I was fixated on yesterday doesn’t even exist anymore.

This means I will often take a break from one thing, coming back to it weeks or months later, only to have forgotten what I was doing and what the plan was for that project or game or piece of art. Having notes in a journal ensures that I am not starting from scratch everytime.

Finally after decades of starting over and over again, I have finally accepted that maybe I need to keep track of my hobbies a bit more intentionally. And having all of my notes in one journal means carrying around paper that is not useful because I only need the pages about the hobby I’m currently working on, not all the others that are on hold. Hence the separation into 5 journals.

My First Discbound Journals

I have been using just 2 discbound journalsfor years and didn’t really need any more. One was for gaming, keeping track of what I am currently doing in each game, character builds, goals, plans, storylines, etc. Things I might need to know or be reminded of if I took a break from gaming for a while.

Since I play multiple different games, I had one whole journal just for gaming.

The other journal was for daily life tracking, health, meals, to do lists, etc as well as having sections for blog notes, art notes, and whatever else I needed to write down.

Both these two discbound journals had large discs, much larger than the ones you see in the pictures. One set of discs was even metal, which was quite heavy and also quite noisy whenever I placed it or moved it on a surface.

They had both got pretty thick and heavy over the years as I added pages to each one. It was also becoming difficult to find things in them. It was no longer efficient.

My Preferred Journal Size & Supplies

In the photo below, on the left, you can see the larger metal discs in the plastic bag and the special punch I use to make my discbound journal pages. Those large discs are great if you need lots of pages in your journal. So I might upgrade back to these for my garden journal as it continues to grow along with my garden over time. They are too heavy to hold just a few pages.

These colourful new discs are much smaller and they’re lighter since they’re made of plastic. They’re also less noisy, they don’t bang on the desk, so I prefer the smaller ones for everyday use.

I use 120gsm paper for journaling and note taking, because it’s sturdy enough to withstand adding and removing the pages from the discs without becoming fragile like regular 80gsm printer paper does. I also have 200gsm pages for my art journal, cover pages and dividers. It’s basically card and is pretty sturdy.

For all my journals, whether using the large or small discs, I cut A4 pages in half, so these are all A5 journals, using 8 discs.

The Journals I Now Use

Now I have 6 discbound journals. There are the 5 new ones featured in this post, and I still have the old gaming one too.

The new, much smaller, journals were basically created by taking my previous large metal disc journal apart and creating a new journal from each section of the old one.

I don’t use all of them everyday. As I said, I focus on one or two things at a time, so now I only need to carry the pages (journals) that I actually need for the activities of the week.

So now I have a separate journal for:

• Daily Life
• Health & Personal Care
• Creative Projects
• Gardening
• Blogging
• Gaming

My Daily Life Journal

This one is always out and ready to write in. It’s used to keep track of my days. I often find myself questioning what I did on a day or when it was that I did a certain thing. Having really poor memory means I forget by this evening what I have done today. Keeping track in a journal is very helpful.

So rather than a planner with to-do lists, it’s more of a journal with ta-da lists.

The cover is one of my recent paintings, cut in half. It was one of the pieces that started out as a bunch of coloured blobs I painted with rehydrated gouache that had been dried and crusty on my pallette for years since I last painted some Christmas decorations. So there was a lot of green and red.

So I used my fine liners and white acrylic paint pen to decorate the page using the coloured blobs as a guide for where to place the flowers and leaves.

This particular page perfectly matched the pocket I’d made many years ago with some pretty patterned paper. And both of these designs matched the orange discs. I love how this turned out.

The old journal had a few monthly cover pages and templates that I wanted to keep for the new one, but the rest I binned. I’ll need to make some new monthly pages as needed.

Using this template, I quickly freehand the weekly grid onto a few pages at a time, front and back. I no longer try to beautify each page the way I used to do in my bullet journals. That was unsustainable for me and a major reason why I could never remain consistent in journaling.

When you only have a little energy, your time becomes super valuable. If I spend a bunch of time upright, measuring, drawing, colouring, cutting, sticking, decorating pages, I’ve used up too much energy and don’t have much left for other activities. It’s unnecessary. For me.

I know a lot of people find the process of decorating their journals really enjoyable and it’s their creative time. That’s perfect for them. I realised it was causing me stress because I felt like it was eating away at energy and time I wanted to be spending on other activities which are more enjoyable to me. So as much as I love and even envy seeing those gorgeous journal pages, I need to be realistic about what I can manage.

This layout gives me a weekly overview on one page. There are 8 sections, so there is one for each day of the week and one for notes, to-dos, reminders, etc for that week. No more daily to-do lists. They are a source of disappointment when chronic illness makes life unpredictable.

So now I work with a short weekly to-do list and might pick one thing on a day from that list. The rest of the day is up to how I feel and whatever projects I’m currently working on as well as health, mobility and personal care activities.

Health & Personal Care Journal

This journal (pictured below, left) is used for tracking my health status, protocols used, notes about any medical interventions, my mobility exercises, milestones, goals, diet and weight management, meal plans, exercise (yoga/physio) routines, etc.

Basically tracking physical and mental health, along with nutrition and personal/self-care routines.he cover for this one is just the divider that was in the old journal. It was just green, but I added the pink accents since the discs on this journal are pink and green. I didn’t have a full set of either of those colours, so I mixed them.

Discbound Journal For Creative Projects

My creative journal (pictured above, right) is not so much for making art as it is for keeping track of what I’m working on. As I said, if I stop working on a project for a while and then return to it a few weeks or months later, I won’t know what I was doing and will end up starting over.

This journal is to keep track of crochet patterns, which pen thickness or hex codes I’m using in procreate, any ideas for future creative projects, things like that. Because I have lost count of how many times I have stumbled across an unfinished project from 3 years ago and been unable to figure out how I did what I did.

I will be doing some art in there too, but that’s not the main purpose of this journal. The cover for this one might be familiar if you’ve been following my art journey on IG or the blog in past years.

It was a piece I made 5 or 6 years ago using gouache and acrylic markers, oil pastels and fine liners. Maybe some acrylic paint too. I forget. But it’s been a divider in my old journal for years. Now it’s the cover.

Gardening Journal

This gardening journal (pictured below, left) is not currently being used since I already started one earlier this year.

The plan is to create a sort of plant profile or “medical history” sort of thing for each plant I’m growing. A way to keep track of what I did with each plant, when it was done and how it went.

When did I sow, transplant, compost, prune, harvest, etc. Does this variety thrive or struggle with heat or wind or does it need more water? Any pest pressure? Anything I might need to know for future reference, since I will not remember next year.

I will likely start using it later this year once I have all my raised bed planters set up and I know what I’m actually growing in them.

Discbound Journal For Blogging

This journal (pictured top, right) is for keeping track of what I am doing on this website and my social media accounts. Any ideas for posts, keeping track of things that need to be done behind the scenes to keep things up to date, secure and functioning correctly.

I lost a decade of blog content due to behind the scenes admin that went horribly wrong. So I want to keep track of things more intentionally. Login details, plugins I’m using, workflow, various apps or websites and tools I’m using.

Again, if I need to take a break, I must have these things written down for when I return.

The cover on this journal is a divider from the old one. It had a pocket made with purple card, so it matched the discs very nicely. I might decorate it more in the future, but it’s fine for now.

So there you have it, my 5 new discbound journals.

• Do you keep journals or planners too?
• Do you prefer them all-in-one or separated, like I’ve done?
• What sort of journals do you use?

I look forward to chatting with you in the comments below.