Okay, raise your hand if you’re counting down the days to Pinterest’s finally giving us the ability to have private boards!
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Wow! That’s a lot of you. And how many of you have, at some point in your life, torn pages out of magazines, catalogs, and calendars because you either loved the image or wanted to try something on the page? (I once actually had to photocopy a page out of a manga because I wanted the picture and the book belonged to the library. It’s on the back cover of one of my inspiration binders now.)
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
One of the things that makes Pinterest such an attractive, and at the same time terrifying, tool is that it allows us to collect images or visual representations of things that interest us. We can then use those pins to inspire us, to add to our to-do list, or help us plan out special moments in our lives. It can even help us make changes in our lives and share resources.
Pinterest is a special type of journal. I have often called it an inspiration book. Some call it a swipe file or a tickler file. It’s a collection of things that make you feel a certain way or make you want to do something, and it’s a very important journal. It’s the journal you grab when you’re bored and want something to do. It’s the journal that you lose yourself in after a rough day. It’s the journal you grab when you just need a change.
You can theme the inspiration journal – It can cover a specific hobby, collection, or feeling. (This is really how the Pinterest boards function when you think about it.) It can be one big jumble. You can have more than one, focused on different projects. The only rule an inspiration journal must follow is that it must in some way inspire you.
Pretty simple right?
(For the record, I have three. I have Pinterest; a binder full of pages I ripped from BHG, Real Simple, and Shojo Beat back when it was in publication; and a fashion one that I eventually want to turn into a mock graphic novel. It’s going to be a gripping story about a pseudo-socialite who discovers she has a clone.)