The Trigg Gratitude Journal (£13.99) is a guided gratitude journal from the makers of the Trigg Life Mapper planner system. This A5 matte faux-leather hardcover journal features prompts, quotes and a variety of page layouts that create a place where you can pause and reflect. The notebook starts with some direction about how and when to use a gratitude journal.
The goal of this gratitude journal is to help find happiness in your life and improve personal resilience when things get tough.
Throughout the notebook, there are inspiring quotes, mandalas that you can color, and an assortment of guided prompts to explore positive aspects, people and things in your life.
I am a cynic and a bit of a salty b*tch so looking for the bright side, being grateful and staying positive always feels a bit forced for me. I am 100% the person the Grievance Journal was made for. But I totally understand why and how the Trigg Gratitude Journal can be helpful.
I am also the person who needs guided prompts to get me to even think about “10 things I like about myself” and, trust me, filling this page in would be a painful and emotionally wrought activity. I know. Therapy.
There were a few “notes’ pages in the back of the notebook that I used for pen testing.
While the structure and concept behind this planner is it’s raison d’etre , I am sure you’re asking, “How’s the paper?”
The paper is a bright white compared to the Trigg Life Mapper which features a softer ivory paper. I am pretty sure its the same paper stock though as I had similar results with some bleedthrough from fountain pens and a little showthrough with darker or broader brush pens, though it was pretty minor.
The paper had a “dry” feeling. I know that seems like a strange way to describe paper but it did feel like it wanted to absorb inks though the overall result was not terrible. No pen feathered. The mystery ink in my ProColor seems to bleed on most papers so I wasn’t overly surprised. There was a bit of show through with the Pilot Custom 912 with the FA nib but that is a flex nib and dumps a lot of ink on the paper.
Overall, I found gel pens, rollerball and felt tip pens performed well on the paper. The brush pens also did really well and fountain pen ink did okay, YMMV.
If you are looking for a notebook to help focus on gratitude, the amount of content in the Trigg Gratitude Journal is excellent providing a range of activities. I have to admit, I want to spend an hour coloring a couple of the mandala designs in the journal. I feel like this is a notebook where the content provided outweighs the potential fountain pen-incompatibility. If you need to get your gratitude on, grab those seldom used gel pens, markers, colored pencils and such and dive in. Sometimes, content is more important than the fountain pen-friendliness.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Think Trigg for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
