Alright, so, I’m
going to share some pages of my journal.
Don’t pay attention to the mistakes and the smears…that’s all part of it
being okay. Trying not to be too perfect
as our days change, plans change, weather changes….all of that. Just cross it out and make a new entry.
If you have
looked online at some of the recommendations for journaling, you will see that
they really get into doodles and design.
Now, I am a doodler from way back so have a bit of that incorporated but
not a lot. I expect that to follow,
honestly, as soon as I get over the frugality issue I have with “ruining pages”. Right now I also use titles on the pages,
which, quite frankly is a waste of time as it is obvious what those pages are…but,
you know, start big then whittle it down.
I’ve already whittled down many things to make it more functional for
me, but, you get to do what you want. Some people like charts and graphs, others like simple lists.
I recently saw
a new doctor and she changed a few things, wants to change some other stuff and
introduced a new practice for me to monitor blood sugar. She spoke quickly, had a beautiful European
accent that took me a minute, and covered both what she wanted to change and
what she was actually changing in the same sentence. Because she also asked me a lot of “Why did
they do that?” and “When was that change?” I knew I needed to write it all down
as soon as she walks out of the room. I
also copied it into my new journal as soon as I got home. Next time, I will take the journal with me to
avoid having to do twice, but, because I think it may come up when I see my
family doctor in March, I wanted to be able to reference it and be fairly
confident I have the correct information.
There’s benefit to using an index you create along the way, too. So, number your pages!
Finally, today
the last thing I want to share, and I am not posting a picture here as it is a
little more personal, is the word or brain dump. I read an article recently that we all wake
up with a jumble of words in our heads, brain
tangles, swirling around, interrupting our day, guiding our thoughts and can be
stumbling blocks. The article suggested we write these words down, dump them on
to paper, as soon as we wake up, or shortly thereafter, to get a clean slate. I have thoughts that pop in to my head all
the time and I think “Oh, I’m going to need to call them” or “I need to check
on that” and poof, they are gone within an hour. I use the word dump in two
ways: when I wake up, to untangle my overnight brain and
throughout the day as thoughts or ideas pop up.
Now, for me, this can be a crazy doodle-filled page or pages…I simply
leave the journal out and open, with a pen or pens nearby. These pages would make little sense to
someone who happened across it. I am
training myself to “write that down” instead of “filing it away for later”. My files are full, people. Follow up has always been a weak spot for me
and it’s in direct conflict with being intentional. (Interestingly, word dumping is a both a
positive and negative term in writing a novel, for example. Some use a brain dump for outlines and ideas
- good. Actual writing which results in too much information at one time - bad.)
Your brain dump can be a list, or just
explosions on a page, complete sentences or just one word. It’s yours, do what you want, but, get those
ideas and thoughts out there!
It really is all you, for you, by you. One of my favorite things has been drawing out my calendar pages every month, so I like having a journal with blank pages. Others might prefer to have formats already laid out for them; there are plenty of those out there, too. I heard that Michaels has recently designated a new section of journaling aids…haven’t checked it out personally, but, I will.
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| My March calendar looks different than my February because I separated the weekends out. There's room for a task list, too, or reminders or menu ideas..whatever I want. |
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| I use both a monthly layout and a weekly. I do not anticipate having this entire task list once I get my routine down but getting on top of my "shtuff" is what started the whole journal journey to begin with. |
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| This is a pretty rough page or two and is where I started. I had gifts to return to stores, to mail and seldom purchased items to pick up (like double A batteries and floodlight bulbs). I also was super bored with what I had been cooking so dumped all my recent meals and ideas. Found out I really wasn't cooking the same three dishes over and over again like it seemed, but I was cooking similar things. Time to shake things up. |
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