New Journal! New Journal! New Journal!!

Forgive me as I sink into yet another "Nothing to do with Music Therapy - all about me" post for this Saturday. I am just getting excited about a little thing - my new journal.

When I started my current journal two July's ago, I had big plans. I was going to use it to chronicle my re-watch of The Clone Wars, taking notes about the episodes that I watched. That fizzled out after about three months. I have no such plans for this book.

I am keeping my Star Wars stickers on the front, and there are lots of galaxy and moon pictures inside, but I am not going to make any predictions or themes for this book. It is just going to be my personal planner.

I am a paper/pen kind of planner. I do not like depending on digital sources for my appointments, so I write them down. I like choosing pens for each week and using stickers to decorate. At one point, in my first Star Wars planner, I was drawing different characters, but I am not doing as much of that now. At one point, I was drawing inspiration from YouTubers who watercolor in their planners, but I have found that I am not that type of person. I need something that works for me, so I do the same thing every week without fail.

My planning format includes a box for each day. I am a staunch Sunday-Saturday weekly format kinda person - there are many others who do a Monday start to their week, but I just can't wrap my brain around that. Weeks start for me on Sundays. That's the way it goes in my concept of time.

The best thing about these books is that I get to make them any format. I get to change my mind and do things differently each and every week, if I want. If I decide I want to draw, then I can draw. If I want to do something gratitude-related, then I can. There are no wrong ways to do things, but there are things that do not work for me. I get to change things up whenever and however I want. Right now, I have kept some things and changed others.

The first page of my planner is often a collage of things that I like. The last book had a collage of Star Wars pictures. Right now, this one only has a Darth Vader cartoon sticker. Flip that page, and I have constructed a pocket with some rainbow, 70's style stickers. Then, the calendar starts. I construct a future log with the school calendar each year since that calendar includes all my work days. I messed up and printed off a calendar that was not appropriate for me, but I have the new one now, so I will be taping the correct calendars over the incorrect ones. I have some galaxy, moon, and sunrise stickers that I used to structure the calendar pages.

After the calendar pages are finished, my weekly formats start. I do seven boxes stretching across the top of the page. Each box will contain my diet, my digestion record, and any appointments that I have for the week. I have lots of extra space per week, so I am going to try doing some mindfulness exercises each week. I have some journaling prompts that I can use, and I have other practices as well.

The back of the book is where I keep my index and my notes. I have a budget page with a bill calendar, a sick time tracker, and anything else I want to keep in my book. I do a back to front strategy with these things so I don't have to flip through my book to find these extra pages. I have a "When I last" page that reminds me of when I finished different things - all time-related. I keep a record of new restaurants that I try and whether they are worth using again. I have a page where I keep track of the book stickers from the books I purchase from Thriftbooks.com. I also keep track of debt when I have it and my quests for each year. I also record random thoughts in these note pages.

Tomorrow is the official start of this new journal, and I am looking forward to setting up the next set of pages as I move from my pale green book to the hearty brown book that I have right now. If you are interested, I get my books at Michael's when they are buy one, get one. They are dot grid format because lines just get in my way when I am trying to draw and make boxes and all that. It is time to finish up my last book tonight and open up the next one tomorrow morning.

Thanks for reading all about this. It is something important to the "me" part of this blog - music, therapy, and me!

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