How the Design of My Notebooks Reflects My Creative Journey

And a reminder to embrace an ever evolving creative life

It was July 2020. In my hands, I held a new notebook. Probably the most beautiful journal I’d ever had, a personalised hardback covered with flowers. It tingled with possibilities as I opened it, eyed the blank pages before me. When my pen touched paper, it felt like a new beginning.

Since that notebook, I’ve gone through three more and I’m now on my fifth creative life journal. They hold my ideas, thoughts, plans and journaling from three years of starting a creative business, going full-time with it, getting a writing job and shifting back to a creative side-business. They’re filled with my dreams and hopes, as well as my anxieties and hardships.

Looking back at them, their designs so clearly reflect an ever evolving creative journey. One where goals and priorities change. Where not just my projects and skills develop, but also my understanding of my creativity and the role it plays in my life. They’re a reminder that we change, circumstances change and so does our creative lives.

July 2020 - March 2021: A creative life led by inspiration

I bought that first notebook a couple of months after I launched my creative coaching business, just before I started my Youtube channel. It was the peak of my slow living era, and I was in love with the dream of the creative life I was building.

When I think back to this period, I think of hopes and dreams, a creative life led by inspiration, naive and scared and very in touch with my personal creative compass.

The notebook I chose was romantic and dreamy, filled with summer flowers and my hopes for the future.

Notebook from Papier

In this notebook, I penned my decision to take leave from my job to pursue my own business.

April - September 2021: Pursuing my creative dream

I got a notebook specifically for the first 6 months of running my business full-time. I called it my business leap, a period when I was on leave from my old job, and would decide if I’d stay self-employed or return.

This period was still very much led by my inspiration and the dream of running my own business. I was finally living what I had been hoping for, and I was high on the thrill and creativity of it.

I chose a notebook that still reflected a dreaminess, but it was a little simpler, a little more pared back.

Notebook from Inkifi

At the end of the notebook, I chose to stay self-employed and quit my uncreative government job.

October 2021 - June 2022: Trying to find creative business stability

My business leap ended, and slowly, I transitioned out of the dreamy early days haze of being self-employed. The quick wins had to be exchanged for long term stability, and I was trying to find my feet as a business owner.

I was attempting to go deeper, to find more calm, to be strategic and intentional in how I grew my creative business. It was less about inspiration highs, more about building a sustainable everyday.

I got a beautiful clothbound notebook with nature etchings as a going away present from my colleagues at my old job, it felt perfect.

Notebook from Bookbinders Design

This notebook holds my hardest, messiest period of running a creative business. Growing was difficult, financial stress started to weigh on me and reality was catching up. I was realising that I couldn’t rely on my creative inspiration to solve my problems.

By the end of this notebook, I had gotten through an especially messy period and I was looking at my creative life and business with new eyes.

June 2022 - April 2023: Choosing creative strategy over inspiration

Things were shifting. I was acknowledging the challenges of being self-employed, and it was starting to dawn on me that things needed to change.

I got a part-time job as a content writer while also getting more strategic in my business. In the process, I stepped more firmly away from an inspiration-led creative life, in favour of being more deliberate, planned and strategic.

The notebook I chose was clothbound and blue, simple and without embellishments.

Notebook from Paperstyle

By the end of this notebook, I had found more stability in my creative life, but I had also lost something. It was dawning on me that I didn’t enjoy being self-employed as much I had thought I would. I chose to increase my hours at my job and shifted my creative business back to a side-business.

April 2023 - now: Returning to an inspiration-led creative life

As I’ve transitioned to a creative life as an employed writer with my own creative business on the side, I’ve invited inspiration back into the driver’s seat. This shift represents creative freedom for me, to not have to always make the most financially strategic choice in my own projects, to let my creativity guide me.

In starting this Substack, I’ve stepped back into the role of a writer sharing my creative journey and what I learn from it. It has felt like a coming home, a return to pure creativity.

I chose a notebook that was reminiscent of the floral journal designs from my earlier inspiration-driven days. It’s playful, with a cat hidden among the leaves, but it’s a little simpler, a little less dreamy. More grounded and balanced.

Hardcover journal from Redbubble with design by ilovedoodle

Here’s where I’m at now, exploring what an inspiration-led creative life looks like for me in this season. Who knows how this notebook will end.

A creative life is always evolving

Creativity never stands still. Our perspective is constantly evolving with the dreams we chase, the experiences we have along the way, what we learn from them. A direction that once felt true and right shifts and we find ourselves in a completely new place.

A creative life is not linear, and while we have hopes and hunches, we never quite know where we’ll find ourselves next. What dreams will our next notebook hold? What challenges will we journal about? It’s all to be found out. And that’s just as it’s supposed to be.