Weekly Discussion Post

[lunabee34]

Comment to tell us about what you've been up to with your journal, planner, or other stationery related items. Tell us about a new pen or a coveted notebook. Consult the hive mind with a problem you've been having. Post a picture! Whatever goes as long as it falls in the realm of journals and planners. Remember, you can always make your own top-level post, too!

Comments

New Bujo

[seleneheart]

I ordered and received my new bullet journal. Here's some pics comparing the new one to my current one. It's exciting getting a new journal, but I love the worn-in look of one that's about at the end of the year. I have about six weeks left in the green one. The color of the old one is Fresh Green and the new one is Rising Sun.

Re: New Bujo

[octahedrite]

Yay for the new journal! New stationery is so fun.

Re: New Bujo

[severina]

I love getting new fresh journals.

Re: New Bujo

[annofowlshire]

Love it!

Re: New Bujo

[vriddy]

Oh, the pictures are cool!! New journal soon, wooo :D

Re: New Bujo

[lunabee34]

Gorgeous! I love the goldeny yellow. A+ choice. :)

[annofowlshire]

I’ve gone on a slight departure from my usual and am testing out the Moleskine Journey app again. It has a lot of features I like… its only downside is that’s it’s digital, but I guess that’s its upside, too since I can sync devices, upload images, create project sections, etc. It’s about the closest thing to being BuJo I’ve seen in an app (although I’m not saying I’ve searched extensively).

We’ll see how long I stick with it, I did do the annual plan since they popped up a special discount for coming back and it wasn’t very much. I found Moleskine Journey really useful in 2020 when we were househunting/selling/moving and I was taking my first tentative (and somewhat unplanned) steps back into the working world after being a SAHM for years (and in the midst of a pandemic, LOL), but fell out of using it… I don’t remember why, but I suspect I went back to using pen and paper because it felt right in the moment.

I often swap between the two - usually seduced by the romance of pen and paper, but occasionally I go digital for the convenience. It doesn’t make for a very coherent life record, but it helps me get things done XD

[seleneheart]

Getting things done is the important thing, right??

[annofowlshire]

I feel torn on that one. Sometimes I hate that my life feels like an endless list of “to dos” but at the same time, without the planner, important-but-less-in-your-face things* won’t get done, and between my day job, parenting, and having a small holding (not to mention hobbies and trying to build a social life since we moved cross country during a series of lockdowns) a great many things need tracking or they will get lost in the chaos of everything else.

*Generally child and chickens don’t need tracking, because they’ll let me know if I’ve forgotten to feed them :P Filing my taxes abroad (being an American overseas) is a quiet but important thing I could easily forget to do. As is getting our sewage treatment thing serviced which I just remembered about and will add to my list…

[vriddy]

Oh, that's really interesting! I heard journal/bujo apps can be a bit tough because they tend to impose too many constraints. It's cool to know there are some that are bujo-friendly after all, I hadn't heard about this one!

[annofowlshire]

Moleskine Journey asks for money pretty fast, so I can see it being an under-explored app for the purpose. On the other hand, £30/year (and I actually paid less this time around as a “welcome back” discount) would get me less than 2 of my favorite A5 notebooks, which I usually go through 3-4 in a year if I’m using them regularly, so it’s actually not too bad.

My main thing is that I haven’t figured out a good way to export yet, if I even want to keep an “offline” record. But then as I say in another comment on this post, my planner tends to be very “now” focused rather than being a reference library of my entire life.

I think I need to set up of a safe place to keep a “(year, month, season) in review.” I don’t need the daily waffle to reference, I just like seeing the overarching themes, dreams, and such. Hm.

[lunabee34]

We will all be interested in your updates on how the app works out for you this time and what you notice re: pros and cons. I love how this comm also functions as a real time test case for products. :)

[olivermoss]

Not much is up here. I want to do more decorative layouts, but haven't figured out a good one yet. Done some thumbnailing, maybe next week I'll have something cool.

[vriddy]

Looking forward to your next design, whenever you hit something you like :D

[olivermoss]

Thank you!

[lunabee34]

Looking forward to it!

[vriddy]

Starting to get annoyed at the amount of tasks I'm postponing/migrating constantly but also realising it's not really the bujo's fault. And I can't just remove them because this is all stuff that needs to be done there is just... so much. I was trying to do things in order of importance/urgency but it didn't really succeed in getting me through the list. I'm trying to group by type of tasks this week, even if it's not necessarily the bestest priority order. Today was emails - asking for quotes, documentation, appointments, etc for totally unrelated things. Tomorrow will be a few fandom things (beta-reading, answering comments, etc). I'll see if that works better to stop those constant daily migrations and massive monthly ones. Maybe I just need to shake things up depending on the type of mood I'm in that week, haha.

[mothereader]

I admire your dedication. I stopped migrating daily pretty quickly. Usually, when a lot of tasks would get undone, it would be down to two things: i was having a bad mental health day or i wasn't considering how much time each thing takes me. When it was the latter, my method was to batch tasks visually in my bullet journal and sometimes also to sketch out when i'm going to do certain things, either in a digital calendar or on a piece of paper. The batching thing is really helpful to me though.

[vriddy]

The daily migration is not thaaat bad because I'm using a weekly system, so if something doesn't get done in the day I might move it to tomorrow or I might just mark it as "postponed", knowing it's already in the weekly box for me to try again later in the week. I wonder if it's similar to your batching system? I'd be curious to learn how batching works for you, otherwise! It sounds helpful.

Postponing them all whether to the next day or later in the week still annoys me because it feels like I should have a better handle on how much I can get done in a day by now, and also all that stuff still needs to get done at some point, haha... I'll figure it out eventually, hopefully!! The "taking longer than expected" example certainly resonates.

[mothereader]

When i'd sit down with my bullet journal, i'd go, "Okay, i have 2 hours today for my chores. What can i get down in that time?" And then i'd list all that i could think of and i'd stop listing once i thought that all the tasks combined would take me 2 hours. I'd do this for every category of tasks i could think of. I had an additional space where i'd keep track of all the tasks related to projects, so i could only list the tasks i thought i might do that day (and sometimes being very wrong). That ended up giving me blocks of tasks in my journal, or batches.

But then when i'd start working, i'd work on a project for a set amount of time and i'd reference the block related to that project. Then i'd take a break and think, i need to do some chores and i'd refer to the block with chores. Then i'd go back to work and referencing the block for the same project or another one.

I tried listing out tasks in the order i meant to do them, but that didn't work so well for me. Also i then had a huge block of tasks that were one, difficult to read, and two, difficult to write too since i had to keep everything in my head until i got to the time i thought i might be able to do it. By listing them out thematically, or categorically, i can keep much better track of them and i find it much easier to estimate how much time something will take in the future. Something about my mental state when i see a batch of tasks vs. the entire wall of them i used to have.

[vriddy]

Oh, that's cool, thank you! I rarely sit down and think "okay I'm gonna do more stuff that's not on the daily list already now" but right now, that's probably because I start the day with too many already. I think I probably need to use projects more for tasks that have many sub-tasks. I am sort of doing it, but because I'm not good about keeping the main project page up to date once it's squeezed into a few daily tasks it's less reliable... but I think that could be helpful. Thank you for the thoughts!!

[mothereader]

You're welcome!

I don't plan ahead. I might set myself reminders if i need to do something on a particular day, but by and large i plan the morning of. (I tried planning the night before and it's just setting myself up for failure, doesn't work for me at all.) Also, even if i do have leftover tasks from the day(s) before, the priority isn't the same each day and i try to do things with higher priority first.

To be honest, i'm not good at keeping the project page update either—i think of it more as brainstorm. I check in at each stage so i don't forget anything important and check off done tasks then, but i usually know what i need to do without the project page and sometimes i figure out i need to do things that i didn't know i would need to do when i was setting it up.

[seleneheart]

If they get migrated too much, are they needful? Are there things that can be let go and give yourself some breathing space?

[vriddy]

Haha, yeah, I've been trying to apply that philosophy but they're really all necessary (it's stuff like requesting quotes to fix broken stuff, following up with people, answering emails to set up appointments, disputing overcharges, realising that the department that said they'd get back to me within a week hasn't and it's been 3 weeks, trying to break things down for a deadline in 2 weeks so I can do a little bit every couple of days instead of everything the night before, etc etc... stuff that's coming up no matter what). I think I might need to pay better attention to how much energy each task takes me. Like, sending the first email inquiry to a bunch of people doesn't take too much energy so I can batch them, especially if I do that in the evening and know no one will answer me until the next day at best. Things like the invoice dispute have been super stressful and I've spent over an hour on hold with the company before. Maybe on days when I need to brace myself to talk to them, I shouldn't pretend I'll be up for any other admin-type work that day, no matter how necessary it might be. And plan actual "breathing space" days?? Like, all of that stuff needs to be done, but most doesn't have hard deadlines... which is why I kept dropping the ball constantly before I tried to keep a bullet journal. Just need to find the right balance, haha.

[lunabee34]

Would it be easier to list these tasks in a separate place so that they don't have to be moved? Just an idea.

[vriddy]

I think using Projects/Collections more effectively would serve me well, yeah. Just need to adjust the system because right now, I tend to forget the projects with sub-tasks I set up collections for... 😅 Step by step 😤

[lunabee34]

That's what I love about planning. It lends itself to constant adjustment.

[mothereader]

I've spent the past two weeks watching The Organized Money on YouTube for inspiration on how to use my monthly spreads. I've watched her entire vlogmas 2021 series and some of the other videos. I've yet to be struck by a bolt of inspiration re: the monthly spread, but i did feel encouraged to add more things to my monthly notes section. I added things that i've already been keeping track of over the weeks, but i'd usually just keep them in my head and write them down on a scrap piece of paper when i was checking on the progress, or it would get lost in my files. I'm also experimenting with what i want to keep in the sidebar of the weekly spread. I feel like it's going well.

Another realisation this week was that i don't need such a big timeline. I made it so it's 24 hours, but then the part that is past midnight is consistently empty and since my mind is thinking of this section in terms of when i'm supposed to do something, i don't see myself using that for any other purpose. I'm also not likely to cover it up with stickers. All useful info for when i start designing the planner for the next year. Bonus, i get to move from executive back to A5 (i think, i haven't checked the math yet).

[vriddy]

Stickers sound great :D

[mothereader]

They do! But i have trouble finding ones that i like and that won't break my budget. I make do with washi tape sometimes but if i feel like i have to use all sorts of decoration before getting started, i won't use my planner at all.

[seleneheart]

I understand that feeling! I started with just a pen and a notebook that I didn't have any other use for. Once I got in the habit, I felt like I could do more with it.

[lunabee34]

That is very sensible; I don't like the look of a bunch of unnecessary space either.

[mothereader]

Also! A bigger planner means more weight to carry around (because i do carry it around).

But i think i figured out what i'll try to do with the extra space in the meantime.

[lunabee34]

*high five*

:)

[moomintroll]

My Hobonichi order arrived! I've been having a rough month, so I treated myself to a new cover for my daily journal, I love it so much! It's so tactile, I can't stop touching it. I also got an A5 date free journal. After all of the hullabaloo with LJ's potential demise last month it got me thinking about how transitory the internet is. I know DreamWidth is safe, but also you never really know what the future holds and I feel like I want to make my most important entries more permanent so I never have to worry about losing them. So I'm going to hand write them all out into this journal, and make it look all pretty so it's something I'll want to go back through. It's about 100-ish entries in total, and I'll be doing it now and then so it's not that big of a job, and I think it'll be nice revisiting those old memories as I do it.

[annofowlshire]

Oh my gosh, I love that cover!

I also worry about DW not being around forever. Then again, I did abandon like 15 years of LJ without exporting, so I think sometimes that my need to look at my past doesn’t last for always. In many ways it’s more about getting out the thoughts at the time. It’s the same when I’m doing paper journals - I can fill them up, but I almost never review them again. They exist for the moment, so I can work out thoughts, and what I usually remember are the bigger, overarching themes that I used the journaling to make sense of.

[moomintroll]

I've abandoned whole journals before, and regularly go through and delete entries that aren't serving me as mostly they're a snapshot in time and I don't care. But that's mundane stuff, these entries I want to copy were life altering events that made me truly happy, and I quite often re-read them to guide my future and keep that positive mindset in my dark days. It's not something I'd want to lose, and it'd be nice to read them from a book instead of going hunting through the depths of my journal.

[seleneheart]

Beautiful cover!

I admire your dedication to writing out the entries. Are you going to copy the comments too?

[moomintroll]

Thank you! No I won't write out the comments, whilst they're appreciated they don't really mean anything to me in the grand scheme of things like the actual entries do. I want to make it like a proper diary, otherwise I may as well just print it all out and bind it.

[lunabee34]

Oh how lovely. And what a wonderful thing to use it for!