This year can be named the "year of planning" for the Mexican Cherry life
It all started with my life falling to pieces with lovely chaos in 2016, handling conflicting emotions, college and extracurricular activity. It became clear I needed a system to organize all my activities in the most effective way. I've always been a lover of to-do lists but to be honest, they tend to be forgotten or filled with nonsense tasks that just make post its look pretty and full!
This time I took it seriously. So, January became the test of the nouveau, took a notebook and casually wrote down lists of things I had to get done throughout the day. Motivation was there cheering me up every second and I had to do this even better... but there was something missing, since the notebook became the post it instead, it needed a SYSTEM...and after a couple of months indulging in cute planner photos on tumblr and Instagram, it was time for me to join in the adventure...yes!! I made a Bullet Journal!!!
Sort of
There are plenty tips and videos to take you into the process of making one, first of all I saw and read all the content from the creator Ryder Carroll, you can check it here: Creator's Website! I have to confess, it took me days to figure it out and completely understand how to Bujo, plenty of videos and articles, tons of pretty pictures, but I finally jumped in with a basic notebook and gave it a try!
You can check my favorite blogger Rachel Nguyen explaining in her own style the lovely method of the Bullet Journal: Her vid right here. Also, make sure to follow her, she has great content (in love with her vlogmas, or well, pretty much all her vlogs).
This was my first attempt (must say I prefer the minimalistic (?) way of making it) and believe me, this takes time and a bit of effort depending on the style you go for, but eventually you will find your own style and approach to plan with the Bullet Journal method.
Some advice, please, please, please! Do NOT feel pressured to make it artsy or aesthetically pleasing for everyone, as long as it works for you it's perfect and you can adjust it to look however you want~
This is the very first step I took into making my life a tad more productive and I am loving it now! Must say that it still does not reflect my complete style or even the design I picture in my head for it, but it works in organizing my activities, tasks and every single thing that can fit over there! Which is the main objective.
The attempt at this method below
- First, the cover
To be honest I just grabbed a notebook that once was dropped in my mailing box, from an insurance promoting a life insurance package. Why not using a prettier notebook? Because I wanted to experience first and doodle, wreck it exploring styles and then use a lovely notebook/ planner using my preferred method without wasting such a beautiful item in experimenting (which I will make later this moth).
It is a really simple notebook, but loved the spyral and the fact that I was not worried experimenting with it because it was not the dream notebook, so the experiment was even easier, btw you can see the mark of the insurance company
- Index
At first, I followed every advice and made the correspondent sections that were recommended, obviously the index is one of them. I had no idea of what symbols to use for what, but in the end it didn't even matter, because my pages turned out to work just using the squared box and the migration symbol, those are the only ones that stayed with me until now, and they work pretty well also, simple and precise.
- Key
I tried using the key symbols but it was just too much, and it wasn't the best for me to have a symbol for every single thing, because I write in the Bujo the tasks to accomplish throughout the day, month, year and cathegorizing all seemed just a bit of a mess.
- Pages Examples
My pages were pretty simple, no template to keep them on track, no images, nothing but text and motivation to get things done, I actually love how the one with the post it looks, idk why but it makes me feel like I did great fulfilling the must do chores.
I plan on having a more styled "template" for the upcomming hand made notebook, but right now completing the experimental bujo feels great!
- Collections
If you have seen the creator's website (linked above), you'll get to watch some amazing as bullet journals, even the introduction video looks flawless, somehow this experiment didn't came out as stylish and pretty, but it truly helped me take a deeper look into bullet journalling and adapting it to my needs and daily life.
There is a section of the bujo's named Collections and you're supposed to fill pages with literally whatever you want, if you want a spread of favorite books, budget management, movies to watch, bucket lists, goals.....etc~ You put those in a section and write the page number of it to have it spotted. I had tiny post it marks on those that needed attention like the blue one above that showcases the importance of the section.
My collections include:
Wishlist - Products I want and have gotten over time
Managemente of my social service
Challenges - write down every challenge I do
Weight tracker - This cherry is on a diet
Article Ideas
Future Log Year Style - Wrote down what I want to accomplish this year
&
...
- Future Log
Every month you "have" to write what your goals are for the month or the chores you postponed and now have to take place on another month (which was more my case). To be honest this didn't helped me much, because I forgot to take a look at the monthly future goal, sometimes I did but the tasks that were postponed too much were simply not meant to get done unless really important.
The one that was a bit more inspiring was the one I added to Collections which included my year goals.
- Calendars
Cherry is quite a visual girl, so she needed to adapt the so called monthly future log... Drawing calendars on each month leaving enough space to place important events or tasks was easier and it gave me a visual tool to help me organize my week and acknowledging how much time was left to get things done.
This was pretty much how it all started with the experiment of having an actual bullet journal, cannot say it was the easiest to do, and I had to addapt plenty to make it work for me without wasting useful time.
Now I plan to make my own notebook and have a prettier one, now with the system and the adaptation that completes my daily organization.
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If you'd like more productivity posts, make sure to follow the blog, there will be more to come
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