Experiment #3: The Notebook to Change My Life

I like lists.

I like to cross stuff off.

And I like choice. So much that I never complete everything on a to-do list before I make a new one.?

That’s all fine and good, but my ‘system’ wasn’t working:

• I made piles of random lists and left them all over the place.
• Once in a while I did some long-term goal-setting about impact, but my intentions didn’t appear predictably on my random daily lists.
• Fun stuff was rarely included.
• And, at the end of the day, my mind kept worrying, did I Do All the Things??

Strategies I tried before…

Over the years, I tried a lot of strategies.

In the late 90s, I had a palm pilot.

In the noughties, I experimented with planners: Harvard, Moleskine, At-A-Glance. Monthly, weekly, daily layouts.

Then I briefly tried online systems, like Outlook Calendar + Task Lists, but I found this inflexible and uninspiring. Also, I like to cross things off.

I made really nicely formatted Gantt charts. Also, these seem great for multiple-person contingent project management. Less good for my life with its many projects and activities.

?

By 2010, I had 2 kids and settled into a phase of using a Paper Calendar Planner + Random Lists + occasional Phone Reminders.

This worked OK, but gave me no peace.

7 am: What’s important and urgent today?

10 am: Did I sign the field trip form?

1 pm: Why I am I still answering this morning’s emails?

6 pm: What was on the list I left at work?

7 pm: Oh crap, comps tomorrow. Need to read 85 pages now.

?You get the picture. I needed a change. [Maybe you know what I mean?]

The Challenge

I needed a new system that helped me focus on what’s important, remember what I did accomplish, and relax knowing I wasn’t forgetting something urgent. I wanted to plan ahead including fun stuff, know when I was done for the day, and stop thinking Did I Do It??

The Solution: The Bullet Journal

I think of bullet journaling as putting all my lists into one notebook that I customize for my goals and needs.

Credit to Claudia Spaurel (then Claudia Kai) and her serene, candid, and encouraging YouTube bullet journal demos. Her ideas and illustrations of many personalized options won me over [link in comments]

For me, I have little patience for designing complicated layouts, drawing stuff, or using little stamps to make letters when I can just write them. But I do appreciate the ideal of the mythical orderly, aesthetic Swedish life suggested by IKEA catalogs.

And watching Claudia’s videos, I imagined the BuJo approach could bring me a bigger slice of calm, confidence, and control.

You can google beautiful BuJo pages and spreads, including painstaking decorations and handwritten adorned calendars, but let’s be realistic, even my best days are really just lists with stickers and boxes:

And typical pages are fine too:

What’s in my BJ?

-?????? Daily page – for all my tasks. I keep my schedule of meetings etc on Outlook, but I jot down appts in BJ at the start of each day

-?????? Email dump pages, Brain dump pages

-?????? Also, their cousin Distraction Diary

-?????? Eat the Frog pages (see LINK)

-?????? Don’t forget about this pages

And the fun stuff…

1.???? Bucket lists for Summer, weekends

2.???? Hobby pages [Must plan fun!]

3.???? Want to Check Out pages for Books, Films, Take-out, etc.

4.???? “I’d be happy if at end of the month, I had done…” pages

?

You might also like these kinds of pages

1.???? Gratitude tracker (Simie Iriarte calls it Luck Logging)

2.???? Meal planner

3.???? Habit tracker – workout, sleep, eating, vitamins

4.???? Finance tracker – earning, spending, goals, bills due

5.???? Mood tracker

6.???? Symptom Tracker

7.???? Reading, movie, food log or reviews

Evaluation and Rating: A

Evaluation: I love the Bullet Journal.

I feel calmer, I forget fewer things, I get more done, and I have a record if I feel I slacked off.

The method encourages long-range planning for projects that are important and impactful. ?

Flipping back through pages reminds me of my prior intentions. I was going to spend some time tootling around doing family history (hobby). I planned to go for a walk every day. I wanted to review Countries of the World on sporcle[dot]com so I could maybe one day compete with my kid. I was going to read a novel. And yes, I did work really hard and deserve to have some leisure.

I am sleeping a bit better. ?

I am getting better at shutting down at the end of the day. To be fair, sabbatical helps a lot there. Yet to be seen whether I can sustain it next year.

I still like to cross things off, and now get to fill in boxes with highlighters or give myself a little sticker. No, I am not a toddler. But we all need what we need.

And I guess I need my Bullet Journal.

If any of these 23 in 23 tips seem helpful, please

-?????? Share in the comments how it went for you

-?????? Subscribe to my Experiments in Productivity Newsletter https://www.dhirubhai.net/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7107365313494622208

-?????? And check out the first 2 pre-editions on Eating the Frog https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/1-eat-frog-jennifer-maggs and Co-Working https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/experiment-2-working-strangers-my-attic-aka-virtual-co-working-maggs/

?