Planning the Shadow Wandering
I love paper planners. I’ve tried all kinds of them. I’ll find almost any excuse to try a new one. And none of them have really worked well for me. So I’ve mapped out a lot of shadow paths I don’t want to explore again. Because none of the preprinted paper planners seem to work for me.
A few years ago, an author friend of mine gave me a bullet journal for my birthday. I decided to give bullet journaling a try. And I failed miserably for the first year. But something clicked mentally. The next year I failed less miserably.
I tweaked the way I was using my bullet journal, which really the whole purpose – make it work for you. It’s still not perfect. I still fail somewhat. But this year I’m using it on a far more regular basis. And I’m tracking some things I really want to track. I haven’t managed to track them all, but I’m getting better at it.
And I’m figuring out what I need to change for 2020. My current journal is the size of a trade paperback. It feels tight when I try to plan out a week. It’s possible but not comfortable. So next year’s journal will be larger.
I like being creative and using lots of colors. That means toting around lots of pens – because my journal needs to be mobile. I’m working on a space efficient way to carry all of my pens and my ruler and stencils. The stencils need to be available – because I may be creative, but I can barely draw (something I’m working on improving) and I certainly can’t do it quick enough to make it worth doing to decorate my journal.
I’m still working on what I want to track next year and how. Some of my tracking formats worked and some not so much. I have a few months to figure it out and a special notebook just for playing around with ideas.
My bullet journal is something I need. But I also need to want to use it. It needs to be useful, creative, and fun. It needs to be able to adjust and update when I need it to. It’s getting there – and I’m enjoying tweaking it as I go.