Tag: planning

2023: A Year to Cultivate

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For the past few years I haven’t chosen a word of the year. I’ve focused on equanimity, which is the core virtue of Enneagram Fours. It’s something I’m not super good at, which is why I’ve been trying to focus on it. But as I was doing my end-of-year review after Christmas, a word whacked me over the head and demanded to be my 2023 word of the year.

This is my year to Cultivate.

Yes, the “Cultivate” word of the year sticker is on my Etsy shop now!

What’s involved in cultivation? You have to prepare a place, plant things, water them, feed them, weed out anything that hurts them, and tend them as they grow. Eventually comes the harvest, and you see the final product of all that cultivating…but I think there’s also a lot of benefit to find during the cultivating.

Merriam-Webster’s definition is very helpful at teasing out some of the intricacies of this word.

Cultivate

1. to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops

2. a. to foster the growth of

b. culture

c. to improve by labor, care, or study: refine

3. further, encourage

4. to seek the society of: make friends with

Some of these sub-meanings are more applicable to my word of the year than others.

Cultivate: To Prepare

There are a lot of places that more preparation would benefit me. Preparing my budget each week and sticking to it would help. Preparing my schedule each week is definitely helpful. Preparing for work or projects I need to accomplish is important.

Cultivate: To Foster the Growth Of

There are a lot of things I want to foster the growth of in my life–better physical health, better mental health, better spiritual life, better finances, better relationships. When I look at any one of those things, I can see a lot of small steps I can take to better prepare for them.

If I want better physical health, I can prepare by creating space every week for physical movement. That helps me foster the growth of stamina and also helps me foster the growth of making movement a habit.

If I want better relationships, I can prepare by keeping in touch with my friends and family, scheduling time to spend intentionally with them, and being more attentive to their needs and desires.

Cultivate: to Improve by Labor, Care, or Study: Refine

I really like this aspect of the definition. When you plant a garden, you don’t just stick the seeds in the ground and hope they grow. You water them and tend the soil, you make sure weeds aren’t crowding them out and taking resources needed for the seeds to grow.

If I want to cultivate my writing this year, I need to prepare by scheduling writing, I need to foster the growth of it by sitting down every time I’m scheduled to write…and I need to watch for the “weeds” that crowd out my writing time. I’ve played a lot of Skyrim and Dragon Age games over the past year. My Steam replay was, frankly, no surprise to me. Participating in NaNoWriMo this past November reminded me that, if I sit down deliberately to write, and don’t allow myself to hop into one of my games first, I will get more written.

I’m not saying that PC games are weeds, exactly, but they’re sort of like mint. Anyone who’s ever planted what they thought was a cute little patch of catmint or peppermint can tell you that mint flourishes and crowds out everything around it. If I don’t pay attention to my writing before I game, I’m letting the game flourish into time I’d honestly rather spend writing.

And there’s another aspect of this sub-meaning, the refine aspect. I not only want to write more, but I want to write better. I want to learn more about my craft and hone my style–and the only way to do that is to write!

Every year I buy a bracelet from Positive Charm on Etsy for my word of the year (My photo is linked to the shop)

A Year-Long Practice

You don’t cultivate something overnight. Cultivation is the opposite of instant gratification–and don’t get me wrong, I love instant gratification! But I need to work on enjoying life without that constant dopamine hit of instant gratification. I need to learn to celebrate the small joys that happen every day.

This year’s word of the year feels different to me, and I wonder if part of that is that I’m going to have to keep coming back to this concept and revisiting it, redefining it, rediscovering what that looks like in my life.

And that’s a good thing! What good is a word of the year if it doesn’t become a year-long practice?

What about you? Do you choose a word of the year?

 

Part of reviewing my summer and planning my autumn involves looking at September's habit tracking and sleep logs

Autumn Check-In

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We’ve reached October, and somehow I can’t believe this year is three-quarters over. Didn’t we all have high hopes for 2021 being better than 2020? What happened?

Of course, in a lot of ways, 2021 has been better, but I’m having a hard time reconciling all my emotions about October 1, 2021. In less than two weeks, I’ll turn 45. A month from now, I’ll be starting NaNoWriMo, and for the first time, I’m nervous about that. In just three months, it’ll be 2022.

My mental and physical health are better by far than they were two months ago. My blood pressure is back where I need it to be. I’m relying less on my anti-anxiety medications than I was a month ago. I haven’t had an alcoholic beverage for almost two months. And yet…

And yet…

And yet I’m feeling some regret for things I haven’t gotten done in 2021. I’m somehow managing to balance in the middle of experiencing quiet contentment on a daily basis and still feeling restless while I work. I’m exercising more and sleeping well, but my dreams are unsettled and often revolve around imaginary conflict at my job.

Autumn Reflection

One thing that’s on my mind a lot this week is wrapping up the third quarter of the year and embarking on the fourth quarter. Emily P. Freeman’s Next Right Thing podcast episode A Soul Minimalist’s Guide to Autumn is resonating with me. In part of the episode, she says,

Maybe there’s some invisible goals that you had for the year, things that either you wrote down at the beginning of the year that were intentions that have sort of fallen by the wayside or been forgotten. Or maybe they’ve changed. Or maybe you had some goals for the year that you never articulated, and now as the year begins to wind down, you’re starting to feel some  disappointment and you don’t know why. It could be because you had some things you wanted to do this year, but you didn’t really have a plan to carry them out, or maybe just the state of the world got in the way

I had some goals I did articulate, and I definitely didn’t accomplish a lot of those. When I did a soft reset over Labor Day weekend, I extended grace to myself and set out some more manageable goals for September.

Just September.

I didn’t plan ahead of that, because I wanted to try to be more present on a daily basis. And it sort of worked. At least, I’m aware of many more moments when I was completely present.

Part of reviewing my summer and planning my autumn involves looking at September's habit tracking and sleep logs

Autumn Quarterly Planning

I won’t do my task migration in my Bullet Journal until tomorrow, because I always hold out hope that I’ll get one last thing done before the end of the month! But in the meantime, I’m looking ahead to Quarter Four and I’m trying to set reasonable goals for the next 90 days.

I just finished reading Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA. In it, they lay out useful criteria for creating better goals. “The new goal has to be soon, certain, specific, concrete, positive, and personal.” To me, these criteria make more sense than SMART goals. I’m trying to use those methods as I plan.

My goals for October include writing a short story, creating some winter-themed sticker packs, making sure my 2022 dated items are listed and updated, and scheduling time to rest each week.

My November goal is to win NaNoWriMo and finish my Christmas shopping before December 1.

Other Fourth Quarter goals include taking time each day during Advent to spend time with Tsh Oxenreider’s book Shadow and Light: A Journey Into Advent. I also recently purchased Tsh’s Rule of Life course, and I’d like to work through that by the end of 2021 as well.

Autumn 2021 Reading

A lot of the books I’m reading and podcasts I’m listening to advocate for slowing down and living in the season of life we’re in. I’m currently reading The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman, alongside The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Heuertz. I’m also still working through my Daily Grace Co Bible study on depression. Through all of these, I’m feeling more introspective on a daily basis. I wish I could say that was leading me to answers, but right now I’m just living in the questions, and I’m trying to learn to be okay with that.

I’m also reading Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov. September brought two lovely novels that I greatly enjoyed: Maggie Stiefvater’s Mister Impossible and T.J. Klune’s Under the Whispering Door. T.J. Klune gave everyone a great gift last year with The House in the Cerulean Sea, and at that point I preordered this year’s book. I’m very glad I did. I also hope this month to revist a book I read and loved years ago, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.

My autumn reading list

Summer Review

So I’m planning my autumn season, but as part of that, I also want to look back on my summer. This coming weekend I plan to work through a summer review and reflect on what I learned this summer. I want to list with what was life-giving and life-draining over the past three months. As I work through what reflection questions I need to ask, I’ll create Quarterly/Monthly Review stickers for the Etsy shop.

What have you learned this summer? What are you looking forward to in autumn? Comment and let me know!

Travel Planning with Redhead Paper

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I just got back from a quick overnight trip. I’d like to say it was beautifully planned and everything went as I’d hoped.

I’d like to say that, but I can’t.

The truth is, faced with the prospect of an unexpected extra day off, I decided to take a quick jaunt up to Lake Michigan. I booked a hotel room in New Buffalo, Michigan, about three hours from where I live. I did a little bit of internet searching on kayak rental, because I knew I wanted to paddle the Galien River.

It was all clear in my head: dinner at Redamak’s, hanging out at the beach, hiking at Galien River County Park, kayaking on the Galien River, more hanging out at the beach.

What I failed to realize is that the New Buffalo Ship and Shore Festival was taking place. Southbound traffic was backed up so badly I couldn’t even think about getting into the Redamak’s parking lot. There was no getting near the beach. Ultimately I ended up with an hour-long dinner wait at a place in Three Oaks, where I couldn’t see the lake. Then I took the long way ’round to avoid New Buffalo on the way back to my hotel room.

Where I sulked a little bit.

I usually do a much better job of researching and planning a trip. Here are a couple of my methods.

Travel Planning in a Bullet Journal

My preferred method is planning in my Bullet Journal, because that goes everywhere with me. If it’s a trip I’ve been anticipating for a while, there’s a good chance things will occur to me at random times. I want to be able to capture those thoughts when they hit me.

I sell a set of trip planning stickers in my Etsy store, and those are the stickers I use most of the time when I’m planning a trip.

A picture of travel planning stickers with packing lists, trip information, and moreThe stickers include packing lists for categories like Medicine/First Aid, Electronics, Makeup & Personal Care, Miscellaneous, and all the outfits I’ll need. There’s also a trip overview where I put the dates, the number of days and nights I’ll be traveling, and the expected weather.

That last bit is important! One year when I went up to the Indiana Dunes, I failed to realize it was going to be just as hot and sticky there as it was where I live. I ended up at the Michigan City outlet mall to buy clean clothes!

Travel Planning with a Printable

An image of a printable travel itinerary page with room for destination, flight and hotel information, expected weather, things to do, and budget.I also have a new Travel Itinerary Printable that I’m offering here as a free download.

This printable has places to note your destination, flight information, hotel information, and expected weather. After that comes a grid to plan out several days worth of things to do and your daily budget.

It’s a two-page printable. The ten days included are all numbered. If you’re lucky enough to be traveling longer than ten days, you can always print extra copies of the second page to fit your trip.

[ddownload id=”384″ text=”Download the Itinerary Printable FREE”]

Traveling with your Planner

Once you have the trip all planned and you’re ready to leave, do you take your planner with you?

I always do. For one thing, I use my Bullet Journal as a planner but also as a sort of scrapbook. I have a little HP Sprocket printer (the red version) and I use that to print small photos that I can stick in my Bullet Journal with some recollections about the day.

Another reason to take my Bullet Journal with me is so I have important addresses with me, even if my phone battery dies. I love sending postcards to my friends–even though a lot of them don’t even bother checking their mailbox daily!

(What is up with that, by the way? I’m Gen X and check my mailbox daily even though it’s usually just bills and spiders. My Millennial friends don’t seem to remember to check the mailbox daily.)

Anyway… I also like to have my Bullet Journal with me to record expenses during the trip, write down places I want to go or things I want to do next time I visit, and so on. Maybe if I were using a traditional daily or weekly planner, I wouldn’t be as inclined to take it on personal trips with me.

What about you? Do you take your Bullet Journal or planner with you when you’re traveling? Do you have any tips I’ve forgotten to mention? Comment and let me know!

And don’t forget to download your itinerary printable!

[ddownload id=”384″ text=”Download the Itinerary Printable FREE”]

An orange cat, Eustace, lies on a desktop over a Bullet Journal spread.

My Planning Process

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I wanted to talk a little bit about my monthly planning process and share a few tips that might help someone else.

I always try to do my monthly planning a couple of days before the month ends. I don’t predate my pages more than a day in advance, because I never know just how much space I’m going to need for any given day. It can be difficult to estimate how many pages I’ll need for the rest of the month unless I wait until the last couple of days.

I can make a rough guess based on an average month, but even that fluctuates between 20 and 30 pages. For instance, in my current notebook, December 2017 took 22 pages, January 2018 took 21, February took 24, and March took 27. April begins on Page 133, and this notebook has 240 available planning pages, minus the two-page Tombow spread I always create at the end of the journal. That means I have 105 pages from the beginning of April to the end of the journal, which hopefully means I’ll be able to fit May and June in this notebook.

Oops. Squirrels!

Monthly Planning Process

Back to the point, generally do my planning in the last couple days of the month. For April, I did my planning on Thursday, March 29. A lot of times I do my planning with my mom because it’s kind of fun to lay out the coming month with a planning partner.

Planning process: A table spread with washi tape, stickers, and a Bullet Journal

The first thing I do is try to make sure I have everything I’ll need: my Bullet Journal, my tickler file for the coming month, my washi tape, my pens and Tombow brush pens, my stickers. It’s no fun to have to go hunting for something you need in the middle of your planning session!

I start with the basic Monthly Log and Task List. My Monthly Log looks like the one Ryder Carrell designed, except that I color-code everything in my Bullet Journal, using four colors that indicate whether a task is personal, writing-related, main-job-related, or side-job-and-Etsy-related. (I could really use five colors, except my multi-pen will only hold four colors. The five-color pen doesn’t fit in my pen loop!)

One of the little tricks I’ve learned over the months is to fill out some of my habit tracker before sticking it in place.

Planning process: filling out the habit tracker

I put my empty habit tracker next to the current month’s tracker so it’s easy to remember what habits I’m tracking and which Tombow colors I use to track them (that’s what the number is next to each habit). I’m just a little…um…details oriented. 🙂

Obviously, sometimes I change what I’m tracking–you can see that in March I was tracking Lent, which is over on April 1. I was also taking care of mom’s cat Edmund for a while in March, so I needed an easy reminder to give him his meds; I put it in my tracker for the 10 days I had him, and just exed out the other days.

Quarterly Planning Process

Since April begins Quarter Two of 2018, it was time for me to sit down and evaluate my quarterly goals and progress as well. I didn’t do that during my monthly planning session. I needed time to go back and review what I’d intended to do during Quarter One, what I’d actually done during Quarter One, what needed to be migrated to Quarter Two, and what new tasks I had during Quarter Two.

Quarterly Planning Process: A list of deadlines and action steps

As part of that, I made a list of the deadlines I had coming up in Quarter Two. There are several in April, and I was starting to feel stressed about them. Putting them down on paper helped me capture them and get a realistic view of them.

Once I had my list of deadlines, then I broke each project down into action steps that needed to happen in Quarter Two. From that list, I added a few items to my April Task List. Some of those steps won’t take place until May, but that’s fine–they’re recorded on the quarterly list so they’ll be easy to migrate.

Sometimes I have help. Eustace decided I was definitely in need of help with the quarterly planning!

An orange cat, Eustace, lies on a desktop over a Bullet Journal spread.

What about you? What’s your planning process? Do you have any tips or tricks that make it easier for you? I’d love to hear them!

Redhead Paper’s Story

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Today, I want to share Redhead Paper’s story with you all.

I’ve talked before about why I bullet journal. The system works for me–it’s flexible, it allows me to use the parts I like from other planning systems (like GTD), and it makes me mindful of what I need to be doing and when. I’ve been using the bullet journal system for almost three years, since March 2014. I’ve never used a single planning system that long!

Of course, once I started keeping a Bullet Journal, I realized one of the strengths, for me, was the way I can use it as a sort of scrapbook as well as a planner. I love scrapbooks, but I have a huge backlog of things to put in scrapbooks. With my Bullet Journal, I just use a little adhesive or washi tape to stick things like photos and ticket stubs right into my planner.

And stickers. Oh, my gosh, stickers!

Stickers with mailboxes and letters designed for InCoWriMo. Stickers are a huge part of Redhead Paper's story.

My #InCoWriMo / letter-writing stickers with some of the notecards I’m going to use this year.

I needed Stickers

At first, I bought planner stickers from other people. I loved the stickers I got from Mila Print Shop (sadly not open at the moment) and Boho Berry Paperie. After a while that got expensive. Anyway, I wanted stickers that other people just didn’t make.

I started investigating. There had to be an easy way for these Etsy sellers to make the stickers I loved so much. I did some Google searching and discovered the Cricut. Question answered!

I needed so many stickers, and other people probably needed those same stickers. I talked to my mom, whom I’d introduced to Bullet Journaling early on. Then I talked to some of my friends who were getting into Bullet Journaling. They all had stickers they wanted.

Redhead Paper’s Etsy Story

I ran some numbers and decided it was a chance worth taking. I talked to my dad, who agreed to invest in the business by actually buying me a Cricut, and I started experimenting.

Three months after I got my Cricut and started feeling comfortable with it, Redhead Paper came to life.

What I have in my Etsy Shop

I have about fifty listings in Redhead Paper right now. One of the first things I made was a set of daily date stickers. I know, it’s kind of basic, but having a sticker that tells me it’s Wednesday, January 24, 2018, makes my life a little bit easier on a daily basis.

Turns out, lots of people need daily date stickers for their bullet journals! These stickers are consistently high-selling items, so I know there’s a need!

I also started experimenting with habit tracking. All the habit trackers I’d seen on Etsy in the past were oriented horizontally, which meant I had to turn my bullet journal sideways to read them. I designed my habit tracker to be vertically oriented. I’ve had a lot of great feedback from people about that.

Habit Tracker created by Redhead Paper on Etsy

Part of the Habit Tracker I designed – you still have to turn it sideways to fill it in, but for tracking purposes on a daily basis, you don’t!

I had designed mini month calendars and month tabs for my mom even before I had the Cricut (and cut them out for her by hand). So it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to create stick-on month tabs. My friend Amanda wanted mini calendars, too, so I added those.

In addition to working at a museum and creating stickers, I’m also a fantasy author, and I wanted to have stickers that reflect my love for writing, help me track my writing progress, and more. So I designed those.

My dad also suggested I should get political–and to be honest, I’m pretty sure my #ShePersisted and “Not My President” stickers were what started getting my shop noticed. Those have been pretty popular, even to this day. (And now that it’s 2018, I’m going to have to make some stickers about the importance of 2018 midterms!)

I have stickers to help you decorate for holidays, plan for Christmas, and set goals. I’ve just recently started making hobby-themed sticker sheets. I have gardening, writing, letter-writing, art, and knitting already, and I’ll be adding more as the year goes on. (If you have a suggestion, let me know!)

And that leads me to my big question…

What should I ADD to my Etsy Shop?

I would love to know what kinds of stickers you need!

I have some things in the works–things like vacation planner sets, water tracking, and birthday planning–but I love taking Etsy commissions, and some of those have given me ideas for new listings.

If you need a certain kind of sticker, comment here and let me know!

Goal-Setting in my Bullet Journal

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I do a lot of goal-setting. In addition to running an Etsy shop, I have two part-time jobs and am also a published novelist. I have a lot of tasks and projects to keep track of, and there’s no way I can keep track of them all if I’m just relying on my own brain.

Brain dumps ftw

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with everything life is throwing at you? Stuff is coming at you from every direction and you can’t spin around fast enough to catch everything. I occasionally feel like life is a cosmic game of dodgeball!

When it gets overwhelming like that, I sit down, switch on the Focus mode of Brain.fm, and do a total brain dump. Just write down all the crap that floats through my head, all the things that are taking up space in my mental RAM, and quantify them.

I generally use a separate notebook to do my brain dumps because they can take up a lot of space! But as soon as I’ve finished, I start categorizing everything I wrote down (highlighters are good for this), and that’s where my Bullet Journal comes in.

Once I’ve quantified everything I need to do, I can start figuring out what the next concrete step is to take on every outstanding project.

Sometimes I go through the brain dump in the order I wrote things down and sometimes I skip around. Sometimes I realize that several items in the brain dump belong in a collection in my Bullet Journal. Sometimes an item just needs to go on my monthly or daily task list.

As soon as I’ve recorded a brain dump item somewhere in my Bullet Journal, I mark it out on the braindump list.

Not only does that help me see where I am in the planning process, but it also has an immediate psychological effect. I’ve written it down, I’ve put it where it needs to go, so I can release it from my immediate attention. (If you’re sensing echoes of GTD in this, you’re right!)

So What About Project Planning?

Projects with a lot of steps are different beasts from a simple to-do, that’s for sure. But they’re not really the gargantuan, out-of-control monsters they can feel like.

My rule of thumb is to write down every big step. Sometimes I realize the list I’ve been working with doesn’t have all the steps, so I add them in–even if I add them after completing the step.

I confess I don’t always write down every single tiny step because that would take a lot of paper! But if a project is starting to feel overwhelming, I sit down and do it, even if I have to set up a separate collection just for that project.

A picture of my Quarter 1 Action Steps - Track goal-setting and projects in Bullet JournalI currently have two major projects listed on my Quarter 1 Action Steps page in my Bullet Journal, and I have the components broken down on that page, as you see in the picture, though there are actually lots of little steps to each component.

For example, under “2018 Exhibit” the component “Title banner” actually involves several steps:

  1. Coming up with a title (in collaboration with other museum staff)
  2. Choosing banner images
  3. Choosing a font
  4. Choosing a color
  5. Choosing a vendor to print the banner (or consider printing in-house)
  6. Creating the graphic
  7. Proof-reading title banner
  8. Uploading the graphic to printer/printing graphic

I don’t have this goal broken down into all those steps because this is the sixth exhibit I’ve helped design, so a lot of those steps are internalized for me. On the other hand, I often end up breaking those components down on my Monthly Task List.

If you need to break down the components into every step on your project page, do it! The best thing about Bullet Journal is how you can customize it to work best with your style of work.

Tracking Goal Progress

I tend to use two different methods for tracking my goal and project progress–I’ll call them passive tracking and active tracking.

For active tracking, I’ll actually design a tracker to fit that project. For instance, another project I’m working on for work involves going page-by-page through a book we’re publishing. It’s a huge task, so I drew a special tracker for it–just a set of boxes that are numbered with the chapters of each book. As I finish each chapter, I fill in the box and I’m able to see that I am actually making progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Passive tracking, on the other hand, is basically just me paying attention to what tasks I’m migrating from day to day, week to week, or month to month.

One of my favorite things about Bullet Journal is the migration process. Ryder Carroll points out that migration is “a cornerstone of Bullet Journaling.” I know a lot of people dislike the migration component, either because they think it’s redundant and/or pointless or because they don’t like taking the time to do it. For me, the redundancy and time-consuming nature of migration is exactly the point.

Text from the official Bullet Journal website explaining how to migrate a goal

Repetition and redundancy actually make me aware of what goal-oriented tasks I’m not getting done and force me to be mindful of those tasks. I have to consider:

  • Why am I putting off this task?
  • Do I need help from someone else?
  • Am I waiting for something?
  • Is there a step I actually need to do first?
  • How long do I need to complete this?
  • Will it really take me longer to do this task than it will to migrate it to yet another page?

A lot of times, after considering these questions, I either buckle down and do the task or strike it off my to-do list entirely.

Whew! This is a longer blog post than I set out to write! I hope it’s helpful for you to see how I do goal planning and task/project management in my Bullet Journal. If you have any tips, let me know!

And if you’re looking for a sticker set to help you record your goals for 2018, check out my Goal-Setting and New Year’s Stickers set on Etsy! Until March 31, 2018, you can get 18% off your $5 order by using coupon code NY2018.

A set of acrylic drawers with Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Papermate Flair Bullet Journal supplies

My Favorite Bullet Journal Resources

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One of my favorite things about the Bullet Journal system is how adaptable it is. You don’t really need any special equipment–any notebook and pen will do. I belong to a few BuJo communities on Facebook, and it’s surprising how often people ask, “Can I–?” on those groups. Yes, you can! You can do anything you want with your Bullet Journal!

That said, I do have some things I love using for my Bullet Journal. In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite BuJo supplies and resources.

Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links. In plain language, that means I get a tiny amount of money from those items any time you buy–at no extra cost to you.

Notebooks

My favorite notebooks to use for Bullet Journaling are Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. They have fountain-pen-friendly paper, the pages are pre-numbered, and there’s an index in the front. Leuchtturm 1917 is the notebook BuJo-creator Ryder Carroll chose to make the official Bullet Journal notebooks. At first available only in black, the official notebooks are now available in emerald green.

If you can’t afford a Leuchtturm 1917, though, there are plenty of other good options. I’ve used Moleskine Volants, Moleskine Cahiers, Picadilly notebooks, and even a cute spiral-bound notebook.

Bottom line, if you have a favorite notebook, use that for your Bullet Journal, because Bullet Journal is all about what works for you.

Pens

My favorite every-day-carry pen is a Pilot Hi Tec C Coleto Lumio Multipen. I use .5 refills in orange, turquoise, brown, and apple green because I color-code my tasks and events for context. Orange is one job, turquoise is another job, brown is writing, and apple green is home & personal.

A set of acrylic drawers with Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Papermate Flair Bullet Journal suppliesI also have a Pentel EnerGel black ink pen that I carry every day. The multi-pen and the black ink pen are the basic essentials of my daily Bullet Journal use. I also have a 10-color set of Staedtler Triplus Fineliners I use daily. They live on my desk, in a new five-drawer acrylic set I just got at the Container Store. I like seeing all the colorful pens!

I’ve recently branched out a little more. I bought a set of Papermate Flairs, because so many people seem to love them for Bullet Journaling. I’ve been using them a little, but I can’t pretend they’re my favorites. Still, they’re a good alternative.

My recent treat to myself (thank you, tax refund time) is a couple of sets of Tombow Dual Brush Pens. I got the Secondary set and the Landscape” set, because I decided my Staedtler and Flair sets already had the primary colors covered.

Now I just need to learn how to do brush lettering! I’ve been watching videos on YouTube. Does anyone have a favorite tutorial?

Stickers & Washi Tape

Here’s a caveat: I make stickers and sell them at my Redhead Paper Etsy shop, so of course I love my own stickers!

But there are plenty of other sticker-makers out there I love, including Boho Berry Paperie and Mila Printshop. I also love finding stickers at Michael’s.

I love washi tape, but lately I haven’t been using it as often in my layouts. I couldn’t resist the roll I found at Michael’s on Monday, though: it has sayings on it like, “Dream,” “The time is now,” and “This is your life–seize it and make it amazing.”

 

So those are my favorites. What are yours?

 

Photo of my stack of Bullet Journal notebooks

Why Bullet Journal?

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Sometimes when I’m in a meeting, people look at my bullet journal and ask why that system is better than others. So today I wanted to talk about my BuJo Journey.

I’ve loved organization since I read Julie Morganstern’s book Organizing from the Inside Out about 15 years ago. First I started organizing all the stuff I had, and then I started realizing I had too much. And then Julie Morganstern wrote Time Management from the Inside Out, and I realized I had even more organizing to do. I struggled for years to figure out how to balance everything I like doing–hiking, reading, writing, scrapbooking, online gaming…

I tried everything. Paper planners. Online calendars. Scheduling and task management apps like Trello. Nothing really worked for me until 2010, when I tried David Allen’s Getting Things Done system. That made sense to me, having project lists and next action lists and context lists. But after a year or two and a job change, I realized the GTD system wasn’t really working for me anymore.

Photo of my tickler fileI kept my tickler file, which both Julie Morganstern and David Allen recommend, and I rely on it. I love it when someone can say, “Hey, do you have that file I gave you two months ago?” And I can say, “Yep, I filed it for this week when we were going to need it again.”

So the tickler file was working, but my planning system wasn’t.

Fast-forward to March 2014, when I discovered Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal system.

I honestly didn’t expect it to take, but I thought, “Hey, I’ve seen this mentioned several times lately, so why not try it?” (I think Lifehacker was the first place I saw it, but I’m not sure.) So I set up a spiral-bound notebook I already had. I’d only used it for about two weeks before I realized that hey, this system really clicks with me!

I started out buying Moleskine Cahier notebooks. I could fit about two months in each notebook, and pretty soon my boss started saying, “Hey, did you write down in your little book when we…?” It felt awesome to be able to say yes every time.

Photo of my stack of Bullet Journal notebooksI experimented with notebooks for a while–Moleskine Cahiers, then a Picadilly (which sadly fell apart and had to be repaired), more Moleskines, and then the BulletJournal Kickstarter happened! I was a backer, and I’ve been in love with the Leuchtterm 1917 BulletJournal notebooks since then. I did use a lined Leuchtterm 1917 for part of 2016, but for Christmas my family got me two of the new Emerald Official BuJo notebooks, so I should be set for 2017!

Now I’m branching out into different pens. I color-code my tasks, because I have two part-time jobs and I also write fiction, so I use color to track the context of my tasks and projects (still implementing some of the GTD methods I loved). I use a Coleto Hi-Tec-C multipen to write down tasks, but for things like habit trackers and coloring pages, I’ve been using Tombow Dual Brush Pens for a few weeks now.

So that’s my Bullet Journal journey.

I love so much about Bullet Journal, but the main thing I love about this system is its flexibility. Some of my spreads are super-decorated and pretty and fun, and some of them are simple lists. Sometimes I doodle in my spread, and sometimes I don’t take the time to do a spread for the week. I can experiment with different signifiers to see what clicks. I can see how long it’s been since I did a financial review because of my habit trackers. I can make this planner what I need it to be.

I think that’s why it’s stuck so long–Bullet Journal is a system that adapts to my needs.