Last post we started our journals by labelling the first two pages as the Index, then taking the next few pages for the Future Log (six months or longer), then we started a Monthly Log for February. We also touched briefly on Daily Logs.
Daily Logs are the heart of the BuJo. I mentioned Tasks (dot), Notes (dash), and Events (circle). What I didn't get to was Rapid Logging.
Rapid Logging just means writing short sentences. Ideally, what you write for each Task, Note, or Event will fit on a line. Ryder, the creator of the Bullet Journal, has a interesting idea behind Rapid Logging: besides getting your thoughts down quickly, each rapid-logged line has the same emotional weight.
So on a single day, you might have "grocery shop", which is a task, "Austin moon towers" which is a note about something interesting you heard about, and "signed divorce papers", which is an event. Each of those items should fit on one line as you Rapid Log them.
You probably have some feelings about the "signed divorce papers" event. Instead of fitting it all on that line, go ahead and find a blank space in your journal to write out your feelings about signing divorce papers. Or about Austin moon towers. Or even about grocery shopping. Most of us probably don't have very strong feelings about grocery shopping, but for someone who used to be on food stamps, each trip to the grocery store might be a sort of triumph or a reminder of how far they've come.
A section of writing that's longer than a rapid-logged line is called a Narrative.
When I first started a BuJo, I thought I had to put the narrative on a separate page, but then I saw an example online where the person just put a line right on that day's Daily Log, dividing the Narrative from the rest of the Daily Log, and another line at the end of the Narrative, so she could pick back up with the Daily Log. It made a lot of sense and was even kind of artistic. Mine are not artistic, but I still like the idea, so now I just slap my Narratives down right in the daily log, letting it go onto the next page if necessary (I just note at the top of the page that the day is continuing).
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| A line with Ns, marking the end of a Narrative section in a Daily Log |
To mark Narratives, I use an N as a Signifier, which is a mark that helps a particular task/note/event stand out on the page.
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| My Narrative about the eclipse |
When I write about our cats, I use a C.
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| Cs next to Cat events/tasks/notes, and joined-up Cs for a Narrative about cats |
I note Narratives and Cat Narratives in the Index, and then when I flip to the page later, I can easily find the Narrative by looking for the Signifier, usually on the left side of the page. Check out the official Bullet Journal site for examples of Signifiers.
Now you know how to Rapid Log your Tasks, Notes, and Events, and how/where to put your Narratives when you feel the need to write more than just a quick rapid-logged line.
The two other main BuJo basics are Migration and Collections.
Migration is moving a task from one day to the next day. It's used when you don't get a task done on the day it was scheduled. You write the task on the next day's Log, then you mark the task on today's log with a right-arrow instead of an X, indicating that the task has been migrated instead of completed. There's a purpose to migration, which I'll talk about in the next blog post.
Collections are to literally collect all the random stuff from your Daily Logs. I don't really use Collections because when I first started my BuJo, I didn't understand them. I tend to rely on my index to find grouped items, because I'll have a line for them and list the page numbers they show up on, like Cats, Knitting, and English Country Dance.
But when I was preparing to give this presentation last fall, I read a good blog post at the official Bullet Journal site, and now I understand how Collections are supposed to work: you collect information in specific categories by writing that information on pages labeled for those categories. For example, I could go through and put all my Cat information on a page labelled "Cats". Then I could glance at that page and find the names of all the foster cats/kittens we've had, find out when I last gave our cats Revolution, see how much the last Chewy order was. The way I find that information now is to look at my Cats index line, go to the pages I wrote Cat stuff, and look for the "C" signifier on the page. It takes more time than if I had a single Collections page for "Cats Revolutioned", for example. (Dang it! That reminds me, I need to Revolution the outside cat!)
The pros of Collections are having all that info in one place. The cons are having to write all that information in one place. I can find information fairly quickly by keeping my index up to date, which doesn't always happen. Anyway, you might try both collecting and indexing, and seeing which method works best for you. It might end up being a combination of the two, with some categories suiting Collections better than others.
One more thing to wrap up BuJo Basics: some BuJo hacks for writing.
I use a W as a signifier for Writing. So if I have a story idea or get some craft or publishing info to look up later, or someone recommends a book, I mark those notes with a W. I have an Index line for Writing, so every time I mark something with a W, I index it. I also have an index line for my WIP(s), which I can cross-reference in the index with the W signifiers if I want.
This next point is not so much a hack as a suggestion. As writers, we should take some time every day to pay attention to things that happen to us or to other people. We should write a few lines of Narrative in our Bullet Journals, because after all, they are journals.
As romance writers, we should especially be paying attention to feelings. We should write a few lines about how certain tasks, thoughts, or events make us feel, because romance is all about the feels.
Let me know if I've thoroughly confused you yet. Next post will be next Sunday, because I got a lot of stuff to do this week. :) Happy journaling!
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