5 Unexpected Ways to Fill the Notebooks You Keep Buying (But Never Opening)

For Every Notebook You Bought With Good Intentions and Never Opened

If you're a journaling and stationery lover like me, you'll know the dilemma. My room, shelf, and desk have always been filled with notebooks, rolls of washi tape, writing paper in every colour, size, and texture, pens, coloured pens — they are everywhere.

When I recently moved Kuura's studio out of my room into a proper office space, I got overwhelmed. So many things I'd bought and forgotten, sitting in a corner, never touched. I felt genuinely bad about it. So I made myself a plan for the coming months — a list of ways to finally put (hopefully) everything to use. I'm genuinely excited to work through it.

One thing I want to say upfront: as a journaler, I don't believe everything we do needs to serve a purpose or make life more efficient. Most of these ideas are probably not designed to optimise your life. I hope they make it a little more interesting instead.

Here are five ways to use the notebooks you've been saving for someday.

5 Creative Ways to Use Your Unopened Notebooks

1. Letters You'll Never Send

Write to yourself. Write to your best friend. Write to your partner, your family, or someone who hurt you. Say exactly what you mean, without softening it, without performing. The security of knowing it will never be read has a way of making you more honest than you'd expect.

2. Your Own Fiction Novel

There are writing frameworks everywhere — pick one that appeals to you, build characters, a world, and grow into it. It doesn't need to be good. It doesn't need to be finished. A handwritten story, developed slowly across a notebook you chose for it, is one of the most personal things you can make.

3. A Running Lists Notebook

Not a to-do list. Something more like an ongoing record of small things: what you're learning about life lately, things you didn't used to notice but are starting to enjoy, habits you want to build, places you want to go, things that made you laugh this week. Lists have a low barrier to entry and a surprisingly high return. You open the notebook, write three lines, and close it. Over months, it becomes something worth reading back.

4. A Shared 'Post Office'

This one was inspired by the little mailbox the March sisters kept in their garden in Little Women — a shared space where anyone could leave a note. I had a version of this with my besties in college: one notebook passed between us, where anyone could write, draw, leave something anonymous, or respond to something from the last page. The delight of finding a new entry from someone you love, in their handwriting, is genuinely hard to replicate digitally. Start one with your housemates, your family, or your closest friends. You might be surprised how much people have to say when given the right container.

5. A Gaming Journal

I game a lot, and I keep dedicated notebooks for some of the games I play regularly. Mine tend to hold a mix of things: recipes, locations, items, strategies — and also more personal notes on characters I loved, storylines that stayed with me, music I want to find outside the game. I write short reviews, sketch things I want to remember, and print out screenshots to use as stickers. It goes as technical or as emotional as the game warrants. If you game and you journal, this is a natural overlap that I'd genuinely recommend.

Go Find Your Notebooks

Pull them out of the corner. Pick one that feels right for one of these ideas and just start — messily, imperfectly, without a plan. The best thing about a notebook is that it asks very little of you. It just holds what you give it.

I'd love to know what other ideas you're thinking of — drop them in the comments!

And if you're looking for fun journaling supplies to go with your new notebook project, explore Kuura's journaling accessories and supplies here →