There's some links at the bottom of the post that share some of my greatest organizational inspirations. Don't hesitate to check them out. They've been sooooo helpful!
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| My Super Chunky BuJoTN |
How many times have you started to journal and stopped and were left with many half empty journals? Or tried using pre-made planners that just didn't quite work for all of your busy life. That's been the story of my life. I still have my first journal. Goodness, my handwriting was atrocious! But what it shows me is that I can journal if I put my mind to it, and I can keep a planner if I really make a conscious effort. I still have all 4 of my high school provided school planners and the practice helped to remember which assignments were due what day, the progress on my long term projects. But the closer you get to the end of the school year, the entries are a bit light. Frankly, I could have utilized them better. Instead of getting a C+, a B, and an A on my senior term paper that I turned into three different classes, I could have gotten an A in all three... if I'd just planned better. Such is the curse of 20/20 hindsight, 20 years later.
Last year I found the Bullet Journal Method of planning/planners, and thought I'd found my answer to my disorganization and forgetfulness problem. And so I gave it a shot in October using a dot grid journal with a vertical elastic enclosure made by Picadilly and purchased at my local Meijer grocery store. I very, very quickly fell out of the habit of using it. Like 4 weeks and that was it. I used a monthly spread with a habit tracker that I never looked at and weekly spreads that had daily trackers... I saw all the beautiful layouts and colorful things people were doing in their Bullet Journals. I'm crafty, but not that artsy. I can't (yet) do an awesome water color layout or splash page in my BuJo. I haven't the time! Or the skill. lol I bit off more than I could chew right off the bat.
So in the process of making two New Year's Resolutions, which I'm still doing pretty good on (more blogging/more true video gaming -not apps-), I realized that I needed to give the BuJo another shot. In February I found a far more simplified layout than what I was trying to do before.
I did pretty well until about March when I pasted into the book part of a St. Patrick's Day card with a pretty green kitty wearing a leprechaun hat. Since March is also my favorite month, but I'm not biased or anything, I pasted in a few other things...
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| Lepre-Kitten!! |
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| I swear I'm not biased towards March! |
I had started collecting some journaling stamps and ink (I definitely recommend INKBYJENG on Etsy, the calendar stamps seen in the March page above.) I already had a stack of decorative scrapbook paper stacks and card stock that sat over 5 1/2 inches tall. I even carefully cut open the front page covering the spine and upgraded the black ribbon to a collection of ribbons, each keeping a spot tagged for different collections and pages that I access all the time. A full year period tracker, Minecraft with Bubby, Podcast Notes (research and notes on Becca and I's The Feminine Quirk podcast), and of course "This Month" and "This Week" are all ribbon marked.
I added a Bullet Key to the front, a Ribbon Key to the back, and pockets for shopping receipts and grocery coupons. Before I knew it, the binding on my notebook was tearing apart and too bulky to lay flat when closed. When I had upgraded the ribbons, I had used my hot glue gun to glue it back closed. It wasn't staying. I've used super glue and tried Gorilla Glue's super glue. I even went and bought the crafter's go-to heavy duty glue, E-6000. Each time, the spine kept breaking open at the index.
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| My homemade pen clips and a typical monthly spread. |
I got into the habit of working out my monthly and weekly spreads all a month in advance. I could add things as I needed to, write down ideas for future spreads and keep up on my work and life schedules, as well as things I have to do for Pop and Bubby. I wanted to keep up on grocery lists too, but half the time I can't remember to grab the list at home. And what was on Pop's grocery list vs our grocery list. Argh. At least I figured out how I wanted to do it.
This month I tried to get back into using a habit tracker. It's the 3rd week of August and I have yet to use it. I think Habit Trackers are just not for me. But the binding issue was bugging me and the fact that I couldn't treat it like a scrapbook without completely losing the ability to close it made me sad.
Back to the internet to scour for a different way to do this. I had already purchased another Picadilly dot grid notebook for 2020 because I loved this method, and I wanted to get a jump on the next year's designing. But maybe there was a better way. I came across a plethora of YouTube bloggers (meaning they have blogs and share their YouTube videos through their blog.)
They mentioned Midori, Fauxdori, Pinkdori, Traveler's Notebook, and a slew of other terms I didn't know. Research ensued. I soon realized that Traveler's Notebooks, created and popularized by the company Midori, was where I needed to be looking. And thus the super chunky BuJoTN shown at the beginning of my post was born. I don't want to just stop using my BuJo. That would be a supreme waste of journal space so it's the top journal inside the TN. The one on the bottom is the one I had originally bought for 2020, but is now going to be solely dedicated to The Feminine Quirk. Which sadly, Becca and I have been talking about doing for over a year now and still have to record our first episode. We'll get there, but you have to forgive us. She's getting her Master's and we both work retail, and I'm a mom of a new high schooler. We've got lives outside of The Feminine Quirk... And now I just sound defensive! HA! And I'm off track again. You do remember that I have ADD, right?
CONS of BuJO:
- For me, scrapbooking or memory keeping in it causes width and closing problems.
- I set months up in advance so they are ready as I need them. I sometimes have only about 5 minutes a day to sit with the BuJo, other than my every other weekend off. Working a month in advance means my collections aren't always in logical places. Index makes it easier to locate, but that also requires me to remember to number the pages. Ugh.
- The pages in this notebook are thin. Sharpie pens, my favorite pen to write with bleed through. I also have a large Sharpie collection so I can't use those either. I also recently located 3 fountain pens which belonged to my grandmother before she passed. The ink bleeds through.
PROS of BuJo:
- Simple when I need it to be.
- Collections hold all similar information together instead of on scraps of paper all over the place.
- Dot Grid notebooks make block layouts easier to draw and lines don't mar up drawings and doodles.
- Journals are relatively cheap!
CONS of TN:
- Expensive depending on brand and material.
- Usually relatively thin.
- Odd sizing for an American, especially when the leading supplier is Japanese. I mean sheesh, A5 or A4? Letter size or Binder size? B4?? What the heck?!?!
PROS of TN:
- Can make your own TNs, inserts, dashboards, pockets, etc.
- Can use papers of your choice in designs.
- Can transfer insert sets between TNs as the need arises.
- Can be of any thickness, any number of strings.
- Can add extra elastics to get more inserts in.
So what did I want to put into this thing? Did I want to make my own or buy one? Obvs I'm trying to do this on a budget, and there were definitely things I needed to get that I didn't already have. But I did mention the 5 1/2 inch stack of decorative scrapbook paper stacks and cardstock right? Part of that was also papers and stock that my step daughter didn't want anymore that she used with her Cricut and now her Silhouette.
So where to start...
Let's see. I have some red vinyl. That's close enough to leather. I have a leather punch and grommet attacher from when I needed to alter my belt. Hmmm. I need more grommets and some elastic. Off to Jo-Ann's website I go.
Did you know that there are online only deals? Order online and pick up in store. Sure you don't know if your store has that item until you get to the check out portion, but I picked up 3 rolls of really sticky double sided adhesive by Park Lane and a scoring board for 20% off each, along with the grommets. When I went to pick them up, I went looking for the elastic and stopped by the paper crafting section. The 20% off deal wasn't available! I got the same items for cheaper because I ordered them online. From now on, any time I want to make a trip to Jo-Anns, I'm seeing if there's a deal for my items online first.
So I was quite proud of my 3-string vinyl cover. I had old buttons that I used to keep the closure elastic connected to the TN as well as one for decoration.
Then I got started on inserts and dashboards and collecting them together.
COLLECTIONS
I love the Collections aspect of Bullet Journaling. But I also love the versatility and replaceability of a Traveler's Notebook. As a result, I have stopped using the book and television trackers in my BuJo because I made a much bigger tracker insert for the TN that can accomodate years worth of tracking and not be hand-written transferred each time I start a new BuJo. That transferability checkmark in the TN Pro column.
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| My New Entertainment Collections Bundle |
by Sylvia From Wright Your Life
by Dori with LOVE
and many more! Follow My Search Query Here!
And yes, I made that dashboard cover. The paper came from a premium stack by Die Cuts With a View (DCWV) I bought back when Twilight was the craze. It's cardstock weight, so I used a lighter weight paper from some other collection that I don't remember to cover the white back of it for the inside.
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| The Immortal Love Stack, DCWV originally purchased at Jo-Ann's |
Television: My second insert is tracking my progress through ended television shows that I want to catch up on. It's not pretty in its organization, but the next time I make a television tracker I know what I want to do and what I don't. It has two separate somewhat alphabetical lists. Concluded shows I need to catch up on with the numbers of seasons they had. As I finish a season, I use my MildLiners to color the block for that season. When all the blocks are colored, the show's name and year it premiered are transferred to the other half of the insert, my list of concluded shows I've completed watching. As of this typing, I have completed watching 154 shows. Yes. I'm a TV Addict. I freely admit it.
Movies: My final insert is in progress. I have ToDoMovies on my phone where I track what movies I have seen. I currently have 1,808 movies in my Watched List. That's a lot of movies, but it isn't like the list is just in the last five years or something. I have gone through many many "greatest of" lists and went to IMDb and worked through the filmography of my favorite actors and actresses and checked off movies I have seen in my entire life. Considering that is nearly 4 decades of movies produced in my lifetime, and I had parents who encouraged me to be aware of what existed before I was alive... Yeah. I've even watched old 30s and 40s movies and loved them as much as the new ones. Plus we've all seen Snow White (1937), Bambi (1942), and the Wizard of Oz (1939). Whether you realize it or not, you like old movies too. I'm sure it's not a definitive list, but it's pretty close. There's also 1,341 movies currently on my To Watch List. I am certainly not taking the time to physically write all of those down in my Movies Insert. I decided to set it up as a list of the best rated and recommended movies of each decade and check them off as I see them. I've started with a list of movies in the 1930s, and obvs I've checked off Oz and Snow White, and the 1940s list has a lot more movies checked off. I think I'm going to try working through those lists before I get to the 1950s.
This Collections bundle will be in a separate TN from my main one. You've seen the picture of what I carry daily. I don't need this collection, as well as an insert for my passwords and my mailing lists going everywhere with me and getting lost.
So far I've decided I like 3 string TN's, and although I really like my first one ever, the vinyl isn't sturdy at all. When I try to pull it out of my purse, the whole inside slips down. The elastic strings are tearing my dashboards and inserts. I think when I make a better one, the red vinyl will hold my household stuff by my desk.
I could go on ad nauseum. I mean I kind of already have. Perhaps I'll take another day to write about my plans for next year's calendar inserts.
If you have any questions about a specific aspect or certain words I used, you can do several things. You can COMMENT!! Woot! You could also watch any number of the videos I linked to or Google the terms.
As another note, you've made it all the way to the end. I'm really proud of you and thankful. I promised some links to my greatest organizational inspirations.
First and foremost, I thought I was doing something wrong with how thick and chunky my TN was. Most of the videos showed much smaller TNs. Until I found The Hooting Pirate. I had begun searching for more ideas for inserts and came across Cara's video 20 Uses for Notebooks and Traveler's Notebooks Inserts Video. She specifically mentioned all of us who love our chunky TN's. I was quite happy I wasn't alone.
But with how chunky my TN is, I thought it might be beneficial to use several. That's when I came across Jami Balmet of Young Wife's Guide. I watched Episode 9: How I Use Traveler's Notebooks to Organize My Life and felt even more like I was on the right track with this new journey into organization and podcasting and mothering a high schooler...
There's also...
Vivian from Teal Notes with beautiful and clean printable layouts that could be pasted into your TN or BuJo.
Kate from Kate's Classroom Cafe with great ideas for homeschooling and/or helping your brick and mortar school kid study.
The Space + Quiet planning blog for more printable planner pages...
And if you're less about planning analog in this digital world, you can always check out the digital planner at Life is Messy and Brilliant.
See you Next Time!!
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