I love things that are organized and color coded
and neat. I don’t have that much patience for organizing, but I recently
applied the Konmari method to my clothes closet and dresser drawers, and I’ve
been happier for it.
Last year I got on the life planner kick – not
in a big way, but it was a good excuse to buy washi tape and colored pens.
Rather than spend a lot on a premade calendar or planner, I made my own, so
that I could have five years of planning in one place for the whopping cost of
$3.00 instead of what would have ended up costing $50 or more [much more]. I
also got to use purple paper, and all the stickers I’ve been foolishly hoarding
for years.
I spent a little more money on a Filofax type
system that would hold all the information that doesn’t change. I created my
own Filofax for under $25.00 to keep vital info – the kind of stuff people run
around like headless chickens looking for when there’s an emergency. This way
my husband and my kids know to look in one convenient place for all the
information they might need to handle doctors, plumbers, banks, credit cards,
etc.
I update the “life planner” whenever necessary.
This allows me to plan things for future years and keep track of stuff from
December to January without having to dig up a new calendar.
I think I’ll probably spend a little time once a
year updating the Filofax.
Now I just heard about the ‘bullet journal’
which seems like another word for ‘life planner’ and/or Filofax. It’s all about
analog planning and list keeping, something I’ve been doing without a fancy
name for… well ever.
I make lists all the time, cross things off,
migrate them to other lists, allow things that become unimportant to drop off
those lists, make check marks and tables and analyses. Sometimes it’s helpful,
but not always.
I love the idea of the bullet journal as much as
I love the idea of the life planner and the Filofax, because it’s a reason to go
to the store and buy pens and notebooks and pretty things in multiple colors. I
like the idea of having a document that represents your life…
…but…I’m also reaching a point in my life where
living it is more important than documenting it. Ending up with a drawer or a
shelf or a box full of old journals/calendars is not attractive to me anymore.
They look pretty in all the photos that the bullet journal enthusiasts post
online, but I just see clutter that one day I will look at and say “Why am I
keeping this? So I can know when my dentist appointment was in 2011?”
I’m also not a fan of the obsessive data
recording that seems to go with the life planning lifestyle. I don’t want to
keep track of pints of water consumed or loads of laundry washed any more than
I want to keep track of calories consumed or trips to the bathroom. Some people
do, however, and that’s fine, it’s just not for me.
My quest to become organized is currently more
reliant on my quest to become a minimalist. And while I like my 5-year calendar
because it eliminates FOUR calendars out of my life, and I like my Filofax
because it consolidates dozens of file folders into one book of vital info, I
just can’t see myself becoming a dedicated bullet journalist.
Unfortunately, I can see myself trekking to
Staples to buy the various and sundry supplies to bullet journal. #zennotsozen
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