I took up Bullet Journaling and it took me back in time
On the 2nd January as I staggered out of a Quality Street hangover, I like most of the overfed and overworked masses, decided to Take Control of my work life. I was seduced by the beautiful images of Bullet Journals.
Now, mine doesn’t look anywhere near that beautiful, but I am more organised now. I followed the instructions on the Bullet Journal website — I already had a notebook I use for work. I’m a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University and I teach Creative and Professional Writing in the School of Humanities.
I have lots and lots of notebooks… My work notebook is a lovely dark green hardback Moleskin ‘Professional Notebook’, and I use three Uniball Air pens — red, blue, and black, as well as a nice gold Paperchase ruler. I have multicolour mini sticky notes for bookmarking, bigger sticky notes for adding notes (obviously), some very stylish stickers, and lovely floral mini bulldog clips — all of which I rarely use, but I admire them in my desk drawer.
Stationery is very important.
I have my monthly To Do list, my monthly calendar of events, and each day I write out the things I need to achieve. There are no pretty pictures, hand-drawn illustrations of birds, or even any inspirational sayings. Mine is full of notes like, ‘Email all Level 6 students about Creative Employment Day’ — that’s actually on my To Do list for Tuesday. My pages are not beautiful, but they do work, or at least, they worked for January and I can’t see why they wouldn’t do the same for February. It hasn’t miraculously reduced my workload, or suddenly made me infinitely more intelligent, more’s the pity. Bullet Journaling has made me a bit more efficient though — I’ve actually done the things listed (well, most of them), and I’ve remembered to follow up on things that might otherwise have been forgotten. I have tried other methods of keeping track of everything I need to do each week — I’ve downloaded various apps (Wunderlist, Carrot, Habitica, Remember the Milk, I could go on and on).
This is the first time I’ve stuck to any method.
I suspect that despite me being a fan of the digital, I actually find the old fashioned analogue method of writing by hand very soothing. I like that I can take a double page spread and fill it with plans or notes, and just like being back at school, I get to underline titles, subtitles, dates, and rule a line when I’ve finished. These are all nostalgic forms of self-soothing. Somewhere in my subconscious I’m no longer a grown-up with deadlines, responsibilities, and a career, instead I’m actually back in the Upper Third form keeping a tidy Rough Book. Actually my form mistress, Sister Raphael was often chasing me for keeping a very messy Rough Book, so I’m getting the chance here to correct my past transgressions. Yes, keeping a Bullet Journal is actually allowing me to step back in time and be the better student that I never was.
Or maybe I just love lists. And red pens.
