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You are here: Home / Things I Do / Return of the bullet journal

Return of the bullet journal

September 16, 2015 By Ying 2 Comments

Hello, friends. About eight months ago, I posted about starting a bullet journal. I had known, at the back of my brain, that I needed a new way to plan and organize my days. I just didn’t know what it was, until I heard about the bullet journal, via Stephanie Burgis. I loved the idea of combining dayplanner, to-do lists, mid-term goals, and gratitude in one place. And after I blogged about it, I discovered that SO MANY writers I admire and want to emulate (including Sarah Albee) are bullet journallers!

Anyway, I thought I’d check in and show you how things are going. Here’s my July spread:

IMG_20150915_103707

As you can see, I stick quite closely to the original bullet journal. I’ve added a list of books read each month (in July we did a lot of travelling, which is why there are so many blank days on the left, and also why I only read one book, J. G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur). And on the Tasks page (on the right), I’ve broken down tasks by category: writing, writer admin (very important not to conflate the two!), blog posts (blogging doesn’t count as writing, for me), yoga, and life admin. I list the dates when I need to do the most important things – writing, yoga and blogging – so that I’m blocking out time.

And here’s eight pages from the month of July, right after school finished:

bullet journal

If you’re reading closely, you’ll see that my son and I had strep throat in early July, so the daily to-do lists were really useful for tracking our antibiotic doses, which differed in quantity and timing. I even write down the names of people I need to email, to make sure it all gets done. I normally have a gratitude list on each page, too, that I add to every couple of days. But between vacation prep, houseguests and strep, it just didn’t happen in the first week of July. And that’s okay, too.

As I think is obvious, I adore my bullet journal. It keeps me on track, it enables me to look ahead, yet functions as a kind of diary, too. Colouring in the little box beside each job, as it gets done, feels like a tiny reward in its own right. I believe I’ve been a lot more productive since I began using it.

In future, I might start embellishing it a little – writing down funny things I’ve overheard, children’s milestones – or I might not. I love that it’s a flexible tool, something with such a strong framework that it can bear a great deal of tinkering. And that might be the highest compliment of all.

How about you, friends? Are you loyal to a particular planning system? Still searching for your ideal? Do you have any suggestions for embellishments?

Filed Under: Things I Do Tagged With: bullet journal, Things I Do

Comments

  1. Leanne says

    September 16, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    Ying, your last year bullet journal post made me start my own bullet journal and my life has been so much better for it. Mine is not nearly as beautiful or as keepsake worth as yours, but I’ve stopped writing on tiny scraps of paper (mostly) and I can find important information from months ago. Also, I was happy to find a use for the notebook a friend gave me from our high school reunion.
    I’m thinking now, perhaps I need to vamp up my bullet journal from to-do list, to life record. Are you planning on keeping yours as a record?

  2. Ying says

    September 17, 2015 at 6:44 pm

    Hurray, Leanne! I’m so glad you’re finding yours as life-changing as I do mine (although I don’t think mine’s at all beautiful – it’s quite chicken-scratchy and imperfect, IRL). Yes, I plan to keep mine as a record. I’m a crap diarist but wouldn’t like to lose everything to the abyss of memory.

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