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Disclaimer: The author is not affiliated or connected with any services, businesses, or persons mentioned. This is not a sponsored post. The author simply wants to share the resources and inspiration that she has been blessed with.
Right now I am sharing solutions that I have found for a lack of organization and focus. Last year was long and hard, and all of that time in the house with no obligations outside made both of these a low, low priority. I am seeing the results of that as I look around my house and at my business progress- aka zero. I am in desperate need of some organization, focus, and inspiration for myself, and can’t wait to see the fruit of the things I will be working into my life over the next few weeks. I will start with what started to get me back on track a couple of months ago, and flat out helped me to not forget everything over those months.
I have loved the idea of bullet journaling and keeping track of every single detail of my life there for years. I sometimes watch bullett journaling videos on Youtube when I’m feeling disorganized (ChristineMyLinh is my absolute favorite!). Seeing someone else make sense of their life is so nice to watch, and reminds me that it is possible. I have tried this type of planning a few times before, but to take that much time to make a journal spread that will only last one week or month almost killed me, so I gave it up as something that was only for those “people who live alone and have lots of time” and went back to a regular planner that didn’t work for me. I didn’t even use it for a full week!
Then I tried just writing a list down on notebook paper. This actually does work well for me, but I would make notes through the day and lose them when I finished my day’s work. Also, tracking what I was falling behind in was hard, because I just crumbled the list (showing what I had and had not accomplished through the day) and threw it into a trash can at the end of the day. I needed to be able to track what I was and was not doing, be able to go back and see any notes, and know where any of those notes were easily.
A third problem is that I love to journal. The written word is a balm for my soul when what I think and feel won’t leave my mouth. However, this meant that I was writing in a journal daily, and using a notebook for lists. If I had an important note to write, I put it in the journal among all of my deepest thoughts and feelings- and had to search extensively to find it later.
In frustration, I gave up the lists unless I had REALLY important things to accomplish or remember. This did not last long. I could not remember everything- important tasks and appointments were slipping from my mind constantly, it seemed. I felt about to burst from the constant strain of trying to remember it all.
At this same time, my journal was running out of space, and since we were isolating, I could not just run out to get another one. I dug through my supplies and found I had two options- a journal with no lines (a feature I particularly despise, since I do not write in straight lines without them), or my bullett journal that I gave up on over a year before. Well, dots are better than nothing…
When I started using the bullet journal, I decided to try using it properly again, but to make it easy. I looked up minimal schemes for bullet journal weekly spreads. I found one that I decided to tweak a bit for my needs and to try it for a while. I’ve been using the same scheme since the beginning of November last year, and have loved it! It is not as pretty as I’d like. I don’t take the time to make cute little sketches through it, and I am not tracking every detail of my life, as I would like to. I do have a record of what I’m dong every day, though. I can see what I am doing well and what I am avoiding. I have my notes and reminders right there beside my lists so that I can go back by date and see them.
I picked my few, most important habits to track and placed little fill-in boxes for each day of the week, and I can track just those few things there. This setup takes me only about 10- 15 minutes to prepare each week and I am done. All I have to do is write down my list each day and fill in little boxes. Through the week, I journal in the pages following that week’s spread, and then put the next week’s spread after those journal entries.
This is working wonders for my anxiety around forgetting/losing things and has been a really good solution for keeping everything together in one place. Not to mention, I am getting better at writing across dots- maybe this will train me to write on blank sheets!
Have you tried bullett journaling? What made it easier for you? Let me know in the comments below or email me at caregiverskeeper@yahoo.com!
Caregiver’s Keeper 