My Journey with Journals

Ha ha that rhymes.

My obsession with planners and journalling began during my ninth grade when I came across this book called ‘Get Organised without Losing It’ by Janet S. Fox. It was like a bible (or Bhagavad-Gita you can say) to the little me who wanted to be organised and practical. It is an amazing book that I would recommend to any parent who has a child of 10-12 years of age. (Or a high-schooler. Anything works)

In the book, she gives tips to become organised in your school life so that you don’t miss anything and form a habit of completing tasks. She talks about using planners which will help you to (duh) plan your day, week and month and maybe an entire year.

That was it. I was completely obsessed with planners and searched every shop I could, for a planner that would suit me. The planner that I had in mind. But, sad to say that there is no such thing here. There are diaries, heavy heavy diaries with no weekly layouts but daily pages which are too short to journal or plan.

So I took to searching planner templates online so that I could print them out and use them. It was good for some time but then, the problem was that all my schedules would always be postponed or cancelled. Gahhhh. Even if I tried my best to be organised, the situation was always getting out of hand. I realised people are not organised here. They don’t even know the meaning of organisation. Well, who can blame them?

Anyway, I don’t want to whine and complain, so I was still coursing through diaries and planner templates (for years, actually) when I came across the concept of Bullet Journalling.

It is a system created by Ryder Carroll, who actually used it to keep himself organised because he suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder. He invented this system through trial and error and then shared it with his friends who told him to share it with a world.

Thank you, Ryder for bringing this system out in to the world.

I was like – this is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

The name Bullet Journal comes from the fact that you write down all your tasks in the form of bullet points and also the fact that you can use it for anything.

I am so very late in talking about this system, because there are thousands of people who took this system and made it their own. There are hundreds of blogs and thousands of videos which show the creativity of the people using the Bullet Journal.

But since the concept of Journaling itself is very rarely heard here, I thought I can take this opportunity to talk about it.

First and foremost, journaling is different from writing a diary. You evaluate yourself when you journal and don’t just write down events that happened like in a diary. Journaling has been proven to be an effective way to control your thoughts, to calm you down and to bring your life into perspective.

And a bullet journal is a compilation of all of the above – a planner, to-do list, a journal, anything. This is what caught my attention. All you need is a book and a pen. And you can start your own bullet journal. You can just go here, to the official website to check out all the information you need about what you can do.

Credits to Kim @ https://www.tinyrayofsunshine.com/

The Bullet Journal system also stresses upon the fact of writing everything out. And this is also another major thing which kept me hooked. Instead of using a planned, rigid layout, I can write or draw or do whatever template I want. If I don’t like it, I can change it. If I don’t like anything I can just turn the page and start fresh. It has also been shown that writing down things on paper can make all the difference in the world. (I don’t know how, but it must be magic)

At the end of the day, having a bullet journal helps me keep track of what I need to do and when I need to do it. Although I am lazy and forget to open my journal from time to time, I do get back and turn the page to start anew. Because it’s mine and I can do it however I ca – Welll that is what I thought but….

Recently I realised that I wasn’t using my journal effectively. I did some thinking and I came to the conclusion that I was hesitant to journal my thoughts because the pages would fill and I would have to start another journal. (What the hell - rofl) I know, I know, call me stupid. And another thing was that I was overwhelmed by all the beautiful journals out there with all the colours and paintings and perfect trackers and letterings, and I went crazy and overdid my pages which resulted in me not using them at all. My current BuJo is half-filled with blank spaces everywhere. And I’m angry at myself for this.

I’ve also realised that my journal should keep me productive and not keep me busy with the journal itself. And so, I want it to be simple and effective. Although colours and letterings are amazing, right now I don’t have time for them. If I need to get creative, I can just paint or colour a colouring book.

Oops! I was just having a talk with myself! Lol.

Anyhoo, that was about my Journey with journals.

I love books and stationary (who doesn’t? and yeah, I prefer the term intellectual badass rather than “nerd”) and bullet journaling is an outlet for my creativity and keeps me productive.

Hope you had a productive happiee day.

Stay healthy, Stay Happiee.

Lots of Love,

Vivacious Inspirit.