Bullet Journal Updates *WIP Wednesday*

Happy Hump Day! One of the topics you will start to see more often on the blog is WIP Wednesday! What is a WIP, you may be saying? Work in progress, of course! Usually a WIP is a crafting term, and of course you will see some true crafts featured on the blog. But this could include some life changes, professional moves, and like today, my bullet journal.

One of the most frequent tips you will see if you search the web for “how to bullet journal” or something similar is that you should evaluate, and re-evaluate, and adjust. I must admit, although I’ve been bullet journaling for over a year (May 2017, according to my first journal), I haven’t been great at the adjusting part. I evaluate often, but honestly, I just search the internet for cool fun ideas and use them. Well, I think I have finally learned to learn what works for me. July is the first month in the past year-ish that I logged in my bullet journal almost every single day, on every single tracker.

Habit Tracker I found myself getting discouraged quite easily when I was “breaking the chain”. I tried using the reward system, but honestly, I wasn’t incentivized enough. I finally borrowed the idea of tracking both positive and negative habits. So, there are things that I want to be tracked everyday (green highlights) and things that I do not want to appear very often (pink highlights). This way, I can see both what I am doing good, what I am doing bad, and what I have no control over, but still occurs often. It takes away perceptions of how often I do things, because it’s right in front of me. It also allows me to set goals for things that I need to either get better at or cut back on, and make them conscious efforts.

Mood Tracker July was my first attempt at a mood tracker, and I was very worried. This was something that I added because I thought it looked fun. But honestly, I was pleased. You can see that I did miss one day, but for the most part I have a very colorful pineapple. I discovered that I spend much more time being happy and thankful than sad and grumpy, which wasn’t what I expected if I’m being honest. It was actually really fun for me to sit down and think about what mood dominated my day and fill in the pineapple. August’s mood tracker is a beach scene and I am even more excited to track than I was in July.

Gratitude Log This was also a first for me. I saw the sunshine and it spoke to me. Of my trackers, this was the one that I used the least. Honestly, I just kept forgetting that this was a page in the bullet journal that I needed to be paying attention to. For August, I’ve decided to do a morning log rather than an evening log. I like this idea because what you’re grateful for will shift from morning to afternoon, and I think it’s going to be very interesting for me to compare the two. I also think it’s important to have the variety in my tracking. Much more insightful this way.

Notes Page I find that I am often thinking of things, scribbling them on random sheets of paper, and then losing them for weeks. I am hoping that having a designated page in my bullet journal (which is with me 99% of the time), I can take notes and find them later.

Conditional To-Do List This is new for August. I read an article that I found via Twitter about conditional to-do lists for productivity. The concept is simple: create one to do list for high energy days and one to do list for days when moving your @$$ is a struggle. Every item on the to-do list is important in it’s own way- even if it’s just about self-care. I added a tracker for how often I choose each option, mostly to spread the wealth amongst the items. I don’t plan on using this to-do list daily, but rather consulting it when I’m sitting around with some down time and using it to my advantage. I’m hoping that it will help me be better about practicing certain habits, such as practicing a language and tidying up more often.

What’s your favorite page from my current bullet journal? Do you bullet journal? What’s your favorite type of tracker and why? Leave me a note in the comments, I would love to hear from you!