bullet journal Archives - Pinecone Papers

Bullet Journal 101 — Should You use a Practice Journal?

jess — Mon, 20 May 2019 20:15:10 +0000

Whether you’re just starting out with bullet journaling, or you’ve been at it for years, using a practice bullet journal is something a lot of people do to help stay motivated and creative. Why? Because drafting spreads, layouts and collections without fear of “messing up” your bullet journal can keep you journaling! Perhaps you feel intimidated by the amazingly perfect layouts and lettering you see on Instagram, Youtube and Pinterest and you don’t know how to start. Or you found a new layout and you’re itching to try it out but you don’t quite have a spot in your journal just yet. Or maybe you just aren’t getting the hang of spacing out your boxes or headings and it’s causing some frustration. To prevent the common paralysis that can come from staring at a blank page and wondering how to get the layout in your head onto the paper, give yourself somewhere to draft and practice! Before we get to the tips, I want to take a moment to say that while I personally do enjoy planning out my layouts in a practice bullet journal, I have the utmost respect for anyone who does NOT need to have their journal evenly spaced or whatnot. There is a lot of pressure out there in the community to have a pristine “perfect” journal and I am NOT trying to feed into that. What I am suggesting is how to practice layouts and lettering, just as you would practice if you were learning to play the guitar or learning to cook. Your journal is for YOU and you alone. The purpose of this post is to say it’s okay to practice and plan your layouts if you need to get over feeling “stuck” or you are striving to have your journal also be an expression of your creativity. How to Use a Practice Bullet Journal Here are some super quick tips on starting and using a practice journal: Buy something inexpensive that is similar to what you’re using now. I used to practice on regular printer paper but then I switched to a second bullet journal and that made all the difference. I could feel the binding under my wrist and I could understand spacing. Michaels, Walmart and Amazon all have inexpensive options. Use pencil first. Again, the whole idea here is to get you over the fear of making mistakes and to get your creative juices flowing. If you start in pencil, you can erase to your heart’s content. I often come up with my best layouts by trying things on the page and erasing until I have an “ah-ha!” moment. Use a ruler or straight guides. When you first start out, you won’t have an instinctive feeling for how much space you need for weekly boxes or columns (for example). Use your ruler to map out even spaces. You’ll also be more happy with your lines (and trust me – you’ll learn how to draw straight lines without a ruler later!) Play with color. I am notoriously terrible at picking colors for anything – outfits, home decor, etc. I use my practice journal to try different colors together to see if they look nice or completely clash. I also have pages of color swatches I can reference! Find your favorite pens. I use my practice journal to write and draw with different pens and then separate those out into my “favorite” pen case. Some pens are amazing for certain things like bold lettering, but terrible for everyday writing. Some pens roll along the page like butter while others feel sharp and weird. This is the journal to help you test them out and see what works for you. Keep in mind that paper in your practice journal may be different than in your main journal, so you should also have a page or two in the back of your main journal for pen tests. Now that you’ve drafted your page in the practice journal, you can start the process again in your main journal! I recommend starting in pencil again. I use pencil a lot in my main journal because I still like to get my spacing right. I also use it throughout the day to add “ticks” or numbers to my trackers that will change as the day progresses. Here’s a before and after of a simple weekly layout I was trying out this week. I had a couple of tweaks in the practice journal before I found the spacing I liked and the colors I wanted to use. You can see I refined it a bit in the main journal, which always feels easier to do after drafting. And guess what? The “practice” journal may feel more natural and you may actually appreciate the unrefined look! It’s perfectly okay to just keep going in your “practice” journal if that feels good. Do what feels right for you. I hope this has given you some ideas on how to use a practice bullet journal and I’d love to hear your own thoughts and ideas! Do you use a practice bullet journal? Email me and let me know!

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8 Ways to Simplify Your Bullet Journal Planning

jess — Mon, 06 May 2019 01:40:09 +0000

When I first started planning, I was captivated by the artistic and creative bullet journal spreads you see all over Instagram and Pinterest. Sometimes I still get a little creativity bug and spend hours drawing things out, but today I want to give you some tips on how to keep your planning simple. Do you find yourself shying away from using your planner because it’s taking too much time or effort? Planning should be the right mix of productivity, tracking, journaling and reflection. Each of us has our own formula for the “right mix”, but one things is for sure — you shouldn’t feel like it’s a full time job or exhausting! I use my BUJO each morning and some evenings. For the month of May, I’m trying to keep my layouts as simple as possible because I’m in a lupus flare and I just need something easy to work with. Here are some things I do to keep it simple. 1: Use templates Don’t reinvent the wheel for every tracker or weekly layout. Try using the same style throughout your planner or throughout a single month. This not only makes setup a lot easier, but it helps with understanding patterns and easily referencing past events. You can also download and print calendars, trackers or other layouts and then paste them into your planner or use page-sized sticker paper so you don’t need to draw everything out. Here’s a printable flare symptom tracker I created, if you need a template for tracking self-care and symptoms. 2: Plan your colors and themes to prevent “creator’s block” If you do like to get artistic with your planner, choose a theme before you get started each month. This can help keep your creativity flowing when facing a blank page. My May theme for this year incorporates purple butterflies. May is Lupus Awareness month and purple is the awareness color. The butterfly is often used as a sort of “mascot” for lupus. I’ll pick 2-3 purple colors and one accent color to use throughout the month, along with a couple of simple butterfly doodles I can place on pages as time and energy allows. The key here is to not go overboard with a giant color palette or too many intricate drawings if you’re keeping it simple. 3: Cut your words in half If you’re the only one reading your planner, you can easily cut your words in half, especially in your bulleted task or event lists. Examples: “Go to the pharmacy” becomes “pharm” “Madison has band practice at 2pm” becomes “2pm M Band” “Watch Game of Thrones at 7pm” becomes “7pm GOT” “Get oil changed in the morning” becomes “Oil AM” This is also known as “rapid logging”. I know some planners who also use their own shorthand or codes throughout their planner, which cuts down on space and time! 4: Nail down some simple (and fast) headers you can use everywhere One of the ways to spice up your planner and also keep it simple is to learn one or two fonts that you can easily draw when creating your headers. I like a faux-calligraphy or brush lettering font and a simple upper-case font for my headers. When I stick to just two styles, I can get things down on paper much faster and easier. If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s a fun blog post from bannersnack showing 50 lettering fonts. 5. Use Sticky Notes Sticky notes are great to keep around the house when you aren’t sitting with your planner. I keep some in the kitchen, in my purse and next to my bed so I can jot down any tasks or thoughts that come up. This has helped me “brain dump” and then I can sort the notes and add everything the next time I sit down with my BUJO. They’re also great for helping you layout any pages or spreads and I use them as place-holders when I’m planning out a new month. 6. Audit your layouts and collections every month For a long time, I was just doing the same thing over and over each month, assuming I needed to duplicate everything to be productive. But what I didn’t realize was that some of my pages were actually causing me to dread using my planner. Sometimes we outgrow a specific layout or we have moved into a different season of our lives. Perhaps you don’t want to find more Netflix shows to binge this month, or you have really nailed your 3-month mission to drink more water and now it’s a well-established habit you don’t need to track. Look back over the last month and only set up pages and sections that are truly serving you. 7. Make mistakes and embrace time gaps A sure-fire way to stop using your planner is to never allow yourself to make mistakes or miss filling in your trackers or calendar spreads. You’re human and your planner is not being submitted to the Hall of Perfectionism! Let yourself cross things out, write the wrong date, get confused, say the wrong thing, ramble, use the wrong color, or spill tea on some pages. Most importantly, when you’re really feeling terrible or going through something difficult, give yourself permission to neglect your planner so you can just get through the day! I’ve talked about why it’s perfectly okay to neglect your planner here, and it’s important to cut yourself some slack. 8. Go back to basics I’ve saved this tip for last because it’s often suggested but can also be tough. It’s something people really don’t want to do if they’ve already been planning for some time and enjoy the creative styles they worked hard to learn. BUT, if you’re finding that you’re making excuses to not use your planner like, “it takes too long to draw that out,” or “I’ll need to find some inspiration first”… it might feel great to just get back to basics. If you’re using the Bullet Journal Method, I recommend heading back to Ryder Carroll’s site and reading through how to set up and use a bullet journal. Then, grab a single pen and put everything else away for a while. Use only one pen and just use the method as Ryder teaches it. If you’re using a planner like Happy Planner, the same thing applies — put all of your pens and stickers away for a bit and just use a single pen and maybe one highlighter. Now, you may find (like I did when I tried this) that the creative part of planning is actually a huge motivation for you and stripping that away is difficult. But, you’ll also find that the act of planning is much easier when you go back to basics and this can bring you back to a productive baseline for a little while. Give it a try if you’re feeling overwhelmed and just need to simplify. What has helped you keep things more simple in your planner? Feel free to reach out to me at jess@pineconepapers.com and share your ideas!

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How to BUJO: A Basic Guide to the Bullet Journal

jess — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 20:36:45 +0000

I’ve always loved journaling and I can’t count how many notebooks I have spread all over the house. If tasks are not on a to-do list, they simply won’t get done. So when I found Ryder Carroll’s bullet journal system (BUJO for short), I immediately fell in love. So just what is a “bullet journal”, anyway? I’d love to summarize this super-easy system here for you and show you some of the basics. You can also find links to Ryder’s official Bullet Journal resources below and I highly recommend checking those out! Ryder calls this the “analog system for a digital age.” That right there hooked me. I’m tired of using multiple apps on my phone to track and organize my life (which actually made things more chaotic), I want less screen-time and I adore writing by hand. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Why Start a Bullet Journal? Before we dive into the “how”, let’s take a quick look at the “why”. On the surface, the BUJO is simply a system to allow you to rapidly track and organize your life using a simple bullet system in any notebook. But it’s SO much more than that. When I say this system has changed me, I don’t mean it’s made me more organized (although it’s definitely done that!). I mean I am more “into” my life, more mindful of myself, more grateful, and more connected to my goals for the future. I’m using it to track and cope with my chronic illness. I’m no longer walking through life reacting to things — I’m purposefully and intentionally planning, dreaming and reflecting. I’m truly happier and feel more positive about my life. Ryder started this system out of a desire to reduce distraction and lead a more intentional life. Listen to him speak on this topic here! How to Get Started with a Bullet Journal This is where the fun begins. To get started, you really only need a notebook or journal and a pen or pencil. Now let’s take a look at the system and the pieces that make the whole thing magical. The bullet journal has a couple of key concepts: Rapid logging, Modules and Migration. Let’s go through each. Rapid Logging The key is to get your tasks, events, ideas, etc. down as quickly and easily as possible in bullet form. There are specific bullets for different types of entries, and you can add a little “extra” to your list with signifiers such as stars and exclamation points. Bullet Journal Modules The four modules are the way to keep all of your entries organized. They consist of: The Index The Future Log The Monthly Log The Daily Log The Index is exactly what it sounds like and keeps all of your important collections and logs organized so you can find them later. The Bullet Journal Future Log The Future log is a great way to capture all of the events, tasks and other entries that are coming up a few months down the line. When you capture them here, it’s really easy to move them over to the Monthly log when that month comes up. Here’s how my Future Log looks before I’ve added entries: The Bullet Journal Monthly Log Your Monthly log layout is a simple page with the dates (and days of the week, if you like) listed down the page. You will add any big tasks, events, appointments, etc. here so that you can then refer to it when you’re making your Weekly log and Daily logs. The Bullet Journal Weekly Log / Spread The “Weekly log” is not something that was originally described with the Bullet Journal system, but many people use it –it’s one of the more popular additions by the BUJO community. This simple weekly spread layout below has enough space for tasks and events in each day, with a small section for notes and tasks at the bottom. There are tons of variations on the Weekly spread and it’s something many of us experiment with! The Bullet Journal Daily Log This the heart of the BUJO and where you’ll spend most of your time. I want to stress that when you start your BUJO you really should stick to a simple layout (the header/date and your bullet list). As you discover patterns to your day, you could add things like a daily tracker, a gratitude section, a place to jot down memories from the day, etc. Keeping to the simple format helps you stay in the habit, even though it’s okay to go to weeklies if you need to. Migration Migration is just the act of moving tasks from one area to another so that they will be completed. Most migration happens monthly or weekly, while other tasks need to be migrated to the next daily log. Bullet Journal Collections Everything in your bullet journal is a “collection”. All of your logs are collections and you can index them as such. But other types of collections make the BUJO really come alive. My favorites are usually lists, journal / reflection pages, trackers and mind-maps. There are endless ideas for collections, but some of the more popular include things like a savings tracker, bucket lists, gratitude logs and meal planning ideas. For my chronic illness planning, I have my flare symptom tracker, medication and appointment pages, and lots more! Bullet Journal Tools and Supplies You just need a notebook and a pen. That’s it. Any notebook and any pen will do. That being said… many of us have become quite enamored with specific types of notebooks, pens, markers, planners, washi tapes, etc. You can check out the tools I personally use here, but just remember that you don’t need all of this. 🙂 I’ve experimented with several types of systems, including a dot-grid or square-grid notebook, a disc-bound planner and a traveler’s notebook / journal. Each of them have great features! For now, I’m currently using a dot-grid journal, which I find to be the easiest to start with. Joining the Bullet Journal Community The bullet journal has sparked an amazing community of all types of planners using this system in countless ways and supporting one another by sharing ideas. People like me who are living with a chronic illness use it for tracking symptoms and treatments, and being more mindful about how to be more happy and fulfilled within our limitations. College students use it for scheduling and studying, small business owners use it for goal planning, parents use it for creating memories and reducing stress… Many people use it for a mix of these things and much more! It’s useful for anyone and adaptable for anything. You’ll find thriving communities on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook where photos of spreads are inspiring eye candy. Many bullet journalists get very creative with their journals — others revel in being as minimalistic as possible, sticking to the very bare-bones basics of the system. No matter how you use your bullet journal, you’re sure to find like-minded bullet journalists from all over the globe to connect with. When to Use Your Bullet Journal Everyone does this differently, but it’s best to try to use your BUJO every day, especially for the first few weeks to get into the groove. You just need a few minutes! I write in mine at night, documenting things that happened during the day and then setting up the next day (or week if it’s Sunday). I find it calms me and is a great way to end my day. Others start their day with their BUJO and then wrap things up at night. If your day is super busy and things are flying at you all the time, it might be best to keep it nearby to jot new appointments down, make notes of new ideas, or also just to capture a quick memory you don’t want to forget! Making the Bullet Journal Your Own The real beauty of this system is how customizable it is. You really can use any type or size of notebook, pens, and other supplies to make it truly your own. For a couple of years, it felt more natural for me to have removable pages, so I moved to a disc-based planner. Now I’m back to the dot-grid and loving it again! Since you’ll only capture a few months in each journal, it’s easy to make a switch if you want to try something new! I hope this introduction to the Bullet Journal system has raised your curiosity and sparked your interest to try it! If you’re looking for ways to plan with a chronic illness, I’ve got two fun resources for you: First, sign up for my newsletter to get weekly tips and inspiration and you’ll also get free printables that you can add to a disc-bound planner or just paste right into your notebook or journal! Sign up and download the Flare Symptom Tracker! Join hundreds of other chronic illness planners and get access to a library of printables when you sign up for the newsletter! We never send spam. Unsubscribe any time. Next, check out my video below where I flip through my bullet journal and talk about some of my favorite spreads and collections! It’s great inspiration on how a BUJO can help you manage your chronic illness. Visit Ryder Carrol’s amazing resources! Here’s where I send you over to the best “Getting Started” guide out there — Ryder’s website at bulletjournal.com. Click on “Start” at the top and scroll through that page. I also highly recommend watching his overview video here! Quick Links to More Resources: Visit bulletjournal.com Watch the overview video “How to Bullet Journal” How to Lead an Intentional Life – Ryder’s Ted Talk The Bullet Journal Method – the book!

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Tracking Your Flare Symptoms in Your Bullet Journal

jess — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 01:05:36 +0000

Normally, I try to journal a little about how I feel each day during a flare, but pain and swelling in my hands can make that pretty difficult, especially after typing all day at work. So, a few years ago I created a simple flare tracker for my bullet journal that lets me easily keep an eye on the most important stuff when writing in paragraph format just feels too overwhelming. I hope this kind of tracker is helpful for you, too! If you’d like a printable flare symptom tracker to add to your bullet journal or planner, head over to the Free Printables Library and join the newsletter to get access, or sign up below! This flare tracker is meant to be very easy to use, and I’ve left some room on the printable version for you to add additional symptoms, events or activities that you want to keep track of. A tracker like this is a great tool to reflect on how you’re feeling and it’s also helpful to share with my doctor. Flare Tracker Elements Pain and Fatigue plotter Keep track of pain and fatigue on a scale of 0-3 with 0 being none/very little and 3 very high. You’ll probably have different levels throughout the day, but this is an overall score for the entire day. If you find yourself having a lot of ups and downs every day, consider tracking morning and afternoon/night with two different colors on the plotter. Medications Enter the number of times you take symptom relief medications that day that are not part of your daily medication regimen, like over-the-counter pain relievers or meds your doctor has prescribed for temporary use. Check off or write a “y” (for yes) on each day that you take your regular medications. This can be crucial in showing how missing medications can affect your symptoms. IDEA: You could also denote days when you have increased your regular medication (like steroids, DMARDs or anti-seizure medication) during the flare with an “up arrow”, a circle or other marker Daily Symptoms & Feelings I’ve played with different ways to rate things here, but found simple y/n and 0-3 to be easiest to understand and to use to compare everything. You can certainly use different words and ratings, but it’s a good idea to place a key somewhere on your page, especially if you are making copies for your doctor. Think back over your last few flares and add symptoms or other important things you want to track. It could be anything from your menstrual cycle to a specific activity such as physical therapy appointments. The important thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need to track everything. If you find that you have the same answer to everything every month, consider eliminating that row from your flare tracker. That being said, I personally would never eliminate my medication row, and I also would keep any activity I’m trying to build into a habit so I can see consistent progress and feel great about it (such as “going to bed on time”). The section under “How I feel Today” captures emotional well-being and cognitive symptoms or “fog” that many of us get directly from our chronic illness, from medications, or from pain or other symptoms. If you notice a lot of consistently high numbers here, you might want to talk to your health care provider about how to get your emotional health in a better state. For me, I notice that I have a lot of anxiety when my pain is high. This means keeping my pain under control is a top priority not just to make my body feel better, but to help my emotional well-being. Taking Care of Yourself This is the new section of the flare symptom tracker that I added for 2019. I really wanted to focus on self-care habits and put each activity in the front of my mind every day. I’ll be honest, there are times when I am not doing so well with taking care of myself and I feel guilty. But, the whole point of a tracker like this is not to make you feel bad — but to help you feel empowered to make the changes you need to feel better! If you’re finding you aren’t drinking enough water, for example, start a new page in your journal to jot down ideas on how to change that! Most importantly, cut yourself some slack if you fall off the self-care wagon a little bit. WE ALL DO. Creating the Flare Tracker by Hand I started by counting how many columns my journal has on the page. This could be different depending on the journal, so be sure to count out 31 columns for days from the right-side so you have enough days! Next, I added the main dividers for the left-side tracking labels and the two main plotters. Finally, I added the labels and the monthly header. I really recommend downloading the printable to use as a guide if you’re planning to draw this every month by hand. Sometimes I like to use color to plot and show highs and lows throughout my day. Sometimes I color things on the day I record it, other times (during the flare, especially), I just leave coloring for another time. And sometimes I don’t color anything at all. The important thing is that I tracked, not that I colored the square. 🙂 Here’s a sample tracker I created just as an example of how it looks all filled in for the month. One thing I like to do is show where a flare started. This can be hard to tell right away, but the tracker helps you see the patterns after a few days have gone by. Here’s an example of an easy way to show the beginning of a flare, especially if it continues into the next month. I’ve also created a video showing how to draw the flare symptom tracker and I go into each section in a bit more detail. You can check it out here! I hope this flare tracker helps you as much as it’s helped me and I’d love to hear from you by email at jess@pineconepapers.com!

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The “Core Four” Daily Habit Tracker for the Bullet Journal

jess — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 23:43:32 +0000

I’ve seen a lot of incredibly creative bullet journal habit trackers for weekly and monthly spreads. Since the daily spread is my absolute favorite, I’ve gone a different direction and created a simple daily habit tracker. I’m calling it the “core four” because I think tracking just four habits each day is enough to help motivate me without being overwhelming. Okay – sometimes tracking even ONE habit is overwhelming, but we all have bad days! 🙂 While a weekly or monthly habit tracker is fantastic for seeing how you’re doing over time, I use this daily tracker to simply be mindful each night about my habits and then give them a large space in the spread to signify their importance. Simply put, it keeps those four habits top-of-mind, which in turn helps motivate me to strive to do better each day. Choosing the “Core Four” Habits to Track I’ll admit, I have a lot of habits I’d love to improve and I could (and probably will, eventually) make a big table tracker full of all that stuff. But for this tracker, I sat and thought about the most important habits I need to really lock down to have a happier, healthier life right now. For me, those habits are simply: Drink more water Eat more nutritious foods Be more active Sleep better My ultimate goal here is to get those four habits to be so ingrained into my daily life that I can start replacing them with new habits to improve! I’ll probably be able to knock out “drink more water” in the next couple of months, which will open that slot for a new “core” habit! The Daily Habit Tracker Layout This cadent pattern is something I picked up a few years ago when learning more about zentangle. It’s one of the simplest and I just love the dimension it adds to my daily spread. Best of all, it’s super easy to make and needs just a minimal amount of shading. Here’s how I learned to do it: Note: It’s easiest to make if you’re using a dot or grid paper. Starting on the left, draw a small open circle around a dot or in the intersection of the square grid. Count out 4 to 6 dots/squares depending on how big you want the tracker to be, and draw the next circle. Continue counting and drawing your circles until you have a grid of three across and three down, for a total of nine circles. Starting on the left top, you’ll be connecting the circles with a curved line. To do this, start at the bottom of the top left circle and end the line above the first circle to the right. Draw all of your horizontal lines in the same way for the three rows of circles. Turn your page 90 degrees and repeat the lines in the same way. Lastly, shade the circles to give depth to the drawing. Once your cadent sections are drawn, you can enter your labels and leave space for your tracking! Interested in more layouts and ideas? Sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get regular emails from me, including a printable guide for the Core Four! Variations for the “Core Four” Daily Habit Tracker If you don’t want to track four habits, it’s easy to modify this layout into a single row (for two or three habits) or expand it into two columns and three or four rows to track even more! The possibilities are fun to consider! Labeling and tracking are also fun to experiment with! It really depends on how much time you want to spend drawing, lettering and coloring. Each day can be completely different, if that fuels your creativity! I hope this daily habit tracker inspires you and I’d love to hear more about what “core” habits you like to track! <a href=”mailto:jess@pineconepapers.com”>Feel free to email me</a>.

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Why Sometimes it’s Perfectly Okay to Neglect Your Bullet Journal

jess — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 20:35:50 +0000

When I first started bullet journaling, I was so excited and full of ideas that I could have spent an entire week writing, listing, lettering and drawing. Like many new passions, I dove in head first and couldn’t imagine missing a single day. But is that realistic? A few months in, I had a lupus flare up and I went into “survival mode” which meant I was lucky if I could cook dinner for my family, let alone plan for the next day. Once I adjusted to the flare, I felt bad that I had missed an entire week in my BUJO. Guilt is a powerful feeling. It can be a great motivator to help us make positive changes in our lives. But, for many of us, it can also be a giant weight around our necks that keeps us from rising up and moving forward. I began to ask myself, “If the BUJO is supposed to be a simple tool to help me, why do I feel guilty for neglecting it?” The answer is actually pretty simple. I felt I wasn’t being productive – and that was just unacceptable! The house could be on fire, the flood is raging down the street, the sky is falling — but I must get the task list checked off! It scared me to think that I lost a week — but that’s because while bullet journaling is the best way I’ve found to keep me on task, seeing blank spreads and white pages is pretty “in your face” about what you didn’t get done. I needed to overcome those feelings, so I opened up that box of guilt and mindfully explored how to get back on track while acknowledging that it will happen again. I’d love to share my thoughts on this in hopes that it will help you feel okay with neglecting your own BUJO sometimes! I think it’s really important to think through reasons you may drop journaling so that you can pick it back up again and let it continue to be a positive force in your life. When Life gets Crazy – Give Yourself some Grace There will always be times where you need time to rest, recover, or take a break from daily routines. Sometimes, life throws some pretty big curveballs. Remember how I mentioned “survival mode” before? We’ve all been there. You’ve lost your job. You just got some scary news about your health. You’ve just lost a loved one. In those times of crises, you may actually find a sense of distraction and normalcy by writing in your bullet journal and keeping to a schedule. Or, you may find it incredibly overwhelming while you’re navigating a “new normal”. In times like these, it’s critical to ask yourself: “Is my bullet journal helping me feel better right now, or is it causing more stress?” If it’s making you feel overwhelmed to keep up with your daily spreads, then give yourself some grace and take a little break. Life is also going to throw some magical times at you! Your sister is in town for the long weekend. You’re hosting a huge birthday party for your son. You’re on a vacation with your friends and happily dropping into bed each night, exhausted from the day’s activities. When you’re too busy with a big life event or you only have a few precious days to spend with family or friends, your bullet journal can wait until life is back to normal. Explore WHY you like using a bullet journal When I got back into my journal, I needed to truly understand why I do it and why I love it so much. Once I purposefully wrote down my reasons, it became clear that it’s SO much more than a task-management system and collection organizer. Journaling helps me be mindful and focus on improving myself. Rather than being reactionary and trying to cope with things as they happen to me, my journal helps me create a space where I can: Purposefully plan ahead for greater things Recognize and document what I am grateful for Find patterns in my health, behaviors and habits that I can improve Organize my thoughts and feelings Engage my mind in a new way (handwriting and drawing) Express myself creatively Once I realized all of the ways my bullet journal helps me, it actually helped release a lot of my guilt over neglecting it here and there. Why? Because it’s actually a lot of work to feel and do all of those things in that list! While they are all very important to my well-being, make no mistake — it’s also work. Writing down all the ways your bullet journal helps you can quickly show how much hard work you put into your journaling — and into yourself! (Hey, you’re awesome!) This activity is a really great way to also identify sections you could completely neglect while keeping to bare-bones essentials. Maybe you just came down with the flu. Would it be okay to only write out tomorrow’s task list and leave out your ‘grateful for’s’, health tracking and daily summary? Of course! The main take-away here is that sometimes you just need to let yourself BE. You don’t always have to take advantage of all the wonderful ways your BUJO helps you. Maybe it feels like too much work sometimes, or maybe you just don’t need to get into all that every day! Be flexible and give yourself some grace. For me, living with a chronic illness and having a big family means there are plenty of days when life is throwing some heavy stuff my way (good and bad). Sometimes I need to take a break. Other days, life is feeling very peaceful and slow. I’ll be sitting outside watching the birds in my garden and journaling doesn’t even come to mind. And that’s perfectly okay. I hope some of this has resonated with you! I’d love to hear your own thoughts on neglecting your BUJO. Feel free to leave a comment below or you can email me at jess@pineconepapers.com!

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