Planning it All Out

    As everyone who reads this blog has no doubt figured out, I am not the most organized person on the planet. I used to be very organized, on time for appointments, early, even, kept my house tidy, knew where important papers were, and never ever lost the kitchen table. Then I had children. And started working. And went to school. And then my organizational skills went the way of the Yangtze River dolphin.

   Early last year I decided to jump on the bullet journal bandwagon, more to see what it was actually about than as an organizational tool, and being me got sucked right into it, filling up a notebook with all kinds of stuff both useful and useless, and then barely used it. Not as effective as I was led to believe a bullet journal was. There's a catch, of course. One actually has to USE a bullet journal for it to be, well, useful. 

   I have been known to fill pages of items to be done and then only cross off two. Trying to balance school and a new career and still be a mother was turning into a quagmire of "what do I do," so I revisited the bullet journal method, this time the smart way. I went to the place where it all began: http://bulletjournal.com. Ryder Carroll, the creator of the bullet journal system calls it "your to-do list, sketchbook, notebook, and diary, but most likely, it will be all of the above." The idea is that it will teach you to do more with less. In its most basic form, the bullet journal is useful not because of all the stuff you can cram into it, but because you have to write things down by hand. This is important because when you write things down, you automatically focus your full attention on them. Michael Leboeuf says: "Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools."

   By listing each item I need to do while being able to plot out the rest of the day and see what is due later in the week, I can set priorities and make reasonable goals. Since returning to the bullet journal (and actually using it) I have found myself to be more productive. A structured schedule is definitely something I need.

I keep my bullet journal relatively simple--if you do a Google search you will find bullet journals worthy of an art museum. I am no artist, at least not the visual type. I had to make a conscious effort to not let those amazing pictures get me down. The whole point of a bullet journal is to organize your time and prioritize your tasks. If you can do that and create a mini-mural in your journal as well, you are amazing and I am in awe of you and please don't judge my multi-colored written stuff. 

If you visit the official bullet journal website (http://bulletjournal.com ) you will see that the setup is very simple. A pen, a notebook of your choice, and you're good to go. A smaller notebook is better, as you can carry it around with you, but as you see, I am using a regular composition book, and I have seen some bullet journals that are kept in 1-inch binders. The only real embellishment I regularly add to my bullet journal is colored pens. I have color-coded my tasks according to what they relate to; on a particularly busy day the page is a rainbow of color. I can delegate priority at a glance, which also helps streamline my productivity.

  
   I made sure to carry this process into time at home, using it to keep on top of chores, schoolwork, and independent projects like book reviews. blog posts, manuscript revisions, and the ever-important family happenings. You'll notice anything family-related is written in red.

Basically, if I want to get anything done, I have to write it out in small, manageable pieces, which again, is the basic idea behind the bullet journal. Studies have shown that the analogue method of writing tasks is much more effective than typing or using digital tools. If you are interested in checking out this organization method, I strongly suggest you go to http://bulletjournal.com first and follow the basic set-up model. After that feel free to visit other sites to see what other people add to their journals. I have a dinner page, a simple exercise page, a garden chore tracker, a list of books to check out, and a big list of books for my son to read over the summer, plus all kinds of other stuff that I won't bore you with.

A few of my favorite bullet journal places to visit are:

Boho Berry: https://www.bohoberry.com/

Page Flutter: https://pageflutter.com/

Little Coffee Fox: https://littlecoffeefox.com/

Happy planning! Now I'm off to make dinner.....