I think struggle sometimes with things that I’ve planned to study and work on, and I end up maybe doing a little journaling or self exploration instead. My question is does that still count towards my learn and study time?

Journaling and self exploration is studying your self and what you know so I think it counts. You can have multiple options to study. For example, I have different books I could read from, or I could learn part of a language, or I do a workbook and any of these I count. If you are still feeling like you aren’t doing your learning and studying you can spend a few minutes to learn one new fact and then do your self exploration or journaling.