If Journaling Stresses You Out, “Compartmental Journaling” Is the Fun Twist You Should Try

I’ve always been a big fan of journaling. It’s a perfect way to express my thoughts from the day, decompress, or even give gratitude, and it’s a great analog hobby. Sometimes, though, I have a hard time filling up the page, or I find myself repeating the same things over and over. So, when I saw a TikTok video about “compartmental journaling,” I knew I wanted to shake up my typical journaling practice and try it out.

In her TikTok video, Jenny Doh (@jennycrescendoh) describes compartmental journaling as “a daily art journaling practice.” She says that she dedicates a full spread (two pages) in her journal for each day. In that space, she’ll write her schedule, various lists, and other notes. 

The “compartmental” concept comes in when she has empty gaps left around those notes. In those open spaces, she draws compartments (squares and rectangles) to fill the space. She populates those boxes in different ways: with stickers, describing the day in one word, a portrait, a doodle, or her intention for the next day. 

I normally just journal in an extra college notebook I have in my room. Since that is so much larger than the traveler’s notebook Jenny uses, I decided to use half a spread (one page) for my compartmental journaling, which ended up feeling like the perfect amount of room to share my thoughts for the day and also utilize the compartments. 

At first, I was a little stumped as to how to fill up my page, and since it was my first time trying compartmental journaling, I used Jenny’s video as inspiration. I also included space for my schedule, goals for the day, and lists of what I had to complete that day. I had three empty spaces for compartments of various sizes. 

For my smallest compartment, I decided just to fill it in with my favorite color, blue, to add a hint of color to the page. For my medium-size compartment, I made it into a countdown for days until I start graduate school in the fall, which I plan to change each day I journal. Finally, for my largest compartment, I decided to incorporate a piece of gratitude from the day, which is something I try to do in all of my journaling. 

I honestly really enjoyed my compartmental journaling. It felt like a unique way to change up my pace of journaling and reach for some clever ideas for what to put on the page. I definitely want to continue this practice mixed in with my usual journaling — I’m already looking forward to updating my countdown.