Journal Journey Part 2

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. 

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. 

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.  

             

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. 

A continuation of my winter meal ideas and also a listed overview of the month of February.  This is the page I am not sure I will keep doing going forward.  And you can also see my haphazard doodles.  You also don't need all this color but you know me.  I'm a color junkie.  

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Journal journey.

In my quest to live intentionally, act with intent, do what I intend…all that, I have been focusing on getting better organized.  I found myself kind of just floating though my days, sometimes getting done what I wanted and sometimes, well, you know,  la-de-dah…

A step I have taken to become better organized is to use a journal.  I reviewed a bunch of different sites (a rabbit hole to be sure), sat through a webinar, ordered a journal and tried to figure out if my life is busy enough these days to even bother with journaling/scheduling/task-list making.  I’ve discovered it actually is and thinking that it wasn’t is exactly where I went wrong in my intent to be better organized.

Does that make sense? Stay with me, I’ll go a bit deeper.

Like all of you, I have things I need to get done…every day, every week, every other week, every month; just like you.  I realize lately that there are things I was not paying much attention to, just sort of la-de-dahing them.  Minor things such as dusting regularly to bigger things such as having routine maintenance done on the car, even on myself.  I mean none of this is life threatening but it still is not something you should just let go, right?

So around my birthday in October, when I “take stock” of my year and begin to think about what I want my next year to look like, I determined to be intentional in all things.  As previously written, if Joy was my word for 2017, then Intent would be my word, my goal, moving in to 2018.  The second of January or so I realized I was woefully out of sync with intent  and is when I started a new “bullet journal”.  (I have mentioned this previously and linked to a site where, if interested, you can learn more, but, here is the link again bulletjournal.com) In my new journal, I made lists, I have charts, I have plans, menus, recipes, ideas, goals both personal and financial.  I have a page or two of word dumps. Huh? Don't worry, I will get into that in another post.

   

I began to experiment with the journal, messing up a few times.  Scratching things off a couple of times or rearranging the format more than a couple of times.  I even ripped out a page and that’s a no no in journaling.  But, I have begun getting more accustomed to looking at the journal’s calendar every day.  (I do need reminders after all, and while I like my phone, I don’t use the calendar there ~ just can’t get into it).  I have also gotten better at taking time for myself every day.  Now, I get it.  You may be saying to yourself, but, you are retired.  Isn’t all your time for yourself? No, no its not.  And even though I am with just myself a lot does not mean I am accomplishing things FOR myself.  And this is another topic I will post about in a separate entry.  For my male readers ~ don't think this won't be for you, too.  Stick with me... journaling may work for all of us.   

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