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Writing

Rapid Logging Reflection

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I’ve used the Bullet Journal system of rapid-logging for over six years (starting in December 2016). I mentioned in a recent post how I realized I’d gotten away from doing the reflection part of the system.

While I have sometimes taken the necessary time to incorporate artwork and other frills into my Bullet Journal practice, one of the big draws of the system for many is that it is rapid.

If you don’t want to, you don’t have to spend a bunch of hours and effort making a Pinterest-perfect page or Insta-worthy image on every page. The original point is to have a place to quickly ‘download’ stuff from your brain onto the page so you can take the time to review and respond later.

So I decided to add some symbols to my key – something that takes less than a second to add to the page, but gives me an easy way to get the most out of my journal when I come back to it at the end of the day.

Simple, quick, effective… as I believe the heart of the system intends such devices to be.

 

 

 

When I watched Ryder Carroll’s end of year livestream, the idea of using reflection to capture what you want more of and what you want less of really resonated with me. It was like I’d been putting a puzzle together for six years and I’d forgotten to look at the picture on the box to see what the end result should be.

I wanted a fast way to note these two aspects (“more of this,” “less of this”) and a way to see the results at a glance.

More of This

For the experiences I want to repeat or increase, I thought a plus sign in a circle like the positive end of a battery would be a great way to quickly capture those things which gave me a recharge or renewed sense of purpose. More of these please.

For example, yesterday I helped some coworkers find necessary resources or answers to their questions about how to do their job. Not surprisingly, it felt great to be useful and to help someone out. That’s a plus.

Recently I took a few minutes to sit at the piano and “vent” a little emotion through the keys. Better that than to lose my temper about something stupid, or to hold it all in and wallow in negative emotions. That was a good release, time well spent; that’s a plus.

When I take time to add a little color, I put a light green shade on these to make them stand out even more.

Less of This

For those moments when I know I’ve screwed up or repeated a personal failure or weakness I’m trying to eliminate, a simple “No” circle with a bar through it is a great rapid reminder for later. Like a street sign that says “No entry,” I want these indicators to help me redirect my emotions and actions so that I stop trying to go down the roads of life the wrong way.

For example, I had an outburst of anger the other morning as I was trying to get out the door. My bag caught on my chair and knocked down my “spill-proof” coffee cup. The cup’s lid popped off a bit, spraying hot coffee on me and all over the floor. (It literally sprayed from the floor to my face almost six feet in the air.) I had to drop everything and clean up when I was already running behind.

I didn’t handle it well, but I knew that my reaction was ridiculous, excessive, and unhelpful. When I get stressed out and angry about things, the rest of the family gets stressed out by my temper. That is NOT who I want to be.

A quick note with a “No” symbol left me room to come back in reflection to consider all the ways this was an avoidable failure.

Not only should I control my emotions and actions better, but I could have been a little more slow and deliberate with my stuff so the coffee cup didn’t get knocked down in the first place.

Why didn’t I do that? Because I was running late so I was rushing. Why was I running late? Because I took more time that morning for mindless YouTube-ing and doomscrolling on social media. Why did I do that? Because I didn’t start off the morning with my focused rituals that set the course for my day and get my head in the mindset I want to live out.

So in reflection, I was able to slap a “no” on all those sub-components that contributed to the coffee debacle. Less of all of that, please.

I sometimes color these red to make them pop off the page a little more when I look back over what I’ve been doing.

Can you spot me a 20-minutes?

I’ve been listening to Ryan Holiday and some other proponents of Stoicism lately. There’s a lot that I really like – the internal locus of control, for example. I’ve been challenged and inspired by a number of the values shared… especially by the concept of Memento Mori, a Latin phrase for “Remember your death.”

This image – stark white on deep black – makes me think of the value of our few precious moments.

The reminder is meant to call attention to the limited time we have before we die, and the unavoidable inevitability of that death. This is not meant to make everything seem meaningless or leave you wallowing in nihilism; it’s meant to help reveal just how precious each moment we have actually is.

The Stoic call in remembering your death is to stop wasting time on stuff that doesn’t matter, and to refocus your attention on what you mean to accomplish with the short, brief life we’re given. It should strip away useless, irrelevant activities.

Holiday mentioned once how often we might be guarded with our money, like “Sorry, no, I’m not giving you the ten bucks in my pocket just because you asked.” But then someone asks for or demands ten minutes of our time, for something that holds no value or interest for us, and it’s like, “Oh, well, it’s just ten minutes. No big deal.”

You can make more money, but you can’t make more time. The clock is winding down on your life and you can’t turn the hand back no matter how hard you try. Memento Mori.

I thought it might be really challenging to track my time similar to how I might note how much money I spend. To have a symbol that helps me mentally turn time into a sort of currency, treating minutes like dollars.

I wanted something like the $ symbol for dollars, or ¥ for yen, etc. I thought about a T with an extra crossbar, or something.

I went with M for minutes, and one atop the other as a reminder of Memento Mori.

In my outburst example above, I ended up making a note that I’d spent 60 minutes on useless YouTube or social-media browsing, which was a catalyst that contributed to everything else that happened that morning.

Rapid-Logging Reflection

Reflection is a process that takes SOME time, by design. That’s kind of the point.

However, these symbols are going to help me 1) do it, and 2) get more out of the time I spend doing so. This, without adding some crazy level of complexity to the symbols or techniques I use for my version of Bullet Journaling.

Do you think these would work for you? Or do you have another way you use to identify the stuff in your life that you want to increase or decrease? I’d love to hear your thoughts – let me know in a comment.

Side Note: Memento Mori? But aren’t you a Christian?

Yes, seeing as I’m a Christian who believes in Jesus as the resurrection and the life, and the giver of eternal life, it might seem inconsistent or contradictory to find meaning in “Memento Mori.”

After all, the Apostle Paul wrote about how dying didn’t bother him – in fact, it was gain, an improved state! Dying just meant he would be with Christ. (See Philippians 1:20-26)

I don’t think a number of the modern-day adherents of Stoicism would share Paul’s hope of eternity. I’ve also had atheist and materialist friends express the idea to me that recognizing we only get this one life instills a precious value into every moment.

That said, even as a Christian, I also recognize that I only get this one lifetime to do any good or make any difference in the world. I have a hope of eternity, but after I pass away, there’s no coming back to tie up loose ends, to finish the tasks or personal goals I left undone, to resolve the hurts in relationships, to redeem any of the time I spent pursuing lesser things.

Paul in the above passage recognizes that though he has no fear of death because being with Christ will be better for him, he also could still do a lot of good for the church in Philippi if he lives to be released from prison. He hopes to make the most of the time in order to make the biggest impact and best benefit for the other believers.

One of my add-on memory verses is Ephesians 5:15-17. “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

Memento Mori. You may have eternity to look forward to, but you only have this life in which to impact eternity for those around you.

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A Clip of Journals

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I got something special in the mail today. 

For six years, I’ve used the Bullet Journal system, and for over four of that, Scribbles That Matter has been my go-to for great paper (thick with no ghosting!), high quality, and vibrant color.

In late December, I watched one of Ryder Carroll’s livestreams about the system he designed. His intent was that users could “track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future” while regaining some control and focus for how they spend those precious resources: time and energy.

During the stream, I realized I’ve completely missed the reflection piece of BuJo… which essentially turned my notebook into a glorified day planner full of unfocused daily notes and repeated thoughts.

Reflection is the part of the process which helps you look back at what was working well, or what wasn’t. It’s how you more clearly identify what you want more of moving forward, and what you need to cut down on or eliminate.

Without that effort, I was left with day after day of notes on all the tasks I did or left unfinished, lots of cool or frustrating moments that happened, details of good and bad results, and just page after page of evidence of the passage of time.

No thrust, no vector.

Just lists of events, unevaluated, un-interrogated, unconsidered, recorded but forgotten.

You can’t learn lessons without taking time to absorb them. I vowed to learn from this lesson, and to start learning from the many others readily available.

But that would cost something. Reflection and deeper journaling will take up space on the pages. Doing BuJo better would mean burning through notebooks faster… but would also mean refocused vision, renewed purpose, and greater intention in my day-to-day.

Well worth the trade-off.

Prior to watching Ryder’s stream, I thought, “I’ve gone through this notebook in less than a year. Maybe I am using up space too fast.”

Then I heard Ryder talk about how he goes through one each quarter, and laughed. My pace is glacial compared to that.

I started my new journal on 7 Jan, with a stack of seven finished journals on my shelf.

Plus I received a nice Happy Holidays gift from my company (The Intellekt Group, LLC), and realized they could be funding my Bullet Journal ritual for the next year or more.

I’m not sure about the Mustard color, but I have faith it’ll grow on me.

The stack of STMs arrived today, adding to the pile, waiting for whatever the future holds. Maybe it’s a clip of bullet journals now.

If you’ve got a system for journaling or reflection, I’d love to hear about it! Maybe it’s something I could use in my own habit. Let me know in a comment what you do to track your past, organize your present, and plan your future.

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Back to Basics

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I tried an electronic Bullet Journal for four months… Here’s why I’m switching back.

Four years ago, close to the New Year, I started using the Bullet Journal method to help get a better handle on my life. I’ve talked about it elsewhere, and there are plenty of videos or articles that lay out the benefits of the system.

Four months ago, a friend introduced me to Noteshelf, one of several great apps that can duplicate and improve on the functions of a day planner, journal, and notepad. I had recently picked up an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, and I loved the features and smooth writing.

My monthly spread for December. It’s easy to go artistic with the app, and it’s just as easy to stay minimalist.

I am neither a technophobic Luddite nor an early adapter walking the bleeding edge of human integration. I like things that are useful, but I don’t have to be in line at the Apple Store for the newest model. For more than two decades, a lot of my decisions were driven by my workplace. I spent most days in a facility where I couldn’t bring in electronic devices, so I resisted buying a smartphone, tablet, and smart watch that I could only use in the evenings or on the weekends.

Now, with a job that lets me stay mostly outside that facility, I could use an electronic journal if I found it suited my needs… and there are so many good things going for the iPad version.

The benefits of technology are many:

  • Easy Erasing: The permanence of a hard copy Bullet Journal is both a blessing and a curse… maybe the latter more so. My Bullet Journal Facebook groups are full of people posting their mistakes and ruined spreads, either for the comfort of commiseration or a desperate hope for a suggested fix. None of that pain here.
  • Copy, Cut, and Paste: I can duplicate elements from one page to the next. A table of daily trackers, a line of hours for scheduling appointments and tasks, a list of upcoming events.
  • Lasso Text: Noteshelf (and presumably similar apps) will let me grab a block of text and move it around. I can insert some additional info in the middle of what I’ve written (e.g. adding groceries to a shopping list, fitting meeting notes into the bullet list I’ve already laid out for the day, etc.). This function is fantastic.
  • Mild-liners included: The app offers a variety of writing tools (pencil, fountain pen, marker, highlighter) with zero bleeding, ghosting, or smudging.
So many highlighters. The app even duplicates an appearance of overlapping colors or deepening your highlighting when you go over in the same spot more than once, and the best part is it’s never going to bleed onto the next page.

When I first considered trying, then switching, to an electronic version of a Bullet Journal, I made a list of these pros and cons. I gave myself several weeks to build new habits and try out the positive features. Now, as I consider my options, I find myself re-visiting that list. These benefits do give me pause; if I make the switch (again), I will miss these.

So why go back?

It’s not as simple as “Well, I usually have to connect to Wi-Fi to update my journal” or “I’m tired of worrying if I charged my tablet enough.”

It’s also not tied to better memory retention through handwriting, which is part of what interested me in Bullet Journal from the start. Using the Apple Pencil and tablet on my electronic journal was extremely satisfying. The motions and movements all felt natural (even if the “paper” was unrealistically smooth), with the added bonus of the technological benefits listed above.

The biggest difference—and the issue that bothers me repeatedly—is that my hard copy Bullet Journal had everything in one notebook. With a physical BuJo, I didn’t need to scroll through dozens of pages to the beginning of my current document in order to check my future log—just flip to the beginning. I never had to close one notebook and open up another in order to find the spread set aside for a specific job or hobby—worst case, I checked my index and flipped to the right page. It was an all-in-one solution that incorporated just about every aspect of my life in exactly the way I wanted.

Maybe if I organized better or smarter, I could get what I want out of this. This is not what I want.

An electronic BuJo CAN do that … but I find I have different notebooks set up for and dedicated to different needs, so I have to close one and open another to get the information I want.

Some of the issue might be the way I’m using the Noteshelf app. I could just have one notebook with everything mashed together, but that seems burdensome when I’m trying to scroll through pages.

The app allows for tagging pages and searching the contents by tag. It even recognizes handwriting, to some extent, so if I forget to tag a page but I know the word I’m looking for, I may still find it in my previous entries.

Even with all of those features—even if I was diligent to tag each page and made the most of the search function—it doesn’t feel the same as flipping to a page in my physical notebook or using the fabric bookmark to jump to my monthly calendar spread.

In the end, Noteshelf performed remarkably well and exceeded my expectations in a number of areas… but the way I was using it didn’t fit the way I want my bullet journal to work.

Something to pass on

There’s something quaint about the hard copy journals that draws me back. I love the thought of a stack of notebooks that document the frivolities, frustrations, and fun of each day, each month, each year. It would be nice to be able to give those to my children someday.

Now that I think about it, if that’s the case, maybe I should get to writing something meaningful in whichever option, instead of whinging and waffling about the pros and cons.

General

A Year of Bullet Journal: Lessons Learned

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“This one notebook will make you delete all your productivity apps,” the clickbait headline promised. It came from a writers’ group, so it couldn’t be all bad…

So began my Bullet Journal experience about a year ago.

Side jaunt: What is a Bullet Journal?

A Bullet Journal is a paper brain that never forgets, so that your real one doesn’t have to juggle so many reminders, priorities, and worries. When followed, Ryder Carroll’s system is quick, easy, and efficient at what it’s designed to do: track what you’ve accomplished, record what goes on throughout the day, and assist future planning.

Today’s notes, events, tasks, and questions are recorded as they happen. At the end of the day, unfinished business is evaluated based on “Is this worth my time in the future?” If so, it gets migrated to the next day or scheduled for a later date. Notes about upcoming events feed into the monthly calendar, which also feeds back into the new day to assist with planning one’s schedule and efforts. Notes taken today can also be added to pages set aside for certain projects or areas of responsibility–a page dedicated to writing, perhaps, or to a list of references and rules for a program at the office. The brief few minutes of planning in the morning and reflection in the evening are crucial to making the system work as designed, but other than that, there’s no significant commitment.

As originally designed, it’s minimalist. However, it’s also individualized and customizable. The Bullet Journal website has links to a variety of blogs and videos with advanced options people can incorporate. Some are elaborate and artistic, others are crisp and functional, but all are optional.

Don’t be fooled by Pinterest-perfect pages and Instagram-worthy layouts. No one needs 50 water-based Stabilo pens and mild-liners, nor is a degree in art required. You don’t have to buy a special notebook from a German company or the Bullet Journal site store in order to make the best use of the system… though I do like the dot-grid pages.

Over the course of the year, I went from artistic to… we’ll say “thrifty with my time.”

Pros: The basic system works great at what it’s designed to do.

  • I tracked a bunch of tasks, events, and projects throughout the year–professional work, personal stuff, and random things.
  • I had a personalized schedule that covered my days, month, and year–and it wasn’t tethered to my phone or wi-fi access (I work in a facility where I can’t have those things on hand).
  • I expressed my creative side while keeping the system fast and effective.
  • I can review everything I invested my time in over the last year.
  • More importantly, notes of fond moments and special experiences with my wife and kids bring those memories back.
  • Tracking efforts, habits, and tasks revealed several times when parts of my life went off-course.
  • I invested positive energy into my journal, which fueled me later when I needed it.

Cons: Anything I tried beyond the basics fell apart over time through neglect.

  • For the first half of 2017, I used a bunch of artsy spreads and habit trackers I’d seen online. That turned into more work than it was worth for me.
  • Looking back, I find several pages half-filled with material on particular projects or areas of interest. I didn’t go back to those and put them to use like I thought I would.
  • I had a great many lofty ideas which never came to fruition. “I’m going to read all these books… I’m going to write these other books… I’m going to document my daily word count… I’m going to fill up this list with songs recorded and posted on my Facebook page…”
  • If I wasn’t working at the office, it was easy to ignore the Bullet Journal. My holiday weekends are often blank gaps in my daily entries.

As you might guess from the above lists, the pros far outweigh the cons. In fact, part of the benefit of a journal or tracker system like this is seeing where efforts go half-finished or forgotten, and deciding if those efforts are worth continued investment. I could argue that some of my cons are the system showing me exactly what it’s supposed to about my actual commitments and priorities.

All told, my Bullet Journal experience has been positive. It’s a beneficial tool I will continue using for years to come.

Want information on how to set one up or adapt the system to your needs? Give yourself a Christmas present of better organization and time management. Start here.

General

Forward into April

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When I created my Bullet Journal spread this month, I looked over previous diary entries and recorded thoughts to see if a recurring theme would reveal itself. 

The one that caught my eye was the word “Forward.” I’d been making a lot of progress in various areas – losing weight (lost 30 pounds over the last six months), improving fitness, accomplishing personal goals, participating in more events that matter to me… 

At the same time, I realized I waste too many hours on stuff that doesn’t matter, and I make too many spontaneous or thoughtless choices that hinder progressing in the areas I say are important. 

“I could write…” but I play a couple hours of video games.

“I should eat the healthy meal I planned…” but I reach for cheap junk food.

“I’ve got more exercise to do if I’m gonna meet my goal for today…” ehh, but there’s always tomorrow.

“I’ve had enough food. I should drink water and let my body realize it’s full…” but another slice of pizza is sitting right there and I think I heard it beg for death.

Point being, if all these little things are like running a race, I don’t want to step off the track or leave the course when the finish line is in sight. And while it’s sometimes frustrating to realize that there is no true finish line, just a good habit that I continue doing into the future, I realize I’m only tripping myself up and pushing the short-term goals further away when I make bad decisions. 

So this month’s spread is trying to capture the idea of stopping the old habit of “two steps forward, one step back” — or more true to my life, two forward and three back. 


We also watched Moana near the end of March / beginning of April, so that influenced my pictures. Hei Hei is there because he’s awesome and hilarious, and an Alan Tudyk character is always a good choice. The quote I found which I put above Moana’s sail is: “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean.

I picked up a pack of Stabilo markers from the base art supplies store, and I love the colors. While I enjoy colored pencils (which I used for the Moana and Hei Hei pics), I hate scratchy media. The Stabilo markers don’t seem to bleed through the paper so long as I’m not going over the same spots, and the colors show up brighter in my opinion. 

Sorry for the quality of the pic – it’s just off my iPad.

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Bullet Journals are Fire

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I added a couple adjustments to my Bullet Journal process since my last post on the subject. Here are a couple quick tricks that I think work for both the minimalist version and the artsy / time-consuming arrangements.

Track the workplace “fires” that you put out

If a task is REALLY frustrating, actual fire is also an option.
 

Office workers know the pain of watching your organized, planned-out schedule burst into flames as managers or circumstances bring you all sorts of “fires” to put out. Urgent tasks demand attention. Surprise emails reprioritize your day. The boss comes in and says “Drop what you’re doing, I need you on This now.” 

Bullet Journal is about tracking what you’ve done as well as organizing your future effort, so from the beginning I’ve written down the unplanned or unexpected tasks I accomplish. But I decided to capture these random “opportunities” with a symbol all their own: a little flame on the task. Not only does that identify the task as HOT but it also shows that I didn’t plan for this… which might explain why other tasks get migrated to the next day (yet again). 

Even more rewarding? When that surprise tasker is completed, I can draw a squiggle on the fire to show it has been put out properly. We joke about putting out fires all day—why not incorporate that into my BuJo?

Yep. I still hate the term “BuJo.”

Color code or number your top priority tasks 

When I first started my journal, I picked up a set of five ultra fine point gel pens with different color ink: black, blue, purple, red, and green. I thought I’d use them more often, but I prefer colored pencils for anything artsy. So I’ve had these things sitting in a pen case doing nothing. 

The other day, I think a motivational video or article suggested organizing or identifying certain tasks as the priorities for a given day, and hitting those first. I could use numbers, of course… but why not the pens? Now I look over my to-do list for the day and underline four tasks in priority order—red, purple, blue, green—as my primary focus items. It’s an added satisfaction to check those off as done.

Sometimes you just have to punch Monday in the junk.
 

Today, I knocked out everything on my high-priority list before my lunch break. Now I can get to some of the other tasks in the afternoon, with the satisfaction that the big items are out of the way.

Time Management

On a side note, when I reviewed February’s journal entries, I found a lot of references to using the limited time we’re given wisely. As I considered how to lay out March’s monthly calendar and tracker, I decided to incorporate that message into my spread as a constant reminder this month. I found a few sweet quotes that spur me on to do the most with each day:

And naturally, as a Whovian, I had to incorporate the Doctor and some items related to his adventures. Here’s my timey-wimey March page:

The trouble is, you think you have time. -Buddha

Some of the applicable motivational quotes that have come my way include:

  • The billionaire and the beggar each are given the same 24 hours in a day.
  • You will never “find” time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.
  • We hold other people to guarantees and promises, like “30-day satisfaction or your money back.” Why don’t we hold ourselves to that standard? You owe you, you owe it to yourself to set such a standard.
  • It’s not a last minute “fire” task if it’s a “waited until the last minute” task. That’s just poor planning or poor execution. (That’s my own, in light of the fire symbol idea.)

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Bullet Journal Part 2: Personalization

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In my first Bullet Journal post, I talked about the results I tracked during the first month testing out how I liked the system.

In this post, I wanted to share a few of the personal touches from my journal. 

A look through social media or Google Images for anything “bullet journal” might return wild results that look more like a scrapbooking site than some quick and easy system for tracking tasks.

Some argue there’s a difference between bullet journals (which have little to no complexity, basic subjects, simple uses) versus the “omnijournals” where people are tracking anything and everything, from books to read, to which episodes of Dexter they’ve watched, usually with impressive calligraphy, artwork, colorful inks, and even art supplies like stamps, stencils, and washi tape. It can get expensive if you go all out, but the system can function just as well in a 69 cent memo pad. 

While I think the minimalist version has great usefulness and merit, I’m too artsy and doodle-prone to be content with that. So when I found an article called “The Comic Book Journal” on the bullet journal site blog, I decided that was closer to what I wanted. This allowed me to capture some moments and memories, like a family trip to a restaurant, some time relaxing in the shade of Okinawan banyan trees, and a silly drawing to remind me to avoid superficial garbage and distractions. 

Here’s what worked for me: 

Beyond the basics (index, future log, monthly spread, daily entries), I adopted a more complex monthly format that allows tracking of recurring activities–great for building habits and checking progress toward goals. 

A lot of the purpose of the bullet journal is to serve as a brain dump memo pad which can quickly feed into indexed sections based on the content. Someone recommends a good book? Jot it in the daily notes, so that later you can put it into the “books to read” spread. Hear a line that inspires you? Add it to a motivational quotes spread for mental fuel when you need a pick-me-up or a kick in the procrastination. When the spouse says “We need toilet paper next time we go to the store,” or when you realize the car needs a tune-up next month, put those on financial spreads split for short-term and long-term expenses. 

I loved pictures I found of a bookshelf spread with books you color in as you finish reading them, or popcorn kernels for movies you want to watch.  

Watching movies is clearly easier than reading books…

I have some fitness goals I want to reach, so I set up a tracker for push-ups, sit-ups, planks, and generic strength-focused workouts. I also put in a page for meal plans, so I can easily grab the right ingredients and put together lunches for a few days at a time. For my writing efforts, I put in a year-long word count spread with a color code for how many words I manage on a given day, and space to jot down writing ideas.  

It turns out twelve hour fly days don’t help me get a lot of writing done.

Some of the artistic pages incorporated ways to track or focus on gratitude, which I thought would help me maintain positive energy. I liked the gratitude “sunburst” the most, with rays for each day and then some.  


I viewed that as part of my month-long tracking, so a new sunburst got added for this month right before my February spread. The habit trackers have been great for pushing me toward making better decisions and achieving my goals. For example, last month I tracked whether I logged all my meals in my fitness pal, but this month I added a box for which days I kept below my calorie count. And while I don’t drink alcohol all the time and keep it to a small amount (a couple shots max) whenever I do imbibe, I decided a box for “no alcohol” was a way to force a conscious decision of “do you really want a drink?” The mental reward of checking a box that said I didn’t partake is enough to make me hesitate and actively consider the question rather than drinking just because it’s there. 


The artistic aspect of the way I’m doing my journal lets me capture memories and moments in pictures. Maybe it’s a character’s silly expression or a mindless doodle, but sometimes it’s an attempt to capture the way the sunrise painted amber on the tips of purple clouds, or the hilltop view overlooking the ocean with islands on the horizon. For me, these also break up the monotony of tasks and appointments in my journal, giving me something cool to look at when I flip through the pages.

A drawing of some sunrise clouds with touches of amber on the tips.
A view from a high hill overlooking the sea on the horizon

All of that said (and shown), this is just what I found kept me motivated and engaged in these areas I wanted to track. My format might not work for every reader. 

The personalization makes all the difference. 

I have a co-worker friend of mine who started setting up his Bullet Journal, and he paged through mine to get some ideas. We talked at length about what I used and why, but from the get-go, he proclaimed he wanted the minimalist arrangement, nothing elaborate or frilly. I stopped in his office today and saw a Leuchtturm 1917 opened with a number of familiar spreads–all of them clean and neat, black and white, crisp and sharp. Most of all, I noticed the bright smile on his face as he showed off his work in progress. I recognize that happiness–it’s the same sensation I feel about my Bullet Journal, even though mine is full of varied letter shapes, random doodles, and colored pencils. 

Do you “BuJo” ? (confession: I hate that word and I won’t be using it any more.) What have you found works for your needs? Do you go artistic or minimalist in your journal? Let me know in a comment. I’d love to see how you set up yours–maybe I’ll get a new idea for mine!

General

Intentional

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Early this year, a click-bait style post came across one of the writing groups I follow. “This one notepad will get rid of all your productivity apps!” or something like that.

For whatever reason, I clicked and watched the introduction to the Bullet Journal (a.k.a. BuJo).

The system is intended to be minimalist: fast, easy, helpful for tracking what you’ve done, focusing your efforts now, and planning your future.

“Interesting,” I thought, and moved on with my mindless Facebook browsing. But then the concept kept bouncing around in my head. Soon I found myself looking at ideas in their blog posts, discovering co-workers who already follow the system, then looking through piles of new ideas posted to Facebook groups. The artistic versions caught my eye.

Also a set of colored pencils and pens appeared randomly, demanding use. (And I learned to make an origami bookmark, because reasons.)

One of the spreads I’ve seen in numerous Bullet Journals is the “word of the year,” something that captures a person’s intended focus area for attention or improvement. I liked the concept, but there are so many words! Who could choose just one to capture everything they really want for 2017?

I chose intentional as my word of the year, because of how often I find myself wasting time and energy on superficial garbage through lack of decisions or purposeful effort. For example: “I never have time to write, I’m sooo busy. I think I’ll take this hour to play phone games and scroll through Facebook some more.”

Googling images others have used to capture the idea of “intentional” resulted in two personal faves: a brick wall being built out of Lego, and a direction sign shaped with a pointed end. The bricks convey the idea of step-by-step effort toward any goal. Results don’t appear out of thin air, but usually out of doing the same, simple task over and over until it becomes easy. I liked the sign as a way of capturing motion in a chosen direction instead of flailing around aimlessly through life.

To incorporate both, I drew a brick wall with the pointed sign hanging on it. Over the year (or however long my journal lasts) I can incorporate new words that strike my fancy or contribute to a fuller picture of what I mean by intentional living.

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A more complicated BuJo is also a fun artistic outlet.

All of it goes back to my favorite verse right now: 1st Corinthians 9:26 (ESV) – “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.” The Chinese translation puts it, “So I run not as one without a destination.”

I’m still digging into what works for me and what doesn’t. I’ll do a full intro / personal take on the process once I get my new journal set up and going. (The Leuchtturm 1917 A5 dot grid seems to be the most popular option.)

Anyone else BuJo? What spreads work for you? Let me know in a comment.