Adventures with the Bullet Journal -- Weeks 7 and 8 and Wrap Up

The Bullet Journal is just like any other tool – it only works when you use it.  Two weeks ago, my husband asked a friend of ours to help him move some furniture.  That was wonderful – except that they didn’t give me any notice, so I couldn’t arrange the things that were being moved from the shelves. So everything got piled into another room, helter skelter, and I have no idea where anything is. My Bullet Journal was misplaced for a day.  Then I went on vacation and chose not to bring it.  (It was a camping trip and I wasn’t planning on using the Bullet Journal.)

When I came home, I spent three days recovering from the trip (pain flare and fatigue) and didn’t use the Bullet Journal. While I could carry it on for another few weeks, I believe it needs to be wrapped up so I can move on to another system.

I enjoyed using the Bullet Journal. If I return to using it, I may well change to a smaller notebook.  While I love the 8 ½ by 11 notebook, it is harder to manage.  One of the joys of the Bullet Journal is the ability to make changes to the layouts to suit the way I work.  My changes were the addition of a traditional monthly grid calendar and a Weekly Layout instead of a Daily Layout.  Those two changes served me well.

Since I promised to try several systems when I began this blog, I will keep my promise.  I will be using an electronic system next – Google Calendar and the Task function within it.

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

LinkedIn profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-owings-christian-bbb7278

branded.me:

https://branded.me/michelleowings-christian

My Adventures with the Bullet Journal -- Week Six

I totally missed discussing the sixth week of this adventure for two weeks.  I’m sorry – I came down with a bad case of life.  It seems to getting better slowly. I will discuss that week here. Since it is the beginning of a new month, I will also discuss my Accomplishments in May and my Goals for June.

First – Week 6 of the Bullet Journal

What worked?

• I use the traditional Monthly calendar on a daily basis.  It works well for me.  I can see any given task or event in the context of the entire month and with ALL the things I have scheduled.  It also helps with such tasks as when to send birthday cards out: the day is here – send them out three days before, OK mark that on the calendar.

• I still like the Weekly Calendar I have added and changed it to meet my needs.  It is the view I have open most of the day.

What didn’t work?

My problems were with life and then a long weekend.  Since I travelled to a campground, I was literally “off the grid”. Then I took two full days to recover from the weekend.  I must remember to build that time into my schedule. The problems were not related to the Bullet Journal as a tool or system.

What was annoying?

Nothing was annoying.

May

In looking through my pages and my time budgets/logs for May, I realized that I spend huge blocks of time doing things for other people.  Helping others is a huge part of who I am and I don’t plan to stop.  So I need to plan better around those events and migrate some tasks to another day, if it is a “spur of the moment” request, or not scheduling anything around it if it is something scheduled in advance.

The tasks I could do by myself got done within two days of when they first appeared, while tasks I needed help to accomplish took longer if they got done at all.  There were a couple of tasks that I could do alone which I did have to migrate to June, however, most of the tasks I had to migrate to June were those I need help to accomplish.

Accomplishments

• Made my own word count spread sheet
• Continued Calendar/Organization blog
• Started the Wordcrafter blog
• Completed Writer resume and sent out five resumes
• Exceeded my word count, though much of it was editing time, which includes the time to prepare and write the blog posts.  I would like to have more new words.  I will work on that.

Goals for June

• Word count goal: 30K overall and 10K on novel WIP
• Revise resume and apply to lead given me by a friend
• Find a neurologist
• Continue the blogs
• Figure out what system I will explore after the 8^th week of the Bullet Journal.

I am counting the coming week as week 7. 

Have a great week and I will do the same.  

If you have any ideas, requests, suggestions, about what system I should explore after I am done with the Bullet Journal, please advise.  It must be free or have a basic free version available online, since I am dead broke.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Bright Blessings!