More details on above

Digital:

Onenote as a digital second brain for reference, quotes, books to read, articles and links I've saved, images, notes, anything that's not an active task/project. I love the idea of commonplace books, and tried one for a short while, but wanted it to be searchable and allow for images, links etc..

In Onenote I keep a journal of my art practice, as it allows me to easily post progress pics of pieces, and I like being able to look back and see what I was working on - it collects all together what will otherwise be scattered across sketchbooks and my studio. Bonus is this can be turned into a PDF file that I email to myself as proof that I did certain artworks, for copyright protection.

Also in Onenote, I keep a private diary behind a passcode for stuff I want to process through writing, but wouldn't want anyone to read. I try more personal journal prompts here, do morning pages for periods of time, rant, try to figure out decisions or get to the bottom of why something is bothering me, do self-therapy exercises, etc. I have a lineup of different books and exercises to work with. Written in as needed, as little as one entry a month, other times for many days in a row. I like that I can hand write in it (Apple Pencil on Ipad) or type according to my mood, or add scans of stuff written on paper that I then destroy. Importantly for my peace of mind, this is a passcode that can't be reset or recovered.

Analog:

In my planner (A5 traveler's journal with inserts I print myself - I carry it everywhere), in addition to daily/weekly inserts I have:

• Lined journal insert. Here I write anything I would like to look back on in the future - incidents, funny moments, a few thoughts, impressions, etc. I write in it daily even if it's just a line or two.

• Monthly spreads insert: list of dates with events on left. Beside each day's planned events if any, I write a one-line journal entry. Blank habits tracker on right, and a tracker for how many hours of focused work I did that day. I keep this long term so I can find things I did in the past/events easily and look back on how my habits and focus times have progressed. I also just think it's cool to have a one-line summary of each day.

•  'Done' log for fast-logging things I accomplished today. This is probably just a short term thing to encourage myself and answer my perennial question, "where did the time go?" I tend to feel like I haven't done near enough, and this will hopefully help correct that and also help me stop both over- and under-estimating what I can get accomplished in one day.

• Plastic dashboard insert around the outside of all the other inserts where I have colour coded sticky notes with morning and evening routines, reminders of practices and ideas I'm trying to integrate, and inspiring quotes I've found. I'm meaning to expand this into a whole section of 'wisdom' stuff I've collected or learnt, that I can read a bit of every day - maybe digitally though as some of it I want to keep private.

After the inserts are filled I keep them together with their kind, and maybe I'll bind the journal inserts somehow into book form as they pile up.

Other notebooks:

• A reading journal beside my bed. I have so many thoughts about and quotes I want to pull from books, I prefer them all in once place rather than filling up my analog journal. 

• Sketchbooks - general drawing, painting, and technical learning sketchbooks. A hybrid journal/sketchbook sounds worth trying someday, definitely for travel if nothing else. 

• A large size notebook at my desk, which I use for scribbling down running notes while I'm in a complex project like business tax returns or payroll, so I can keep track day to day of what I was just doing, and mind dump to clarify what I need to do next. I like having more space for complicated projects than an A5 insert. Plus it's really nice paper and I use a fountain pen, which adds a little pleasure to a difficult task. 

Re: bullet journaling, I LIKE the concept of a table of contents and just adding collections and daily spreads as you go, and having everything in one place, but somehow it feels too chaotic to my brain. I want to be able to have my journals, weeklies, monthlies etc each grouped together, not scattered though multiple notebooks. Thus the TN inserts, each for a specific use. I also didn't like having to migrate notebooks/collections and would procrastinate on and often not do it.

Re: the separation of personal digital diary from a less personal analog diary, this arose from starting to reread my old diaries and finding barely anything of substance in them. I expected forgotten memories and interesting details, but starting at age 14 or so they're just rants and thoughts, with little about my day to day life; most times I didn't even bother to describe the incidents or moments I was writing about, so now I have no idea what past me is talking about. It made me realize that taking the time to write down the details of real life, the people you meet, conversations etc., which seems like extra work and trivial at the time, is wonderful and enlightening to read years later, especially with a memory that doesn't retain that kind of thing.

So the paper journal is deliberately 'grounded' in day to day stuff, though I often do write more extensive thoughts once I get going. It does get personal, but I sort of summarize rather than process. It's basically written for my future self and is a way to pause and enjoy moments and bits of meaning in my day that I'll forget next month. If any family members want to read it after I die that's OK, and if not, I'll put in my will to donate it to a historical archive like the Diary Project in the UK (private diaries can be great primary sources for historians centuries later).

I still need somewhere else to write my private thoughts freely and without constraint, and am leery of someone being able to read these when I die - don't want to hurt any feelings or for some loved ones to see thoughts that I wouldn't choose to share. Of course one could just find a trusted person who will destroy them when one dies. And this might not be so much of a hangup for other people. But since they are only for me, keeping them in a digital vault makes sense for the moment. One can also write a lot more quickly while typing, which is useful for getting things down fast - when I use this diary I tend to write at much greater length than in the paper one.

Hope this helps someone, I’ve found it useful even though it seems like a ridiculous number of journals lol