I Caved...

I've been hearing chatter on some of my Facebook groups about using a "bullet journal." And recently an "in real life" friend showed me hers. I decided to cave and jump on the bandwagon.

Bullet journaling appeals to me for various reasons. I'm a list maker. I typically have post its and papers everywhere with notes and reminders on them. I liked the idea of having everything in one central location. I wished I was more artistic. One can really get bogged down in looking at others ideas and pages and quickly begin to feel inadequate as well.

However, if you embrace that it is yours and should be your creation and there are no rules to follow - it can be anything - then it releases some of that guilt. At least it did for me.

I did indulge in the journal of choice for a lot of journalers - a Leuchtturm 1917. I mistakenly bought the lined one. I had actually wanted the dotted one, but that's a minor detail. The journal comes with numbered pages and a table of contents area for you to create at the beginning.

I started planning my journal the end of February and began using it on March 1st. So far I am absolutely loving it!

I use it for my daily to-do lists.

I also have monthly calendars created. I do these as I need them, but I really do need to sit down and create more. I have March and April only done. I still do use my Google calendar to manage long-term planning. 

This the bulk of what I use my journal for - daily and monthly planning. I also created a "future log" with small monthly calendars with the big events in each month written out beside the month. I also added family and friend birthdays to this area. For that reason, I'm not going to post it but it's based on an idea I found on Pinterest. My future log takes up the first four pages in my journal and has three months per page.

Then there are things I've learned that are called "collections." These are planning pages for various things. You can see that I have some fancy ones (for me) and some not so fancy ones.

This is my workout schedule for the next two months. It includes the classes I teach (Zumba and Vive) plus the other classes I take. This photo was taken mid-week last week. There are a lot more "x"s on there. 

I'm reading through the book of John during Lent so I created this checklist in my journal. The schedule was posted online and I actually am in an accountability group for this as well. The heart is there because I messed up...in pen, but it works.

This is my tracker for inches lost plus some "fit testing." 

I just went to New York for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I spent six plus hours in the car with my five year old niece on the drive out and the same amount on the drive back. Since my mother-in-law and my niece's mom (my other sister-in-law) get carsick, I was in the backseat with Grace. While we were waiting at one point I taught her how to play the "dot" game (which is when I really regretted not getting the dotted journal!). She enjoyed it a lot and wanted to play over and over. Now I have this page in my journal as a reminder. She even signed it for me. 

And of course...a list of the books I have completed reading so far this year.

I've been using my journal now for almost a month and I love it. I have more pages and collections completed as you can see by my table of contents. It will continue to grow as I use it throughout the year and will end up being a journal of my year.

Some, as I mentioned, get very fancy with their journals. I don't have the ability or time to do that. This is my take on a "minimalist" style and it's definitely working for me.