Previously on B. Snow's Blog:
In part 1 of these posts, you learned what a Bujo is, and in part 2, you learned why I started one.
Now, on to part 3 of my BuJo presentation from last year's Moonlight & Magnolias! Which I have time to write since the car is getting maintenanced, if that's a word. Blogger doesn't think it is.
As I said at the beginning of the presentation/these posts, a Bullet Journal is a highly customizable organization system. One size does not fit all. You can get some great inspiration from others, but in the end, YOUR bullet journal only has to work for YOU.
This Popular Science article describes the bullet journal system thusly: "It's exactly as ambitious or exhaustive as you need at the exact time you're using it."
It's a very accurate description. I'd like to add that the converse is also true: it's exactly as simple and plain as you need, too. You can go either way, at any time, and you can change your system at any time. That's the great thing about it vs. a preprinted planner -- you can make changes as you go, to fit your needs at any particular moment.
So how do you get a Bullet Journal to work for you?
Let's start with what you want to keep track of in your life. The Bullet journal is about more than just tasks to be done, but let's start there, since that's what keeps most people awake at night.
There are things we need to do daily, weekly, monthly, possibly quarterly, and yearly. These are all Must Do-s (like scoop litterboxes and taxes) or Should Do-s (like exercise and cleaning -- you can probably guess what my body and my house look like..... :D).
This about the daily tasks you must do, should do, or would like to do. What are habits you'd like to cultivate? Examples that came up during the presentation are: exercise, vitamins, eating healthier, writing, social media, drinking more water.
Some weekly tasks you'd like to get done: things like laundry, clearning, cooking, date night, blog posts.
Monthly: bills, glass to recycling center.
Quarterly: royalty statements, dividends, taxes if you pay those quarterly.
yearly: taxes, car registration, birthdays.
Some specific writing things you may want to keep track of are: plot bunnies, revision ideas, books you read, word count on stories, deadlines, checking publishers' websites for Calls for Submission. You can see how these items might fall into the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly categories. Others are more random and not linked to a timeline or a calendar.
Some other things you might want to track besides Must Do-s and Should Do-s are Want To Do-s, or what I call my Wish List. This can be as immediate as "get gardening books from library" or as far off as "take my dream trip to Paris". The Bullet Journal is a good place to keep a Bucket List, because you can add to it as you discover more and more cool things that exist in the world, like the Ausangate Mountain of the Peruvian Andes, which I'd never heard of until yesterday.
You can list your goals and the steps you'll take to achieve them, as well as the rewards you'll get when you complete them.
I'm sure you can come up with your own lists. Regardless of the type of thing you want to record or track, there's a place for all of these in the BuJo, AND a way to find them after you've written them down.
Now that we have some idea of things we want to track/accomplish and/or habits we'd like to cultivate, it's time to start your actual Bullet Journal!
Hopefully you went ahead and started one after my first post because it was so awesomely inspiring that you rushed straight to the official Bullet Journal site and absorbed all the great information there. But if you didn't, grab a notebook and a pen and meet me back at this blog for my next post.
The rest of this month is getting busy, too, but I'll be a grownup AND a Bullet Journaler and say that the next post will be up next week, Wednesday, January 31.
In the meantime, what are some of the things you'd like to track/record in your BuJo?
If you already have a BuJo, what are some things it's been especially good for? For me, it's been the daily tasks. Somehow less intimidating than a huge, rolling To-Do list.
See you next week! For sure!!!
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