Journal Jam Fall 2022 Day 3

[annofowlshire]

Day 3 Question:

What prompted you to get into using a planner or journaling?

(If you answer elsewhere, drop us a link in the comments.)

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Honestly, I wanted a bit of regular handwriting practice. Because I have a school-aged kid, I write some paper checks, but there aren't enough other reasons anymore!

[lunabee34]

That makes so much sense. So much is digital now that unless you're in certain professions, most people don't have a lot of reasons to do much handwriting.

[seleneheart]

That's a great reason!

[moomintroll]

A few years ago YouTube recommended me a video of one of those aesthetic bullet journals, and I loved it. I've always journalled online, but it introduced the concept of scrapbooking alongside the entries. I don't journal in that same way anymore, but I fell in love with how tactile journals are, and I often find writing things by hand more cathartic for some reason too.

It also led to a larger stationary interest in things like fountain pens and fancy notebooks, and my journalling gives that stuff purpose.

[lunabee34]

I love all the gorgeous bullet journals. They are such works of art.

What's your favorite fountain pen?

Mine is the Lamy Al-Star.

[seleneheart]

That's something I love about bullet journaling - how tactile it is, and how 'lived-in' it looks with all my handwriting in it.

[olivermoss]

I started using a planner after I had a health crisis. While recovering I felt like weeks were passing and I was doing literally nothing. I started using a planner to show myself that wasn't true and also to mark stumbling blocks in my recovery like being stuck indoors due to forest fires or death in the family.

I now use a stripped down activity tracker and a more aesthetic decorative planner. Doing the older type of planner where I wrote down everything I did might be more helpful to me, I don't know.

[lunabee34]

That's such a smart reason to use a planner; I am chronically ill, and sometimes I get stuck in this defeatist mode of thinking of all the things I can't do anymore instead of realizing all the things I am still doing despite my illness. Thank you. I really like this framing and this way of looking at this tool.

[pasta]

I had been journaling since I could write. My mom gave me a little diary with a lock and key and I never quit journaling after that. I have years and years worth of journals since elementary school, I just turned 37 today.

Planning started in middle school because of Chinese school on Sundays. Using a planner is very much a big thing in Asian countries with their cute sanrio brands and what not. Chinese school was smack in the middle of Chinatown in NYC, so my friends and I would pick the cutest planners. I have been using planners ever since, they started out rudimentary, but over the years they've become more streamlined to suit me.

[lunabee34]

I had several of those journals with the locks and keys as a kid! They were so cute.

[kalloway]

As I mentioned for Day 1, I started trying to use a planner via my job. I was helped along by my assistant manager who was very patient with the most disorganized person she'd ever met. ^^;; When I first started, I think I carried around a totally empty planner for a month but she cheered me on anyway. It was absolutely a start!

Now I want to get better about planning/organizing fanwork stuff. I have many ideas and still no organization. But I'm working on it!

[lunabee34]

I'd love to hear more about what aspects of fanwork planning/organizing you're thinking about.

[lunabee34]

I feel that so hard. My degree is in Victorian, so I'm constantly reading novels where characters are writing these long letters or keeping diaries or else I'm reading the diaries and letters of actual people from that time period and wistfully thinking that I should keep such an interesting and erudite journal for the ages. LOL

[lunabee34]

When I was a kid, I started keeping a diary because I loved to write--loved pens and paper and loved writing stories and poems and also because navel-gazing has apparently been my number one pastime since childhood. LOL As I've gotten older, I appreciate my journals because my memory is terrible, and they help me remember the small moments I'd forget.

[thistleingrey]

Agreed, it can be really satisfying to skim older notes (or DW entries, sometimes)!

[annofowlshire]

I’ve had an LJ since around 2000. Since then I’ve done various journaling - LJ, DW, 750 Words, some other digital spaces, and pen and paper. My first planner in university (around 2000-2004) was because I really wanted to succeed and I was balancing full load of classes, a part time job, a volunteer thingie, and… well, the rest of life. I’d always been sort of barely contained chaos before that that mostly worked, but I wanted to change my ways.

Post university until my mid-30s mostly returned to barely contained chaos, punctuated by the occasional use of planner apps until they no longer motivated me. Since around 2016 I’ve usually been more of a planner person than not, although the level of organization has varied from period to period ^_^

It still feels like chaos, but at least it’s a bit more organized chaos nowadays ;)

[lunabee34]

Organized chaos is chaos that works. :)

[vriddy]

I journal on and off. It's been a few years without. This year, I had to try to use some kind of planner system (went with the BuJo, because I was afraid to wait forever until I find The Perfect Planner otherwise!) because I'm juggling so many different balls that are difficult to keep track of. So far, so good :D

[lunabee34]

I'm glad it's working for you!

[severina]

I... don't remember. LOL I know I definitely hadn't seen videos or anything. So, I don't remember how or where, but I do remember spending hours looking at layouts and tutorials and reading articles and falling down a giant bujo rabbit hole. I love lists and organizing that way so it just really intrigued me.

[lunabee34]

I love a list. Just the tactile crossing out and scratching off and then making a fresh one. Love it.

[el_staplador]

I'm pretty sure my interest was first piqued some time in the nineties when a teacher read my class some of Zlata Filipovic's diary. I was fascinated by the idea that an ordinary person could record their take on what was going on around them, whether it was war, as in her case, or just their own personal lives. It took a long time for me to get into any sort of habit, though!

[lunabee34]

My area of interest in academia is 19th-century, so I spend a lot of time reading people's diaries and letters, and I find them so fascinating, especially those of people who aren't celebrities in any way. That look into the life of the regular person is so important from a historical context.

[mothereader]

I remember very vividly when I started "Bullet Journaling" (see comment for day 1): i showed up at school a few times that were close together and was surprised when people asked me if i had studied for an exam. I did not, in fact, because i'd clean forgotten that i had any exams at all.

I started keeping a diary in high school after reading The Princess Diaries series. I'm on and off with it. Some of it is on paper and some of it is digital. I've been looking at those 5-year daily journals though, to start on January 1^st.

[lunabee34]

I have been looking at those, too, the ones from Mark's and the Midori ones. I really like the idea of just writing a few sentences every day for five years (or three; I've seen three year versions) and then comparing where I was over that course of time on any gien day.

[seleneheart]

I started using a planner in grad school. I think it was a Daytimer sort of thing, with lots of pockets, and business card holder, and sections. I kept using that until I started teaching. I talked about my bullet journal journey in my comment to Day 1, I think.

As many people have said above, digital calendars are convenient, but nothing beats the tactility of writing things down. And it helps my memory to handwrite also.

[lunabee34]

Hard same. I'm the same with notetaking for work. I type my notes afterwards to make them usable and searchable, but I handwrite notes to start with to help with memory retention.

[ai]

https://mana.dreamwidth.org/4897765.html

My poor memory mostly, but it was fun to think of other reasons.

[lunabee34]

I like stickers as well. There's such a wonderful variety.

[lassarina]

I've always journaled in some fashion - I had a paper diary from about second grade through high school, and then got my LiveJournal account in college and have maintained it or my Dreamwidth since then, so 21 years of online/digital journaling.

I mentioned in a previous question the BuzzFeed post about bullet journaling for mental health and I thought it would be an interesting experiment, so I gave it a try and found I liked it. It's been several years of experimenting with layout and decoration (it can't be too plain but I don't want to spend three days setting up one month's worth) but I'm mostly at a point I'm happy with now.

[lunabee34]

I love your icon. LOL

It can be so hard to find that balance between minimal and decorated; I love my journal to be pretty, but like you, I don't want to just endlessly noodle with decorating it.

[badfalcon]

I stumbled across Kara Benz/Boho Berry quite a few years ago now on either Youtube or Instagram and fell in love with her planning style. I'd always had to-do lists for everything but hadn't kept them all together in a book and loved the idea. I have ADHD and am forever trying to organise myself. But I don't have pretty handwriting and I'm not artistic, so would get disheartened when mine didn't look like the ones I saw online. I kept trying though, reading all the articles, trying layout after layout, trying too much, overwhelming myself... stopping for months then picking it up again

[lunabee34]

I've seen Boho Berry's stuff before; very cool.

I'm not artistic either, and for awhile, I did try to do some of the simpler decorations, and I never really liked the way they turned out. I decided to use different ink colors in my pens, stickers, and washi tape as my decorations so that my journal can look pretty, but I'm not responsible for actually drawing anything. LOL