I’ve always loved the idea of journaling.
In fact, I probably loved buying journals more than actually using them.
For years, I collected beautiful notebooks that I was convinced would become the journal. You know the one. The journal where I’d finally write consistently, have profound thoughts, and create pages worthy of flipping back through someday.
The problem? I never wanted to mess them up.
I worried about my handwriting, skipped pages if I didn’t like how they looked, and somehow convinced myself that every entry needed to be thoughtful and meaningful. As a result, I ended up with a stack of mostly empty journals and no real journaling habit.
Maybe that’s a little quirky, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one.
Enter Goodnotes.
Goodnotes is a digital notebook app that lets you create and organize notebooks on your device (I use it on my iPad an iPhone). While it has all sorts of impressive features for students, professionals, and note-takers, I use it for something much simpler: journaling.
It serves as my daily journal and my Neurocycle journal.
One of my favorite things about the app is that I can create separate notebooks for different purposes. My morning routine journal lives in one notebook, while my Neurocycle work lives in another. Everything stays organized, easy to find, and neatly tucked away without taking up any physical space.
Another feature I use all the time is the ability to import PDF documents directly into my notebooks. If I’m taking a course, working through a workbook, or completing worksheets, I can simply import the PDF into Goodnotes and write on it with my Apple Pencil just as if it were printed on paper. It has completely eliminated the need for me to print things out, which saves paper, reduces clutter, and makes it much easier to keep everything organized in one place.
What really made the difference for me, though, was being able to write with my Apple Pencil.
Typing journal entries never felt natural. There was something about staring at a keyboard first thing in the morning that just didn’t work for me. Writing by hand helps me slow down and think differently, but with Goodnotes I get that experience without the pressure of a physical journal.
If I don’t like a page, I can erase it.
If my handwriting is messy, no big deal.
If I skip a day, nobody knows but me.
Somehow removing the fear of “doing it perfectly” helped me become more consistent than I’ve ever been with traditional journaling.
The app has plenty of bells and whistles that I rarely touch. It can be used for school notes, planners, document markup, and a lot more. People do some pretty amazing things with it.
But for me, its greatest feature is much simpler.
It got me journaling.
And after years of collecting mostly empty notebooks, that’s a win.
Worth trying if you:
- Love the idea of journaling but struggle to stay consistent
- Have a collection of half-used or completely empty notebooks
- Prefer writing by hand over typing
- Use an iPad and Apple Pencil
- Want a simple way to organize multiple journals in one place
Learn more at: https://www.goodnotes.com/
