My Adventures with the Bullet Journal -- Week Two

Greetings!

Welcome to my reflection on the second week of using the Bullet Journal.

In general, I am enjoying the ability to pick and choose what I need for making the Bullet Journal concept work for me. The versatility is wonderful and liberating. One of the challenges with the neurological shift is that I tend to forget that I am in charge and I can use whatever I want in my Bullet Journal. I thank my friends, particularly Patrick DeWind, for reminding me of my power to make this tool what I need to be productive.

As I mentioned last week, I decided I needed a weekly spread. I made one on facing pages, four blocks per page, giving me the whole week in one place.  I thought I would use it frequently.  I used it to the exclusion of the Daily Pages! Therefore, the Daily Pages are going away – at least for now. I found that the blocks were too small on the Weekly Spread – this week I have two days on a page instead of four.  I can’t see the entire week in one glance.  I believe having to turn only one page to see the entire week is a reasonable trade-off for having enough room to write what I need to each day.

I felt more on-track this week, though I am still putting more tasks on a day than I can accomplish. I believe I was mindful of that when I migrated my tasks. To combat that tendency, I am going to use a Time Budget this week and fill in the things I do and the time required to complete them.  While I don’t think I will have a definitive plan after one week of doing that, I may have an idea of what I can actually fit into a day.  Once I have that sense, I may actually be able to only schedule the tasks that there are enough minutes to complete in a day! I poked at some time budget pages and links. I picked the first one below to use this week.  However, I have a feeling that I will be making my own at some point. When I do, I will share it. (Time budget links below.)

I found the Monthly Calendar to be very annoying this week. Since it is the last week of the current month, I will not implement anything new until next week.  I believe I need to have a Full Year calendar page and a Monthly Calendar set up as a grid.  I will poke at that this week and pick a layout to use next week.

Here’s to my adventures in Week Three! Have a great week! Whatever you planned to accomplish this month, I hope you close out strong!

Bright Blessings!

Links for Time Budget/Schedule

http://studywell.library.qut.edu.au/pdf_files/STUDYMANAGEMENT_WeeklyTimeBudget.pdf

http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/weekly-schedule.html

You can find me on Facebook on my personal page: 
https://www.facebook.com/cedarwolfsinger?fref=ts

And my company page:
https://www.facebook.com/CedarsProofreadingAndEditing/

I am also on Twitter:
@michelle owings-chri

My Adventures with the Bullet Journal - Week One

Greetings!

I have used the Bullet Journal for the past week. At first, I felt that I was more organized. Checking the book every day was new, however I put it where I would constantly trip over it, so I would check it frequently, which I did. Migration was easy, it only took ten or fifteen minutes. I believe it is a vital part of the tool. I also felt better about the success of the week after migration because I discovered that I was more aware of my calls, webinars, and tasks. Most days I completed at least half of them; and several days I completed two thirds of them.

Starting on Thursday, the process began to feel clunky and awkward. I felt like I had too many pages to look at and they were not what I needed. I also fell into the trap of putting more tasks on a day than I can possibly accomplish. I have done this in the past, and it is not specific to the Bullet Journal.

I found the lack of a weekly spread more annoying as the week progressed. Last night, before I did my migration and set up my pages for the week, I searched for weekly calendars people have developed for the Bullet Journal. I found one that I think will work for me, and I added it to this week’s journal. There are plenty of examples, if I don’t like this I will pick another for next week.

This week, I will be noting how often I use which spreads. Perhaps I will discover that I don’t need a monthly, daily, and weekly spread. Perhaps I will find that I need them in a different format. I can understand why the recommended time to “try out” an organization system is two months. It certainly gives me time to determine what is working for me and what is not.

The link for the Weekly Spreads is below.

Let the Week Two Adventure begin!

Bright Blessings!

Bullet Journal Weekly Spreads

You can find me on Facebook on my personal page: 
https://www.facebook.com/cedarwolfsinger?fref=ts

And my company page:
https://www.facebook.com/CedarsProofreadingAndEditing/

I am also on Twitter:
@michelle owings-chri

Reboot

Greetings!

This blog went dormant because I began having severe medical issues directly after the first post. Though I had no idea at the time, I was being poisoned by a heavy-duty chemo drug I was taking for a condition I don’t even have. (No, I don’t have cancer, thank you for your concern.) My reaction to the drug gradually worsened, and finally caused me to be hospitalized three times in 2014. I almost died all three times. (Key word: almost.) The lasting effects are neurological in nature. I have neuropathy, aphasia, tremors, fainting spells, and have been told by someone I trust that I have fallen asleep on her in the middle of a conversation – a face to face, in the same room conversation.

Another effect of the brain damage caused by this drug is I am showing symptoms of ADD/ADHD, which I never had before. I used to be a very organized person, never double booked, and very rarely, if ever, missed an appointment. Now, I am easily distracted, can’t remember much of anything unless it is written down where I can see it frequently, and all the organization strategies and calendar tools I have used in my life are no longer effective. AAACKK!

I let that shake me for about a year. Recently, I decided to try out new strategies and tools until I find something that works for me. I had been considering a reboot of the blog for a few weeks, without having a clue what the content would be.  I will work my way through new tools and strategies and blog about them. I will use each calendar tool for two months because that is the suggested time to try a system in order to learn how it works and use it often enough to determine if you can use it effectively.

The first calendar tool I am using is The Bullet Journal. I chose it because people I know use it effectively and it has been popping up all around me in the last month or so. I have never used a tool like it before. That may well be a plus since the old way of thinking is no longer the way my brain works. Since I don’t know if it will be effective, I appreciate that you can use any notebook you happen to have and need not buy a new or special notebook. Since I am a writer, and a collector of notebooks, paper, pens and such, I had a nice notebook on hand. If you didn’t and wanted to try this, I suspect you could buy one from a dollar store.

I put mine together over two days. I only set up six months on the Future Log because I don’t want to spend time on building out a system which I might not find effective.

The first minor annoyance is the lack of a weekly spread. If it becomes a major annoyance before the week is out, I may well add a weekly spread from elsewhere. Another minor annoyance is that you brain dump items so they are often not in date or time order.

The brain dump can also be considered in the plus column. If this tool, or any part of this tool, proves effective I can keep going and not worry that the new material is not in the “correct” order. While two days is not much of a sample, I find that using some tool, whether or not it will prove to be the best tool for me, is giving me more confidence than I’ve had in months. I also have accomplished several tasks that I remembered because they were written down.

I have added the link for the original site for The Bullet Journal and a couple from people who have modified it to work for them.

Thanks for reading. If you have any tools or systems you think I might try, send me the name or a link and, as long as I don’t have to pay anything to acquire them, I will add them to my list.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Bright Blessings!

Links:

http://bulletjournal.com/

http://www.bohoberry.com/bullet-journal-update/ http://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/blog/how-to-bullet-journal

You can find me on Facebook on my personal page: 
https://www.facebook.com/cedarwolfsinger?fref=ts

And my company page:
https://www.facebook.com/CedarsProofreadingAndEditing/

I am also on Twitter:
@michelle owings-chri