Bullet journaling update

[obstinatecondolement]

I've realised that I am two months off having kept up with my bullet journal for a full year now. Granted, there were periods of a few weeks here and there when I didn't pick it up at all, but I have basically been consistently keeping up with it from late April 2021 til now. I'm very impressed with myself! The journal itself is a Star Trek notebook that a friend sent me when I was in hospital and even the fact that I wrote in a notebook for this long is an achievment for me, regardless of the content. I have so many notebooks that have the first ten pages written in and then nothing.

But anyway, it has been a very useful tool, particularly when I talk to my psychiatrist, because I've been keeping track of my mood and habits and I can look back on how well I'm keeping up with my to-do lists which gives me a better insight into how I have been doing than just my own impressions. It's not the most creative or artistic journal, but I am more than okay with that because I think keeping it low maintenance (I use a few markers, fineliners and mild liners for colour and that's it) has been key to its longevity. Also, I'm not keeping it to show Instagram, I'm keeping it to help with my life.

Comments

[vriddy]

That is so cool!! Keeping up a journal for so long is a great achievement, it's something I'd like to do as well. Keeping it low maintenance seems like a good plan!! How do you do the mood tracking? Is it a once a day check-in kinda thing?

[obstinatecondolement]

It is a once a day check in kind of thing at the end of the day, when I am doing my couple of minutes of journalling to reflect on the day and prepare for the next. I sometimes have a drawing like a plant and I colour in the leaves according to a legend, but this month I literally just wrote out a list of the days and am writing a word next to each day (content, accomplished, anxious, etc.)

[vriddy]

Oh, I see! Reflecting at the end of the day seems like a good way to do it. I usually go through wildly different moods within a day so it always seemed like it would be hard to summarise, but perhaps picking the most salient one at the end of the day would be a good way to do it it!! That sounds really nice, hope it continues to work well for you :)

[obstinatecondolement]

It can be tough if it's been a variable kind of day, but usually I indicate that with like "mood swings" or something. Thank you! I hope so too :D

[fenellaevangela]

That's great! Consistency has always been such a barrier to my journals being useful to me in a meaningful way; I'm glad you've found a way to make it practical for you. Journalling can be valuable, but you're right that a lot of people use it more as an aesthetic/scrapbooking thing (which is fine for them, obvs :-P).

[obstinatecondolement]

Oh, for sure, good for them! I really admire the creative style of journalling some people do, but that would just be too much for me to keep up sustainably.

[pauraque]

Cool! I do my private journaling digitally, and I've had the same experience that it's a much better way of keeping track of how I'm doing than just trying to remember.

[obstinatecondolement]

Memory can be very treacherous like that!

[greghousesgf]

I gave my bestie a Star Trek notebook too!

[obstinatecondolement]

It's an excellent gift!

[finch]

That's awesome! I'm glad you have found something that's working for you.

[obstinatecondolement]

Thanks so much!

[kitewithfish]

It's not the most creative or artistic journal, but I am more than okay with that because I think keeping it low maintenance (I use a few markers, fineliners and mild liners for colour and that's it) has been key to its longevity. Also, I'm not keeping it to show Instagram, I'm keeping it to help with my life.

Oh, I hear that! I started a bullet journal as a New Years resolution in 2020 without really knowing about the very high intensity art-book side of things, and only found out after there was a lot of people pursuing art projects that way. I'm very glad they are having fun, but I think I would have stopped tracking if I had to do that much work every time. (I have been employing some stickers, tho, those are great.)

[obstinatecondolement]

Stickers are great! I stick down photos of fandom-y things sometimes too.