April Discussion Post

[lunabee34]

Tell everyone about the top five topics you write about (or chart, record, etc.) in your journal or planner. Pictures always encouraged!

Comments

[lunabee34]

Top five topics:

To-Do lists (including appointments, due dates for student work, meetings and other events, grading, committee work, etc)

How much I weigh, what exercise I've done on a daily basis

Charting interstitial cystitis flare-ups and possible causes

Long term to-dos (getting rings resized, putting money into a CD, etc)

Monthly retrospectives

[independence1776]

My top five subjects…

This is more difficult than it sounds because I'm a text paper journaler who writes to make sense of her life. So "life" as a broad category.

A lot of the time I write things down that are bothering me and it usually helps.

Then there's the usual complaining about things I can't fix but need somewhere to vent that no one else can see.

Happy things.

Little things. One of the entries that still makes me smile is nothing more than me being joyful I had a fish dinner.

Writing-related stuff: not story ideas and the like, but celebrations (such as NaNoWriMo things) or angst that things aren't going well in whatever I'm working on. Or angst about writer's block. That's more common than I like.

[lunabee34]

I like charting the little things too. My monthly retrospective art pages always include some of those (like the baby horse at we see we drop Fiona off at daycare; makes me happy to see the baby horse and its mom).

[used_songs]

To do lists - always!

Cool words/phrases I've heard/read.

Lists of books, movies, songs, TV shows that someone has recommended that I check out. Same for games, websites, etc.

Sketches or doodles.

Sometimes little poems or bits of prose.

[lunabee34]

Cool words and phrases is a really good idea.

Are you writing them down to use them later in writing or just because they're awesome?

[used_songs]

A little of both. When I was in middle school I started keeping a journal with bits of poetry and exciting words. Then in high school and college when I started doing a zine, I would write down interesting things people said to use in the zine. I had one friend who knew a lot of sketchy people and I would hang out with her and just listen. Whenever they said something amazing, I'd go to the bathroom and jot it down. They became a little suspicious of me but I got some great stories.

Sometimes I end up using stuff that I keep in the journals and sometimes I just read back over it and enjoy it myself.

[lunabee34]

Heeeee. I love that image of you sneaking into the bathroom to write down their conversations.

[thistleingrey]

This is a great question!

Day-specific work notes: to-do items from meetings, occasional snark

Bug (JIRA) numbers and short descriptions for current tasks on my radar, even though I receive email notices as well, because the journal's spatial aspect helps me find these important ones more easily; these are usually not tasks assigned to me for resolving

My tasks in progress and recently completed

Medium-term preparation: someone new will join, there's a national holiday, my kid's off school, a long-running project has a milestone, etc.

Knitting patterns under consideration--it may be an office-oriented journal, but I keep only the one :)

This year's journal is a Hobonichi Techo (English version). Next year's will probably not be--I'm considering a Stalogy 365Days. If anyone has +/- views on the 365Days, please share!

[reynardine]

My top five subjects:

I have a daily tracking list that I tape in each week: weight, hours slept, bank account balance, list of things I should (or want to) do daily.

Long-term goal updates, cleaning schedule, and payday calendar in the back of the journal

Appointments and specific tasks

Small weekly and monthly retrospectives (good and bad)

Usually once I finish each week, I'll put in stickers and tape in random pictures or postcards.

[lunabee34]

I love my stickers and washi tape hard. Using those is one of my favorite parts of planner/journal use.

Also, your icon is really cool.

[lunabee34]

I haven't used those before but I really like the way it looks. I am enjoying experimenting with my dot grid, but I have a really hard time writing in a straight line with it. LOL I think that would be much easier with a box grid or whatever it's called.

[used_songs]

I love graph paper for writing. I don't know why. It's just very satisfying.

[lunabee34]

I don't think I've ever written on graph paper. I should try it!

[thistleingrey]

Having the lines can help, yes. I think dot grid may be nicer with lighter ink colors, but since I like being able to read my notes six months later, I haven't experimented much there. :) (For me, as long as there's some indicator, I can manage to write fairly evenly.)

[lunabee34]

I'm mostly doing mine as an art project, so I like the way the dots fade into the background and become invisible. They also help with drawing. But my writing just lists upwards inexorably without a firm line to guide it. LOL

[thistleingrey]

I keep wishing to add art to my journal pages and not quite getting there. Using a dot grid was meant to encourage it. :P Here's the last attempt, which predates having a paper journal of this kind. (I began taking knitting to the standing meetings during which I'd made those doodles, and then the doodles stopped. I think the knitting bothered my colleagues less.)

[lunabee34]

Those are pretty!

They look very soothing to draw.

[thistleingrey]

Thank you. I need more practice, but they are indeed soothing.

[fay_e]

Great topic! Thanks for posting

My top five subjects:
To do list

Events - outings and movies and nice lunches

Like reynardine I have tracking lists for each week of things I want to do on a daily basis. That's mostly health and productivity stuff like pomodoros

I'm also tracking exercise and energy levels, which I think of as two separate topics :D

[lunabee34]

I've seen a lot of people tracking energy levels and mood, but that's not something I've done yet. I bet it's really helpful, though.

[fay_e]

It's still early days, and I'm even still experimenting with the method of tracking even:





How it's been useful so far is that I try not to do things like paying bills on poor focus days. And since today is a low energy day with strong focus, I'll probably do things like reading and sorting.

[lunabee34]

That makes a lot of sense.

How do you differentiate between focus and motivation? Those seem somewhat similar to me.

[fay_e]

Focus is how long I can stay on one task. Motivation is getting to the task.

So, say, for reading - motivation is getting myself to pick up the book, and focus is how many pages I get through before I go OOH SHINY. I should probably reorder, but it's in alphabetical order for now.

[lunabee34]

Okay, that makes sense.

I tend to not have an issue with focus, but motivation is a huge problem for me. I used to be such a go-getter. LOL I am getting apathetic in my old age.

[fay_e]

I'd trade you - focus is my biggest issue, maybe because I keep opening new stuff to do!

[lunabee34]

LOL

I just can't start anything.

We do need to trade for a day.