Using GoodNotes as a Grief Journal
I started using GoodNotes for journaling after my mother died because I needed something that wouldn't disappear if my laptop crashed. Paper works too, but paper doesn't have undo. There are moments when you write something and immediately wish you could backspace it, and having that option matters more than you'd think. The basic setup is simple. You open GoodNotes on your iPad, create a new notebook, and pick a blank or lightly lined template. The real question isn't how to open the app, it's how to actually use it when you're trying to process something heavy and your hands aren't quite steady.
Setting Up Journal Goodnotes For Grief
Start by creating a dedicated notebook. Don't bury it inside some other project folder. Name it something you won't feel awkward seeing in your recent notebooks list. "Grief Notes" is fine. "Things I Had to Say" is also fine, depending on your sense of humor. For page setup, I recommend A4 or US Letter at 300 DPI if you plan to export pages later. If you're only ever going to read it on the iPad, 150 DPI is sufficient and the file stays smaller. The difference in handwriting legibility won't matter at that resolution unless you have extremely small script. The pen settings matter more than most people realize. Use a ballpoint or fountain pen tip, not a marker. Markers look dramatic and make everything feel like a statement. A ballpoint feels closer to actual handwriting and the pressure sensitivity on the Apple Pencil does enough work on its own. Set your default pen to black or dark blue, 0.5mm to 0.7mm stroke width. That's thick enough to read comfortably and thin enough that you won't feel like you're filling the page too aggressively.
Here's something nobody mentions: enable the clipboard history feature. When you're going back through entries and realize you misspelled a date or wrote something you want to cut out, you can paste from previous clipboard items rather than manually re-typing sections. I lost an entire afternoon once because I deleted a paragraph and then couldn't find the original text again. The clipboard history has saved me since. Another practical detail. Turn on the cloud sync for this notebook specifically. GoodNotes defaults to syncing everything, but if you have a lot of notebooks you might want to disable auto-sync for the others and only keep grief journaling on. It reduces the chance of accidental merges or version conflicts if you switch between devices. iCloud works fine. If you use a different cloud provider, just make sure the sync is running before you close the app. There's a downside to this approach that deserves a flat statement. Digital journaling in GoodNotes doesn't replace therapy or professional support. It's a tool for organizing thoughts, and it works well for that. It also has a tendency to make you over-edit. I caught myself rewriting the same entry seven times over three days because I was looking for the right words instead of just letting the words exist. That's a pattern worth watching for. If you notice it happening, set a time limit for each entry and move on.
Get the Full Details
I also ran into a specific issue where long entries started lagging the app. Once I hit around forty pages with heavy handwriting and a few inserted photos, GoodNotes got noticeably slower on scrolling between pages. The workaround was splitting the journal into monthly notebooks instead of one massive annual one. Performance went back to normal immediately. I know that sounds obvious, but I stuck with one notebook for six months before I noticed the slowdown.
What Actually Works in Practice
The method I ended up using is unglamorous. Write the date at the top. Write what happened that day or what you're thinking about. Use the text box tool if your handwriting is deteriorating, which it tends to do when you're tired. Insert photos of things you want to remember, receipts, tickets, anything visual that anchors the memory. That's it. Don't overcomplicate the layout. Don't spend twenty minutes choosing a border sticker or finding the perfect highlighter color. The point isn't decoration. It's externalizing what's inside your head so you can look at it instead of carrying it all the time. The quicker you can get from thought to page, the more useful the journal becomes. If you want to add structure later, there's a simple technique. Create a tag system using the tag tool. Tag entries by theme: loss, anger, memories, dreams, practical matters. You can then search by tag and see patterns over weeks or months. I found that my anger entries clustered around certain dates and situations, which gave me something concrete to bring to my counselor instead of just a general sense that things were rough.
The export function is also worth knowing about. You can export individual pages or the entire notebook as PDF. I exported mine once a month and saved it to a separate folder on my computer. Having a backup outside of the iPad feels like a small thing but it removes one source of anxiety from an already anxious process. GoodNotes isn't free. The one-time purchase model changed recently, so check the current pricing. If cost is a factor, the free version still handles basic journaling. The limitations are mostly around file size and some advanced features that you probably won't need for this use case anyway. One more thing. There's a habit I developed that might help. Before closing the app each day, write one line about how the entry made you feel. It takes four seconds and it creates a quick index of your emotional state across weeks. Looking back at those one-line summaries is faster than rereading full entries, and it's honestly more accurate about what you were going through than you'd expect.
