proxygarden .
my journal ecosystem!
a "journal ecosystem", for any one who isn't neck-deep into this kind of hobby, is a term to refer to the number of journals, notebooks, and/or planners that you use in your daily life. if your stack of notebooks is primarily planners, some people call it a planner ecosystem. what purpose these notebooks serve in your life is up to you- they could be for normal work or appointment planning, or maybe you want to get into memory keeping in a journal, or maybe even a bulletjournal. the sky is really the limit- or perhaps the limits of what a physical paper notebook can do is the limit.
regardless, here is what my journal ecosystem is comprised of:
purpose: budget plannersource: wonderland222 2026 b6 horizontal planner
this is my budget planner that i do not follow as closely as i should. i've been trying to get better at managing my money and keeping savings, and this has helped me... somewhat? but uhh. somehow i still end up struggling sometimes. how i use this is pretty simple: on the monthly calender, i write out all my bills for the month. on the side of it, i tally up all the costs, and then divide that number in half. that is how much i HAVE to save from my paychecks to pay my bills. my paychecks can vary wildly depending on the hours i get (which is never set in stone) so i never have an exact amount, but i always have enough to do this. on the weekly pages, i keep track of all my daily purchases. at the end of the month, on the summary pages, i tally up all my expenses and put them into catagories. my only real goal of doing this is to keep my "wants" purchases to under $200 a month, which i have only been successful at for one month of 2026 so far, but hey! that's still progress!!!
purpose: journalsource: amazon basics
a simple tried and true journal. my evilest thoughts go here- which is why the theme is very red- but also i keep a lot of my write-ups of my meditations and buddhism journey in here. i don't currently claim to be buddhist because i'm not very good at it (are any of us? LOL) but maybe someday i'll have committed teachings to heart and be able to practice with my chest. for now, it's something that i am very slowly progressing toward understanding.
purpose: commonplacesource: amazon basics
commonplacing is a whole bucket of worms that could have its own blog post about. for me, commonplacing is a way to be more mindful about the content i consume. one of my goals this year was to be more purposeful with what i spend my time doing, and commonplacing is what has helped. whenever i read books or articles, i write down key-points or my thoughts on the piece down in this notebook, and then try to generate more questions about what i might have read that can inspire me to research more content. my goal with this is basically just to replace the time i spent doomscrolling with actually consuming content that enriches my life instead of drain it. so far, i've been focusing on literary techniques and analysis, political commentary, and tang dynasty history :]
purpose: ... school plannersource: happy planner
... ugh... my school planner... i didn't want to include it because it's super fucking basic and i didn't add anything fun, but out of all my planners, this is the one i use the most. it is a VERY basic vertical happy planner. all i do in this is write down all assignments that are due throughout the week and just cross them off as i do them. it's very basic, but if i didn't have this, i would most certainly crumble and die academically. thankfully, at the time of me writing this blogpost (april 2028) i have only one month of this semester left, and then my formal academic life is over
... and that's it for me! did it seem like a lot to you? i challenge you to go look up "my journal/planner ecosystem" on youtube and check out the massive stacks some people have! no hate to them, obvi. hobbies are hobbies, and this one is relatively harmless