Got a ton of empty notebooks lying around the house? Hmm, for some reason, a whole lot of us do! I guess we can’t quite fight the urge to buy beautiful notebook after beautiful notebook despite having limited use for it. (Guilty, as charged).
Well good news, those empty notebooks don’t have to sit blank paged for much longer! We’re covering 20 ways you can fill those empty notebooks with meaningful, purposeful content to keep you inspired and feeling creative.
How to fill an empty notebook
1. Make a bucket list notebook
A good use for your empty notebooks is to create a bucket list book. So think of this as your big dreams journal, everything you’ve ever wanted in your life and those big aspirations you hope to one day achieve.
Get creative – draw pictures, print out pictures, create a vision board within the book. Write out the places you want to go, the things you want to see, what your dream house looks like. Think of this as being that forward looking vision book where you come to for inspiration and a reminder of what things excite you most.
2. Use it for recipes
If you have a lot of recipes you want to try out, or even have a go to list that stock piled in your Notes on your phone, you can write out your fav recipes or the ones you want to try.
You can keep this book in the kitchen for some cooking inspiration when you’re thinking of what you want to make next, and this can be your DIY recipe book. You can organize it by meal type, diet type, or however you choose to customize and divide each section.
3. Make a gratitude journal
We’ve all heard of the benefits for our mindset when we practice gratitude daily, so having a notebook dedicated entirely to being a gratitude journal is a great way to keep all of your thoughts logged and recorded.
It can be a notebook you keep on your bedside and every night before bed you get that visual cue to write out 3 things you’re grateful for in your life or that happened that day.
4. Use it as a braindump spot
Empty notebooks are a great way to get all of those thoughts in our head on paper. Humans are said to have more than 6,000 thoughts a day, and as it’s known our brains aren’t meant to store things, they’re meant to come up with ideas.
So use an empty notebook as a scrapbook to throw any and all ideas you have on paper as they come up.
5. Write down inspirational or motivational quotes
If you’re a quotes junkie, then you might have a multitude of quotes or ideas that you collect or keep track of. You can use one of your empty notebooks to write out all of your favorite quotes and who quoted them.
You can get creative and make it a quote per page type of book, that you crack open whenever you want to read some of your favorite quotes. Or, you can simply jot down whatever new quote you hear and love.
6. Use it for book reviews
We consume so much content that sometimes we don’t remember the details or key learnings. You can use an empty notebook as a log for book reviews. So everytime you read a book, maybe you jot down some of your favorite concepts and ideas, or lessons learned.
Similarly, you can do the same thing for movies, documentaries, or shows that you watch. That way, whenever you want a quick reminder of a book you’ve read or a show you’ve watched, you’ve got a one stop shop for it.
7. Make an autobiography
Creating an autobiography is a great way to depict your life over the course of years. It doesn’t have to be formal or critically edited, but think of it as a place to write things out about yourself.
Maybe it’s your life story told day after day or month over month. Think of this as something someone might see 100 years from now. What would they learn about you? What perspectives would they get from current events happening today?
Depicting your life from the perspective of you is a really good keepsake to have even as you get older and memories start to fade.
8. Use it for creative writing
If you are someone that loves to write, or has always been interested in writing, filling one of your empty notebooks up with your creative writing samples is a great way to keep your writing skills top notch.
You can write poems, short stories, write music, whatever way you want to use words as a creative outlet.
9. Make a budget / personal finance journal
Maintaining and balancing our personal finances is super important, and if you’re someone that likes doing this with a pen and paper versus an app or an excel sheet, then you can use one of your empty notebooks as a personal finance journal.
You can record your savings, financial goals, debt repayment, annual salary growth, and so much more all in this one notebook.
10. Use it as a diary
Another more common and likely more obvious use for your empty notebook is to just make it a diary. Use it as a daily journal to simply write out how you’re feeling.
What are your thoughts today? What are your feelings? What’s your current mood? There are a lot of mood trackers and daily pages out there and this is a good way to DIY it with your own version.
11. Take notes on a new skill you’re trying to learn
If you’ve considered taking a course or if there’s a new skill you’re trying to learn, you can use one of those notebooks to fill up with study notes.
Whether that’s taking a new language, learning coding, or just doing some self education on different topics you’ve wanted to explore, you’ll need a spot to take notes.
12. Use your empty notebook as a bullet journal
Bullet journals are popping up everywhere lately, because they give you complete creative control to transform a plain simple notebook into a personal masterpiece, custom to whatever you want.
Bullet journals can be a catch all for everything. You draw in them, you write in them, you plan months, days, bucket lists – literally everything. Transforming an empty notebook into a bullet journal is a great way to brush up your drawing and calligraphy skills as well.
13. Make a health and fitness journal
If you’ve been trying to change your lifestyle and get more into health and fitness, you can turn one of your empty notebooks into a health and fitness journal.
Use it as a spot where you can write out your workout plans with specific exercises, a place where you write out meals and your diet. Maybe you use it to track progress and even print out before and after pics. Make it your one spot for all things health and fitness.
14. Log your favorite memories about people
So think of this as the opposite of a burn book, but a place where you write out positive memories with people in your life.
Whether old friends or new, people you’re still in touch with or that you don’t talk to anymore, writing out fond and happy memories with people is a great way to help you think positively and associate good memories from your past.
15. Use your empty notebook to draw, sketch, doodle, or paint
Plain and simple, you can use your empty notebook as an art book.
Draw, sketch, doodle, paint. Whether you’re an aspiring artist or not, drawing is good for all of us. Drawing actually helps us release endorphins. We’re using both sides of our brain when we draw — right for creativity and left for logic, which helps us strengthen our focus and develops our brains for critical thinking.
16. Make it your lifeline book
We all need a spot for that important info – and if you’re not comfortable digitizing it, using an empty notebook is a great way to store this information.
Think of this as the place you write out passwords, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays. Yes, a lot of this is already digital and you likely do already have all this info on your phone. But in the event you wanted to keep a non-digitized copy of these things, that’s where you can make your own lifeline book.
17. Use it for morning pages
Morning pages have become really common in the journaling and personal development world.
This concept comes from Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way. It was originally designed to help artists push past boundaries and face their fears so they can indulge in their greatest levels of creativity. But whether you’re an artist or not, you can still apply the method.
And the method, is pretty simple. As soon as you’re up in the morning, grab an empty notebook and write out 3 pages of longhand content. “Longhand, stream of consciousness writing” to be exact.
It doesn’t matter what you write, and there are no rules to this except not to overthink it. Just write anything and everything that comes to mind. 3 pages of pure writing to get those creative juices going.
18. Keep track of your biggest life lessons
Whether you’re in your 20’s, 40’s, 60’s, 80’s, we’ve all experienced lessons throughout different stages in our life.
Keep track of your biggest life lessons. Maybe you write out a few for every year of your life, or maybe you write out a lesson you’ve learned per month. Whatever feels right to you, use a notebook to just log all those big life lessons that you can one day pass on to someone else.
19. Make lists
If you’re a list maker then you’ll love this one – use an empty notebook just to make lists.
List out all the books you want to read, all the movies you want to watch, all the restaurants you want to try, all the things you want to learn, etc. And every time you do something, cross it off. Every time you want to add something new, put it on the list. It’s another good way to just summarize those aspirational and practical things we want and do in our everyday lives.
20. Use it as a self improvement journal
And last but not least, you can use your empty notebook as a self improvement journal.
This can be the spot where you write out your goals and how you plan on achieving them. Maybe you create a habit tracker and mark down your daily routines. This could be where you keep track of your water intake, your morning routine, your evening routine.
This is a good way to record the evolution of where you started to where you want to be and another thing that I’m sure your future self would love to look back on.
Read more:
- 7 Steps to Get Your Life Back on Track When You’re Stuck
- 10 Daily Habits to Improve Your Life Right Now
- 5 Habits That Are Making You Unproductive
Stay connected!
