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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[lunabee34]

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

[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.

[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. :)

[thistleingrey]

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

[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

[vriddy]

It's always interesting to go back! I haven't done that in a while but maybe it'd be a fun idea for a quiet weekend :D

[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.

[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!

[el_staplador]

Oh, I like the Lamy Al-Star too! There's one I particularly like with a broadish nib, but I have another couple as well.

[annofowlshire]

I’m also an admirer of the Lamy Al-Star and have several (and multiple in the same color for a limited edition I really liked). These days, though, I tend to use my TWSBI Eco the most, because the ink lasts foreeeeeeever. At peak I used to run through a Lamy barrel in a week or less. The Eco I can take with me on a lengthy trip (you know, when those happened) and know that I’ll have enough ink XD

[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.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, early on it was key to helping me recover. Sometimes it's easy to forget how much you have done or what got in the way, at least for me.

[seleneheart]

That's a great reason!

[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.