Showing posts with label bullet journalling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullet journalling. Show all posts

Monday, February 07, 2022

Bullet journalling again

Well, if anyone's wondering (I bet nobody is!) I am still at the bullet journalling, which started in 2017. I wouldn't say my handwriting has improved any - I flit between cursive and printing, the latter is much more legible. I've tried out different journals, and my personal favourite is the A5 Scribbles That Matter for the lovely thick paper and the dotted grid, though the A5 Leuchturm grid/ dotted is a close second (slightly thinner paper if memory serves). I'm still casting about for various spreads for time organisation. Because I'm trying to be more environmentally friendly, this year's bujo is currently a basic lined A5 book I picked up in WHSmith, but for the first time ever it's also my diary, I expect it to only last six months. Because why waste trees on an A5 day-to-page diary, where only about 50 odd days have been written about? My mother has kept a diary religiously since '62, but I've always tailed off mid February or March, when the sun returns and there are more outside distractions, and then made random entries until I suddenly get all writey again around November. Of course, COVID has had an impact. I looked at my online calendar for 2021, and apparently I had two week's holiday in the spring, but cannot remember what I did on either of them - I may have just pootled around at home of course. The first half of last year is almost a mental blank. My work colleagues have mentioned this same anomaly - I guess because we're all WFH, everything is blending into some sort of grey mental mush! Though I lost a week from the seizure, I don't think there was further damage. Clearly nothing of much interest happened, so my brain just deleted it. 

For my personal bujo, I keep task lists and various trackers at the front. Because I intend to have this open on my desk at such time when we do finally go back to working in the office, my diary is at the back of the book for privacy. I don't write reams of info in my diary - I actually just tag with - for neutral or negative things, but try and ensure there are also some + notes for nice things that happened. All pages are numbered - when I first start the book, I carefully number every odd page all the way to the back, for speed. Then as I fill them, I add in the even numbers. Every time a new list or page is added, it's numbered and added to the front index, and if there's a theme - a perennial one for me is decluttering lists - then that also goes onto a "collection" page, where page numbers with a theme are grouped together. Each month gets a spread of at least two pages, though February got one month drawn out in full (more space to add various appointments) and then another two pages for all the "to dos". 

If you decide to use a cheap A5 notebook, rollerball pens tend to bleed through them. Because of this I do print off the odd calendar and chart, and use a glue stick to put them into my bujo. If you think you might do a lot of this, it's best to buy a spiral bound book, because it can expand a bit more to take the extra bulk. Some folks use inked stamps for various trackers (try Etsy), but I have one and found it messy and untidy. You can also get some plain checked paper and just doodle various layouts until you find one you think you can use, before you commit it to paper. I tend to draw mine out with pencil, then trace over the top with biro or a fineliner. 

I print off one of the lovely calendars from Calendarpedia, and that gets pasted into the front. As the bujo progresses, I use this page to refer to the page number my monthly spread is on. I also use their templates to generate blank templates for colouring in purposes (I would probably draw these up by hand if I was using an STM journal; this is to prevent bleed through really. Also, I am too fast and error prone!). I think I might print two next time, and cut the second one into 12 for my yearly overview planner. Yeah, February 2nd and I'm already rethinking how I do it next year! Such a perfectionist! 

For other trackers, checked paper pasted in works well. A lot of bullet journallers rave about using pastel highlighters / mildliners for things eg underlining titles. I find them a bit annoying - you have to do the underline first, and then even when dry, the writing over the top spreads a little. This again is probably due to the fact it's just an off the shelf book. If such things will irritate you, use biro, or a better quality journal. I've decided I'll highlight my date line after writing it, by gently colouring over the top of it in coloured pencil. Less messy and easy to do a bit later on if you're rushed. Another thing I like to do is put highlighter on the page edge, roughly a twelfth of the height of the page, for each month, so visually it'll be easier to find later on. 

My main pen is a Parker Vector with black ink, I added the pen loop myself. I found the black pen holder in either Waterstones or WHSmiths, and it contains the month's mildliner (February is a pink month, don't you think?), my very useful multicolour pencil, and the red Pilot V fineliner that I try and remember to use for work tasks (it's a bit thick and bleeding on this paper, maybe I will swap it for a nicer cartridge pen). 

The nicest thing about keeping a journal is, anything goes. Want to doodle, or hear an amazing quote? Start a new page, write it down, collect some more. Track your weight and exercise. Track the household chores; I'm expanding THAT list and putting it on our fridge, I want to empower my fellow blokey to take his own initiative in that regard. I'd like to be more fastidious around the house, but there's never enough time and sometimes it feels like there's so much to do I don't even know where to start, so I don't! :/ Anything goes, and don't be put off by the amazing spreads people share online. You can be as tidy or as messy as you like! When a page of to dos is done (either they're done, migrated to another day, or migrated back to the monthly spread, or put onto Google tasks etc), I tick the bottom of the page, so that I know not to look at that list anymore. The only problem I seem to have in the spring, is that the task lists seem to spiral out of control...

Even if you aren't into journalling, the practice of keeping a book and numbering the pages is useful. I've started another one just for knitting and crochet patterns that I either wrote myself, or found online. You can sometimes add these things retroactively, but it's not always that easy! 

Recommended reading:

The Bullet Journal Method (R Carroll) - this guy came up with the system

How to Bullet Plan (R W Miller) - love this, loads of ideas

365 Bullet Guide (Z Compton)

bujo1

Pearly - ooh shiny!

bujo2

Weight and fitness tracker, gotta love printing things, glue sticks and stickers I found in a box!

bujo3

Just a regular half week at the office - ignore the redactions for GDPR, you get the idea! Note the day points to the diary entry at the back, plus I am tracking exercise and sleep here too. 

Current mood: exhausted

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

FO: Rainbow socks (Knitpicks Felici Rainbow) and bullet journalling

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Finally made myself a pair of these rainbow socks, after buying some of this limited edition yarn in June. Everything that could have gone wrong, did, with a major tinking session on the heel of the first one when I realised I'd threaded up the CSM mast (a closed system) incorrectly. A small knot on the heel and I was away - and then managed to miss a stitch when grafting. Despite my best efforts, not exactly identical - that might be down to the mis-threading causing tension issues on the first sock.

Pretty yarn but a bit splitty on a CSM. Which doesn't mean to say I wouldn't get more if it comes up again, I do love the colourways! Incidentally, there are two pairs in different colourways of this yarn on my Etsy site - just sayin'! And once they expire, I'm gifting them! :D

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More bullet journalling: This is my current method for a monthly spread, I do each week to two pages up front like this, so I can "pre-book" things I need to do.

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Something I saw online and thought I'd try for February. Yeah, Feb 20th was a struggle! ha! The bookmark on the left is a moving, growing list of to dos that I ignore most days (yeah, might need to revisit that!) and the right is a list of icons from Microsoft's OneNote software. Thought I might use them but so far, not so much...

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Finally - pen porn! My carry-about collection of ink pens (I have way more at home). The pen on the far left (blue with pink cartridge) is probably the oldest one, I may have used it for college/uni even. The iridescent pink one is my current fave, having turquoise ink. The biro in the middle is a 3 colour one from Silver Reed, the neon one has green ink. I also really like the Pilot disposable cartridge pens. Plus there's a multi-coloured pencil (with teddies on), a gift from a work colleague, and the BSI pen is there because it's got a secret highlighter hidden in the top. And the mechanical pencil because, hey, I'm an engineer, I feel naked without a pencil. Ha, I just realised there's no eraser here! I need to get onto that pronto!

Current mood: indescribable

Monday, February 06, 2017

The never-ending to-do list...

I once remember catching the end of some teen drama - we're talking pre-1991 I guess, because I was still a teenager myself I think. The heroine of the tale kept this amazing journal, full of wonderful things she'd saved as well as her diary. In the story, she'd disappeared or something, and this boy was trying to find her - I'm vague on the details because as I said, I only caught the end of it. Anyway, I was fascinated and completely jealous of the journal - hang the storyline.

Fast-forward to 2017 and after two good friends mentioned bullet journalling, and - well, I think I'm hooked! That a hand-written book could suddenly become so... useful... exciting. I mean, I've got tons of notebooks - have been having a tidy up at home and I start notebooks and get about halfway through them before losing interest or losing them - and they're full of notes taken at craft events and such like, that I obviously thought important at the time, but of course cannot always fathom them later, even assuming I can find which notebook I wrote it in.

So - numbering the pages and having an index at the front. So simple, and yet I never thought of it myself! Having somewhere to keep lists of books I've read or want to read, things I'm working on, funny things I spot on line. Using nice ink pens when they're with me. Doodling - I used to love doodling, mostly on blotting paper or a cheap book I had for such stuff at school, made out of that nasty cheap cream paper, similar to the stuff newspapers are printed on. Loved doodling cartoons, embellishing letters etc. but never liked the paper, but of course I wasn't supposed to be doodling, was I?!

I've found the system of using bulleted lists at work, when I've a bunch of tasks to do, which then get crossed out, really useful. I used to do this anyway, to be honest. I think if someone were to write an app for it, it would sell well. But there's something to be said for the feel of a proper nib on nice paper, too. So I'm sticking with it. My task list is currently growing exponentially but I think it'll calm down with some practice, clarifying my objectives and what-not.

So, anyway - I'm having fun with it. Yes, mine is really messy, because I pick whatever pen I have to hand, and the moleskine paper bleeds through alas. My handwriting's not great either, being out of practice, but I don't care. It's awoken my inner muse and she's chomping at the proverbial bit; just take a look at bullet journalling on pinterest and you might see where I'm coming from.

Current mood: enthralled