Types of Journaling: A Guide to the Main Styles and Who Each One Suits

Pick the type by how you feel today. Flooded or in crisis: a structured, short form with a time limit, such as a three-line gratitude list or a one-line mood log. Numb or flat: an open form with a prompt, such as ten minutes of expressive writing or a page of art. Stuck on one person or one argument: a relational prompt that ends with what you need. Wanting to build something: a goal or project journal you read back weekly. The table below lists eleven types with what you write, how long a session takes, when each helps, when to avoid it, and how much evidence stands behind it.

This page is the reference list. To be pointed at one style by a few questions, use find your journaling style.

Key Takeaways

• Match the type to your state, then hold it for three weeks. Switching weekly tells you nothing.
• Structured forms (gratitude, mood log, bullet log) take two to five minutes. Open forms (expressive, art) take ten to twenty, with a timer.
• Only four types have trial evidence worth the name: expressive writing, gratitude, best possible self, and, with less behind it, self-compassion writing. The rest are craft.
• An expressive entry that repeats the previous three is rumination. Add one line, "what I need is", or switch to a structured form.
• A log you have not read back in a month is a list. Read it on Sunday or stop keeping it.

The eleven types

Evidence ratings are this page's judgment: "strong" means several randomised trials or a systematic review, "some" means a few small trials, "little" means nobody has tested the form against a control group.

What the trials found

Expressive writing has the most. A 2022 network meta-analysis in Psychological Medicine pooled 44 randomised trials with 7,724 participants: writing about a trauma beat waiting-list controls at the longest follow-up, with a smaller effect than PTSD psychotherapy and considerable heterogeneity. Gratitude and best-possible-self writing come next: the 2025 PLoS One systematic review of 51 studies found those two techniques gave the most consistent gains, mostly in wellbeing, optimism and positive mood, and less consistently in anxiety or stress. In one gratitude trial with a physical measure, 70 patients with early heart failure randomised to eight weeks of gratitude journaling showed a lower inflammatory biomarker index than usual care, and higher heart rate variability during the writing task but not at rest. Self-compassion writing has less behind it: a 2025 single-session online trial of 98 people found that writing to oneself with self-compassion raised self-compassion scores against an active control. Mood logging borrows its evidence from cognitive behavioural therapy, where the NHS thought record is a standard self-help tool.

In The Art of Journaling, chapter 4, I cover Morning Pages, an evening reflection, creative and stream-of-consciousness writing, gratitude, goal-setting and dream journals, and in chapter 10 I add worry journals, stress logs and mood tracking on a numeric scale for anxiety, depression and stress. The book treats them as a toolkit to choose from, which is what the table above is for.

Match the type to your state

• Flooded, or in crisis. Structured and short. A three-line gratitude list, a mood number and one trigger, or a dated bullet log. The format holds you when open writing would tip you further in. Time limit: five minutes.
• Numb, flat, disconnected. Open and prompted. Ten minutes of expressive writing on one event, or an art page. The job is to get feeling back on the page.
• Stuck on one person or one argument. A relational prompt in three lines: the feeling, the pattern, the need. An entry might read: "I am furious at her." Then: "This reminds me of feeling unseen as a kid." Then: "What I need is to feel that my perspective counts." The third line is what stops the entry becoming the same loop tomorrow.
• Early recovery or trauma therapy. Containment forms with time limits: prompts, logs, gratitude. Keep expressive writing for sessions your therapist knows about.
• Building something. A goal, project or work journal, written weekly and read back before you write.

Same day, three types

Invented entries. Suppose a presentation went badly and a friend cancelled dinner.

Expressive: "The presentation fell apart at the third slide and I watched Dana check her phone. I kept talking. I have not felt that exposed since school. Then Sam cancelled and I was relieved, which is worse."

Gratitude: "1. Priya asked a real question at the end. 2. The walk home was cold and clear. 3. Sam cancelling gave me the evening."

Bullet log: ". presentation, went badly, ask for feedback Thursday / o dinner with Sam cancelled / mood 4, trigger: slide 3."

Same material. The expressive entry finds the relief and the shame underneath the day. The gratitude entry moves attention off the third slide. The log records it and moves on. The state you are in decides which job needs doing.

Try three in three weeks

1. Week one: gratitude. Three lines every night, with a why for each.
2. Week two: mood log. One line a day: a number, a trigger, five words.
3. Week three: expressive writing. Two ten-minute sessions on non-consecutive days, one event each.

At the end, the one you did not skip is the one to keep. Short trials are fair tests: the positive-writing review above notes that most of its studies used three or four writing sessions on consecutive days, so three weeks is long enough to know whether a form fits.

When to switch

• An expressive entry repeats the previous three. Switch to a structured form for a week, or add the "what I need is" line.
• A log has not been read back in a month. Switch from tracking to a weekly written review of the log, or drop the log.
• The structured form feels like admin. You are no longer flooded. Move to an open form.
• The open form loops. That is rumination. Go back to structure, and bring the loop to a person.
• Your circumstances change. A new job wants a work journal; a bereavement wants memory entries and short forms. The type follows the season.

When this does not work

You keep switching every week. Novelty is doing the choosing. Pick by state and hold for three weeks.

Nothing fits. Use a prompt-based form for a fortnight and answer one question a day. The prompts on this site are sorted by need on the journaling ideas page.

Every type makes the day worse. Stop, and take that to a GP or counsellor. Journaling is a supplement: in the 2022 meta-analysis above, expressive writing did less than psychotherapy where the two were compared.

Why Types of Journaling Matter

Most abandoned journals were the wrong type for the week they were started in: an open, feeling-heavy form begun while flooded, or a tidy log begun by someone who needed to say something. Only four forms have trials behind them, but the state-to-type match costs nothing to try and takes three weeks to test. A form that fits the week gets used.

Related reading

• Types of Journaling: Finding Your Style
• What Is Journaling? A Plain Guide to the Practice and What It Does
• How to Start Mood Journaling: A Simple Four-Part Format That Sticks
• 26 Journaling Ideas to Match What You Need Right Now
• Therapeutic Journaling for Mental Health: What the Research Shows