journal

Topical Tuesday: My Planner

Howdy folks! It’s the last week of October already- that’s both amazing and a bit intimidating, don’t you think? But with a new month in tow, I have plans this week to reorganize my planner. I’d like to share my planner experience with you.

I’ve never been an organized person. I’m lazy and a clutter bug. I’m easily overwhelmed, and seeing my own mess makes me feel terrified of having to go through it! I finally realized that I need to organize my life. So, I finally gave in to my urge to journal.

At first, I was trying to do a bullet journal. I bought a small notebook at the dollar store and tried to start it, but I found I dropped it during my trip to Arizona and realized it didn’t quite fit my needs. I started looking for spreads I could duplicate, but it had too little space for me to handle with my bad handwriting. I needed something a bit bigger… And a bit more flexible than I found my bullet journaling to be.

That’s when my dad found a bunch of binders that we hadn’t used yet. We found four in total, and dad said they’re all mine to use. Dad recommended using one of the big ones as a physical copy of my writing projects, which I’ve since done. It’s got everything from maps to printouts of my world building and a workbook I printed the pages of because I was intrigued by it.

That’s not the planner I started with, though. Though that too is an important planner in my life, what really became important was another binder I began using: it’s filled with planner printables I found online, and though I intend to redo some of it this week, it’s not just this week that I’ve been using it.

Sure, I’ve missed a couple days in my habit tracker and such. I’ve more easily accepted my imperfections as I’ve worked with this planner. I found a lot of sites with great free printables, including everything from an about me to weekly and daily planning pages. I’ve got a gratitude journal, my mentioned habit tracker, and even a mental health tracker. I try to use each of them each day, and while I’ve missed some as I’ve said, it’s really amazing to see my progress. I can see what parts of my life I’m still struggling with (mainly decluttering).

I do have some changes I plan to make for next month. For starters, I’m going to try a mood tracker instead of the mental health one I currently use. It’ll be more fun to color than just x a box about an emotion. I plan to make a headache tracker of my own using online resources, too. I’m thinking I can change a habit tracker to a symptom tracker in general, actually… But I also want to track my blood pressure and heart rate, too, so I’ll probably be playing around with methods to do this for a good chunk of the week.

There’s more changes I plan to make, but it’s mostly just changing where things are and adding labels to my dividers so that I can better access things after I readjust. If you want me to share some of the printables I’ve used, I’d be happy to take some pictures. That, or I can share some of my favorite places to get printables. Whatever you might want, let me know, because I’ve come to really love my planner, and it’s seriously helping with my anxiety!

That’s all for today, I’m afraid. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, where I’ll be sharing the biggest event of the year to me and how it’s going to affect this blog for the upcoming month. Please make sure not to miss it! I look forward to telling you all about it soon. 🙂

Topical Tuesday: Bullet Journal

Hi everyone! Welcome to a new week here on my blog! Today’s Topical Tuesday, I’m going to return to a recent topic I covered. I’m returning to the concept of journaling, because I ended up caving in to the pressure I gave myself watching all those videos about bullet journals.

That’s right, everyone. I now have a bullet journal. I walked to the dollar store on Friday of last week and ended up buying a tiny, cute journal to work with. “Why did you write about this now and not on Saturday?” I hear you asking. Well, to be honest… I did start on Friday, but I like to write my blog posts a day early, and I wrote Saturday’s post before my walk that afternoon. Thus, I hadn’t started it until I already had a post written- one that’s very important to me, no less.

I’ve noticed that my blog has been less and less related to my writing, and that made Saturday’s post extra important to me to write about: because my life is writing, yet all I’ve been writing is my life. And I write way more than that! That’s why, that day, I wanted a change of pace. A return to my roots, so to speak.

And that may also explain why I decided to try bullet journaling. It works as a reminder that I’m a creative spirit, one that needs a lot of help keeping track of things. I’m very unorganized as a person- the fact that someone showed admiration for the fact I can keep a general schedule on two blogs made me remember why I decided to take on the challenge: because I was amazed at how organized those people were.

So far, I’m still learning the ropes. I haven’t done a ‘daily’ page as of writing this post- but I found a lot of interesting pages to work on, and it’s also been a great help in trying to make my handwriting better (though it’s still pretty bad, if I’m being honest!). I even found inspiration to make pages listing my coping skills for my mental health, a page with ideas for future topics with you guys in mind, and plenty more. I don’t have much artistic flair in it yet- my gel pens refuse to work efficiently, so I could only draw on one or two pages with color… But I did doodle on a spread that’s meant to remind you who you are and what makes you you!

Here, have a couple pictures of my journal so far:

Do any of you guys journal in any sense of the word? Are there any bullet journalers in the house? I’d love to hear all of your experiences and advice on the matter- because while it’s meant to be personal, isn’t it good to share personal things sometimes?

Soulful Saturday: Journals

Good day to you, my lovely readers. I hope your Saturday isn’t as blistering hot as mine is! Summer has indeed arrived in my mind now, and I have many ventures afoot. However, that’s not what we’re here to talk about today- today is a day to dig deep in my soul. To that end, I came up with a likely cliche but notable topic: journaling.

I’m not an organized person. Bullet journals amaze me, and I love learning about them, but… I’m just so bad at keeping up with things as it is. For me, it’s just not yet something I can commit to. It’s something that I can only wish I could do, for the time that is.

No, I’m talking about the kind of journal you might have kept as a kid. Or a blog, just like this one right now. I’m talking about journals that you spilled your heart into, that you treated like a close friend that knew all your secrets but would never fail to keep them that way.

I’ve been keeping journals since I was young. I’ve always done it on and off, and sometimes they were more logs of things in my life, such as dreams and nightmares. But, for most times, I was writing journals because I needed an escape outside the internet. And, once on the internet, I found a way to share my experiences with others that I felt safe around: strangers on the net. All that through the art of blogging, which is very much akin to journaling, if you look at it the right way.

It’s important to choose your audience though. Showing your therapist a rather morbid entry will make them worry you’re going to do harm to someone else or you yourself. That happened to me, when I was sent to the hospital for ten days for suicidal ideation- I think I’ve mentioned that before, actually! But still, that was all started by something so very simple: a copied page of my private journal on the computer.

The thing with journals is there’s so many ways to use them. You can write paragraph after paragraph about your day or a topic, you can use it to remember your dreams, or even to organize your life. I got a new journal as part of a care package, and it’s stunning- so stunning, I feel my current method of journaling doesn’t do it justice. I’ve merely been writing bullet note lists of things I found remarkable in some way that day. I fit three days on a single page! I look at it and I lack that joy that comes from writing my thoughts… So now, I must learn a better way to journal.

What kinds of journaling do you do, my friends? I bet hearing your methods will help me greatly in finding the right one for me and my new ally. That’s my last request for today. That, and that you have a good weekend! Don’t forget to stay hydrated! Okay? 🙂