Re-doing the Bullet Journal - Yet Again.

I am a bullet journaler, and I use one for both work and for home - well, kinda. It's been an interesting journey through the world of bullet journaling for myself, and I'm still finding my way to do things.

Reasons Why I Like Bullet Journaling as a Time Management Technique (for me!):
  1. My to-do lists (which I HAVE to have) are in one place.
  2. My journal is my own - no one else has to see it.
  3. I can change it up to accommodate things and situations in my life.
  4. I'm using up all the journals that I seem to be compelled to collect in my life.
  5. I get to use my fancy markers to write, draw, and record stuff.
  6. I have a record of things - especially in my work journal - so I can track the use of certain TMEs or instruments or songs.
Reasons Why I Don't Like Bullet Journaling:
  1. I haven't really found what works for me the best way...yet.
  2. I compare my stuff to that of others - and I always come up short of my expectations for myself.
  3. I can see what I have failed to do - and I always focus more on the failures than on the successes...
I do not do the same thing from moment to moment in either of my bullet journals, but today I am going to focus on my work journal as I get ready to re-do what I want to keep in that book. 

Currently, I track my therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) in my work bullet journal. When I was intern-less, I categorized the type of session by the type of classroom that was attending music therapy. One group had one column, another had a second column, and the third took up the last column. Now that I have interns, my planning has decreased significantly, so I have lots more space in my bullet journal. As a result, I have changed my formatting a bit. Now I have one column for all of my session strategies and two empty columns for other stuff. I've found that I do not like blank space, so I am looking around for things to put into those empty columns.

Recently, I have changed from pencil in my work journal to using pen. Now, this was a HUGE decision for me because I would plot out session strategies and then erase them when I made changes. I'm not doing that anymore. Now, I write my strategies on post-it notes until after the session. When the session is finished, I transfer what we actually did during the session into my journal IN INK! It is now more of a record of what we did rather than what I thought we would do. I like this, and will probably continue to do this type of recording. I also keep very brief notes on individual sessions and tasks that I need to do to keep the internship program running and the administrative tasks that are essential to any music therapy program.

One of the reasons that I am constantly changing things is that I do not really know what format works best for me. In my home journal, I recently did a weekly page where I listed out all of the days in the week and then put tasks to be done on each day. I didn't do those tasks. I'm thinking that I need a general task list of things that I need to do during the week, but not something that is tied to any one day. So, next week's page will be formatted differently. I will keep trying things until I find what works for me.

That seems to be the best way of forming my time management plan for every thing that I do - keep trying until something really works. At that point, make the thing that works something that becomes a habit. No one can tell you what will work for you - except for you!

So, because of all this, I am going to keep going. I know that bullet journaling is something that helps me organize. I know that I like checking tasks off to-do lists. I know that there are things that I could (goblin alert) be doing to make myself even more organized and consistent in my work, so I am trying different things out to see what those things do for me. I also know that it is easy to fall down the rabbit hole of comparing myself to others (I love to watch YouTube videos of how other people decorate their bullet journal spreads) and then stressing that I am not good enough. Fortunately, I had a significant realization about that particular feeling during a music therapy conference many years ago - I may not know everything, but I am good at knowing what I need to know to do my job. I am learning what I need to do to do my bullet journal. I don't want to spend hours and hours making these gorgeous spreads just to write all over them. I have other things to do during those hours and hours - and, THAT'S IMPORTANT TO ME!

So, my takeaway here is that my bullet journal is still a work in progress. My process is not perfect for me...yet...but I'm having fun trying things out, and that's enough for now.

Happy Friday!

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