If you’re reading this, you have probably heard many people telling you that you need to have a tarot journal if you want to learn tarot. Every person tells you this and every book you read tells you that you need to make one. So what gives? Why’re they supposedly sooo important?

A tarot journal is a collection of your readings for yourself, your readings for others, daily card pulls, collection of tarot spreads and card meanings. It’s basically your tarot practice in a nice little package.

The point of the tarot journal is to help you create your own meanings for the cards based on your personal experiences. Every tarot reader has a slightly different meaning for each card based on how that card showed up in their life.

These personal meanings are the eventual outcome of keeping a tarot journal.

So how do you keep a tarot journal? Well.. that depends on how creative you are. I personally am not creative. This site is probably the most creative thing that I have made. My circles don’t connect and my straight lines are anything but straight.. maybe a little wavy and always slanted.

Tarot Journal Idea #1: Go Digital

If you’re like me and not super creative, try keeping a lined notebook or a 3 ring binder. OR my personal favorite way is to keep it all on my computer, well actually Dropbox because then i can get to my folder on my phone. I set up my Dropbox with the following folders:

Main Folder (Tarot)

Tarot Card meanings- I like to keep one document per card meaning. This allows me to elaborate on both the upright and reversed meanings without ending up with a giant document. I mean just 1 page per card would be 78 pages, that’s a pretty big files to scroll through, and I’m really lazy when it comes to scrolling.

Tarot Meaning Cheat Sheet- I also keep an excel sheet with some keywords for each card and sometimes add a short, one sentence meaning, to go along with the card. This is helpful when you just want to touch on the meaning, make sure you’re on the right path. Also, it creates a great study guide for keywords for yourself.

I update both of these as I see fit. I first like to put together a card meaning from my favorite person to get me started and then I edit that and eventually my meaning may not even resemble the initial meaning. This initial meaning is typically from the LWB. It’s kind of time consuming at first to write out all 78 meanings (156 if you count reversed) but I think it’s a great learning practice.

Tarot Spreads- I keep a folder with all of the different tarot spreads that I find around the web, saving screenshots and images from my phone, Instagram, and Pinterest. I make a subfolder in here with my favorite ones that I have tried because this folder can get out of control sometimes.

Personal Readings and Daily Pulls- My daily card pulls are typically recorded in word and saved with the date and the card I pulled. This way, when I go back to reflect on it later, I know which card I pulled on each day. I like to separate these by month and include my monthly tracking sheet in the folder. I'll explain how I use my tracking sheet in a bit.

In my daily pulls I also add my tarot readings that I do for myself. Each one of these is typically its own document, so I make sure to label them with the date and the spread name so I can easily refer back to them as needed.

I also have a folder for my personal tarot journey with things like my birth card calculation.

I’m going to be honest, I have an easier time writing out my readings than speaking them. I feel like even for myself, speaking the reading out loud or even in my head, I still can mess up. But when I start typing, everything just seems to flow. If you’re like me, then I highly recommend keeping your journal online in some fashion.

I also keep a folder for readings that I do for other people.

Some other apps that you can use to track your tarot journal could be:

• One Note

• Apple Pages

• Apple Notes

• iCloud

• Just a folder on your computer- be careful with this because you can lose all your hard work if you computer crashes.

• Google Drive- with Google Sheets and Google Docs this is a one stop free solution.

• Or any other cloud storage app that you prefer.

You Might Like: Learn Tarot Resources

Tarot Journal Idea # 2: Get Creative

Ok, so to be honest, this part is really hard for me to write, because if you have read this far you know that i am not a creative type. I like organizing. But I want to at least give you some ideas to get you started on how to create a tarot journal if you are a creative type.

Grab an unlined notebook or journal that you like. You can even create your own if you know how to bind. Make sure that you have plenty of pages though, like a couple hundred.

My thoughts on this would be that you would have one page for each card. Each page would contain:

• Card name

• Drawing of the card

• Key words for upright and reversed

• Short sentences for meaning

• All sorts of decorative drawings around the page that represent what the card means. For example, if the card was the knight of wands, there may be swords, wands, or fire drawn around the page.

In the end you want to make each page a work of art and something that you will refer back to. Just make sure that you leave some room for additions as you go.

A second part of the book could contain spread ideas. All those Pinterest Pins that you find can be copied into your book with your own flair.

This type of journal is more of a reference book than a work in progress journal. If you choose this idea, depending on how you learn, I would recommend keeping a separate notebook with the following:

• Daily pulls

• Your own tarot readings

• Tarot readings for others

• Any other random tarot facts/goodies

I have also seen a lot about Bullet Journals lately and have seen a few places that give you some tips on creating your own tarot bullet journal.

Non- Tarot Additions

Tarot can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it. It can be all about memorizing the meanings, or creating your own meanings based on your intuition. Some other topics that I find to help me with my tarot readings are:

Numerology and Life Path Numbers

Astrology Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs

Archetypes

Each of these topics can be researched and the information can be added to your tarot journal, which may, over time turn into a Book of Shadows. You can also keep everything separate.

So because I am more into the digital tarot journal- I want to give you some tarot journal pages that you can start using. Enter your e-mail below and I will send you:

• My Monthly Overview Document

• Daily Card Pull Printable

• Card Meaning Digital Journal Starter