Everything But The Kitchen Sink: A Journey In Junk Journaling 

It feels like I’ve been walking backward my entire life — moving forward, but always turned around, oriented to look back at where I’ve been. Along the way, I reach out, collecting bits and pieces of whatever I can hold onto.

Ticket stubs from a family vacation to Italy. Every iteration of my old Math 34B exam notecards. Public library check-out slips. Stickers from every dining hall fruit I’ve ever eaten. Birthday cards. Thank you cards. Airline baggage receipts they tell you to hold onto, just in case. I keep everything — tokens of the people I’ve met, places I’ve been to, and things that I’ve done. They feel like my whole life. In a way, they kind of are.

Since elementary school, I’ve kept a loose written record of my life on failed blogs and in abandoned spiral notebooks that now sit in the garage of my family home, collecting dust. It wasn’t until middle school that I really started collecting physical slices of life, stemming from my search for self expression and hopes that I could unlock a gift for art by watching hours of DIY videos on YouTube. In seventh grade, I was gifted my very first bullet journal — the precursor to the junk journal.

Developed by author and designer Ryder Carroll, the bullet journal is a system for personal organization, productivity, and creativity. They’re now sold with an endless selection of details and templates, but the traditional journal features pages with a simple dotted grid design. Although the style has no set structure, its most popular uses are for compiling lists, goals, and reminders. At the time, the methodical nature of bullet journaling felt very clean-cut and adultish.

In my pre-teen hands, these customary visions for the bullet journal were quickly abandoned. I substituted black fountain pens with runny, glittery purple ink, filling the pages with doodles and amateur calligraphy. Entire page spreads were dedicated to recent vacations, where I taped in waxy theme park wristbands and hotel room keys adorned with stickers. It was organized chaos in the form of gel pens and washi tape, loved to the point of destruction, entire clumps of pages literally peeling from the binding.

My “anything goes” journaling style carried me through to college, where it has survived to accommodate my changing lifestyle (and growing piles of junk). It’s the perfect place for staying on top of weekly assignment deadlines, grocery lists, and diary entries. But, really, it’s the perfect place for everything.

Turn the page to find the stick figure drawing you made of your elementary school friend group. Flip one more, and it’s a map from a botanical garden in Canada. The thick cardstock of your older brother’s college graduation announcement. A cut-out from the Lunar New Year card your grandparents mailed to your dorm. Your summer reading list, embarrassingly short. Your budget tracker for the month. Tic-tac-toe boards from a slow day in lecture, all cat’s games. And, of course, a page covered in all those fruit stickers.

As a college student, the affordability of junk journaling can’t be overlooked, either. After all, its entire premise rests on compiling what you already have, saving and appreciating memories not only from being forgotten, but also from ending up as, well, junk. The environmental studies major in me is beaming — middle school me was onto something all along.

Equipped with the same packs of Tombow brush pens and generic felt tip markers that I’ve had for almost 10 years, there’s little else I need. A couple simple rolls of colorful washi tape, maybe. Whatever writing instrument you prefer — mine is a trusty Muji 0.5 mm gel pen. A glue stick or two. If you’re really feeling fancy, I’m a big fan of the refillable adhesive tape, also from Tombow.

Oh! And, of course, you’re also going to need something to stuff it all in! Although any journal or notebook will do, if you’re looking for a durable companion to last through the long haul, the Leuchtturm 1917 A5 dotted hardcover has a near-decade of my tween and college student love.

Otherwise, the only things you truly need are time and an eye for collectibles with potential — think logoed napkins, stickers, receipts, tags, stamps, loyalty cards, campus club zines. It’s a fun way to turn what would otherwise be a dreadful walk past rows of tabling student organizations into a treasure trove of free art. If you’re anything like me — someone who has a hard time letting go of every sweet moment — these things have a way of finding you anyway.

Junk journals are the opposite of junk. They aren’t a collection of useless trash. They’re proof that you lived, and are alive. Physical evidence of your growth and passions and thoughts. An extension of self, a museum of what makes you YOU, a catalog of everything you find beauty and excitement in. A celebration of the things in life that deserve one. Everything worth saving. What could be more valuable than that?