Sorry, all, I'm late posting this part because I've been crafting like crazy for a friend's wedding that's in TWO WEEKS!!!! And because I forgot to write it in my Bullet Journal. Oops!
Anyway, moving on. :) This section of the presentation is about the beauty of the Bullet Journal -- literal and figurative.
If you're not familiar with the literal beauty of Bullet Journals, check out pictures of Habit Trackers and Mood Mandalas and other fun, colorful things at Instagram and Pinterest. You can also get a lot of inspiration from YouTube -- videos of how to do different types of lettering, for example. I find taking a few more seconds to write out the date and day in a style different from my own handwriting can jog me out of an unthinking rut and make me more aware of the day that's coming up.
There are also tons of decorations out there you can play with -- washi tape, stickers, stencils, rubber stamps. I'm not going to link Etsy here because you should only go looking there if you have at least two hours of spare time. It. Is. Addictive. :D The literal beauty of bullet journals is never-ending.
For me, the figurative Beauty of the BuJo is the Migration. Remember back in part 1 of these posts, when I talked about how To-Do lists intimidate me? An unfinished task on a To-Do list either looms over me, squatting on the list, or it's there for so long that my eyes just stop seeing it completely and I forget about it.
In the last post, I explained that Migration is moving an unfinished task from the current day to the next day. For me, it makes the Daily Log a more dynamic version of a To-Do list, so even if the same task shows up again and again, it doesn't feel like it's squatting/looming, and because I write it again if I don't get it done, I don't stop seeing it, either.
"Isn't writing the same unfinished task over and over kind of a pain in the rear?" I hear you ask. The answer is, "Yes." And that's the point.
Migration makes you think about WHY a task is on your list. Why it didn't get done that day, and how it will get done tomorrow.
If it's a small task, something that will take only a few minutes, and yet I've migrated it more than twice, I'll throw up my hands and tell myself, "Just do it!" Then it's done and I can put an X over the dot.
If it's a big task not getting done, it might be a Project. You may need to break it into smaller tasks.
If it's a task that you keep migrating, then you need to ask: do I really need to do it? If the answer is "No,", cross it out. Declutter your life.
If the answer is "Yes," so you need to migrate the task yet again, you need to think about WHY you keep putting it off.
Migration is not just for getting things done (eventually), it's also to reflect on why you're doing what you're doing. Are the tasks you've set for yourself important? Are you making the best use of your time? Will this task enrich my life?
Migration also makes you schedule tasks realistically. You can't do 50,000 things in one day. If you schedule 50,000 things on a day, you're setting yourself up for failure.
A migrated task is marked with a right-arrow. There's also a use for a left-arrow: scheduling. That's when you can't get to a task on that day, and you know you won't get to it on the next day, so instead of Migrating it to the next day, you Schedule it for a future date in your Monthly Log or even your Future Log.
On one hand, Scheduling keeps your task "active". You won't lose it; you'll get to it someday.
On the other hand, for procrastinators like me, Scheduling means casting a task into the nebulous future instead of getting it done in the concrete present. It's part of the "schedule tasks realistically" idea. If you can't get something done on that day or in the next few days, it might be better to leave it on your Monthly or Future Log. It's okay to not get everything done at once. It would be unrealistic to expect to get everything done at once.
One of the biggest BuJo fails I had was with my Habit Trackers. I was calling them "Dailies" because it was a list of everything I wanted to do every day. ("Habit Trackers" are more about good habits you want to cultivate by doing certain tasks every day.) I had a Dailies list that took up an entire page. There were about 25 items on it, and day after day, I failed to get most of them done. I finally went through and took a guess at the number of minutes each task would take. Turns out I'd set myself tasks that would take, in total, about four hours every day to complete, and that wasn't including things like feeding and playing with the cats or spending some time with the spousal unit.
If I were a more disciplined person, maybe I could fit those four hours of tasks into my day, but I like having some free time, some down time. By not being realistic about what I would--and would--do, I set myself up for failure.
Now my Habit Trackers are the bare minimum, things I REALLY want to get into the habit of doing, things I know would make my life better, like getting to bed at a reasonable time, getting exercise, remembering to take my vitamins, etc. I don't always get them done, but getting to color in a pretty chart is a small incentive. :)
In the past few blogs, you've learned how to start your Bullet Journals with your Index and Future Log. You've created a Monthly Log for the current month, and I hope you're keeping up with Daily Logs. You now know how to migrate tasks you didn't get done, and you know about crossing off tasks if they're really not necessary/important/improving your life in some way.
In the next post, which will be the last post in this series, I'll give you a few tips and other ideas to keep in mind, and hopefully post some pictures so it will be more interesting than this one. :)
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