Bulleted, battered, and bruised

One interesting trend with my bullet journal was the result of a recent injury. I hyper-extended my ankle trail running a few days ago. I'm going to live, but I'm limping a lot and can't run more than a few steps. It looks kind of gross, but I've had worse.

The interesting thing is that because of the injury, I've used my journal less. Suddenly I can't put mileage in my running tracker, which has made me less likely to fill out other trackers and even do daily entries--especially on weekends. That's because running is one of the two things I always track on weekends (the other is guitar practice).

When a bruise messes with your bullet journal.

It's interesting that a seemingly unrelated issue (an injury) can affect my bullet journal. I caught up just fine on Monday (today) but I wonder what I could do to ensure I keep at it when issues like this come up. If you can't track one of your favorite things to track, how do you keep your interest piqued?

Maybe I should come up with something new to track (miles walked, I'm still walking with the dog, just not running, for better or worse). It's worth thinking about (and journaling about). There are really only two things I track every day--maybe I need to add more daily tasks to track.

Not Squilliam Fancyson

We're a week into February, which is my second month of bullet journaling. It didn't take much effort to migrate the few things I didn't do in January over to February, but that's mainly because I keep my journal very simple.

Squilliam journals beautifully.

I do feel the requisite level of guilt at not having done those things, but now I have the added pressure of their lingering existence to help motivate me (I guess).

As James Clear--and no doubt other experts on productivity, habits, and just plain getting stuff done--will tell you, a big part of the secret to sticking with a habit is to keep it simple, especially at first. With that in mind, my daily journal is usually five or six bullets long, and my monthly list isn't much longer than that, as a general rule. Clear would probably say to start with just one bullet a day (at the start), just to make sure you do it. I mean, one is too easy not to do, right?

Keeping entries easy means there's never any stress associated with updating the journal, which makes it much more likely I'll keep coming back updating it. I've got nothing against the folks out there with much more complex (and beautiful!) bullet journals, with intricate design, multi-page entries, and masterful artwork, but that's not for me. Certainly not now.

Lovely, but too much work to bother with.

The link above is a blog entry that laments how horribly complex bullet journals must be. Except they don't have to be, and mine isn't.

Later on I might get a bit more adventurous and ambitious, but like Clear and those other folks say, the first day, first week, first whatever, of any habit should remain simple. Get some quick wins, and you are more likely to keep it up over the long run. Or keep it simple forever if it works for you.

So far that's working with my bullet journal, which is certainly simple, with the exception of my monthly habit tracker. The tracker is still not what I want or need it to be.

The larger, horizontal graph I used for February doesn't leave me enough room to record all the data I want. Most trackers use dots for completing a task, but I really want to include more data, such as the distance I run or the amount of time I spend practicing guitar. I also feel like noting that those tiny run distances are full-on sprints with a two-year old husky, and not as sad as they seem. Really.

Much too cramped for data, and it's worse if I add interior lines.

I clearly haven't cracked the code on how to make a more complex tracker fit, short of using weekly trackers instead. I might try that in March. I'll keep experimenting, and will certainly entertain your suggestions.

I also should note that I'm using actual photos of my own journal. These are (clearly!) not fancy Pinterest journals. I think the uber-journals intimidate a lot of people who think a bullet journal must be a magnificent work of art. It doesn't. It just needs to work.

Tracking through hyperspace



Not a lot of frivolous weekend entries.

January has come and gone, and I still use my bullet journal every day. I look forward to it, but can't say anything in it is indispensable.

Most of my daily logs are short--four or five tasks--so it's never a chore. On weekends, it's even more sparse. The big stuff is already on the monthly log, and I don't use or need weekly logs.





I don't use the future log much, but it's good to have milestones listed, and I refer to it mostly for doctor and dentist appointments.

The one thing I changed was my daily tracker (see below). I switched from three teeny ones to one big one. Unfortunately, the new one doesn't allow any more space for each day's results. So when I'm writing down miles I ran or guitar time, it's still scrunched. I'd like to double the space, but the book's not big enough. Something to think about.


Old: Cool, but too small




New: Tracking more each month,but slots are the same size.

I didn't use the monthly log that much--I added a few milestones and recurring events, and those are helpful. I had to migrate several larger tasks that I put off, and it's good to see those, and to think about why I never completed them. 





Got some use out of the monthly log.