New Year, New Me, Part 3 ~ The Habits

Inspired by this post, I decided to start tracking my daily habits in my bullet journal. 

My habit list included things I already did (though not necessarily daily) like 10,000 steps and swimming, things I want to do more of (writing, time in nature) and a whole new morning routine, inspired by this post, by the same blogger. Her routine of 'SAVERS' is made up of silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing.

I know some people say not to start too many habits at once, but I found having a great big habit list to be liberating, because I can always accomplish at least something on the list, and if I get to the end of the day without getting much of anything done, I can eat a carrot and x off "5 a day" or drink a couple glasses of water and mark off "hydrate." I also added "reading" to the list partway through the month, not because I need encouragement to read, but I was curious how often I do (turns out, pretty much every day).

I'm surprised how well I did in January, and that the morning routine was the most successful part. It's nice starting the day off well. I have some glaring blanks, however, most notably under "gratitude" and "kindness." I've already talked about how hard gratitude is for me, but I've decided that if I focus on a specific event (I'm grateful my son asked how my day went), rather than a general state of being, I can fool the evil gods.



Kindness threw up a similar roadblock: what exactly is kind? Is it kind to pick up someone's papers off the photocopier and take them to them, or is it just nosy? Is it kind to let a car in ahead of you when you've got nowhere in particular to be, or does it only count if you're in a hurry? Is it kind to treat your kids and husband well, even though that's what you're supposed to do? I don't know why (I think it's my Catholic upbringing), but it seems like an act of kindness is only really kindness if you don't want to do it. I see I'm going to need to work on that.

At the end of January, I realized my habits fell into five general categories--morning, health, nature, brain, and being a good person (I don't have one-word phrase for that yet)--and I arranged my February list accordingly. My morning routine evolved from SAVERS to YSAVRS, for: Yoga (I have book of different yoga routines for each day of the week, each taking about 10 minutes, which is all I have time for), Silence (about a 3-breath meditation is all I can manage), Affirmation (I still find these pretty corny, but I'm going with it), Visualization (I'm a natural daydreamer, so this is easy for me), Read a Poem (I've wanted to get more poetry in my life for a long time, but it doesn't work for me to read poem after poem after poem; one a day sets just the right tone), scribble (a paragraph dashed off in my journal--much more accurate and realistic, and less fusty that "scribe").

Speaking of habits, I gave up on the Gretchen Ruben book. I hate to say it, but it was kind of ... boring. Or maybe she was boring--every time she described some trait about herself, like wearing the same type of clothes every day, not liking travel, only eating plain food I was like, "Gah! I don't think I want to take this woman's advice for fear of turning into her." So I returned it to the library.

New Year, New Me, Part 1 ~ The Bullet Journal

I am a walking New Year's cliche. At the end of each year, I take stock of my accomplishments and then I start the next year with a long list of goals, dreams, and aspirations. This year is no exception, and, if anything, those goals have taken on a greater urgency than ever (time's a wasting'). However, unlike in past years, I think the goals I've set for myself are integrated in a way that they work together to build toward bigger, long-term goals, and I have more of an understanding of the small steps I have to take to meet those goals (which is not to say there's no pie in the sky on the list, just that I've got a fork and a knife ready to take a bite of that pie). One of the tools I've found helpful in managing the tracking of goals and the steps along the way, as well as the daily stuff that has nothing to do with where I want to go, but has to get done anyway, is the Bullet Journal.

I first read about Bullet Journals on Dawn's blog, and if you want to learn more about the Bullet Journal system, you can check out the official Bullet Journal website. There you can also see examples of really amazing journals. Some people turn theirs into works of art. That's not going to happen with mine anytime soon (or ever), but I do try to make it fun with colored pens and the occasional drawing.

Basically, my Bullet Journal is a daytimer or pocket calendar over which I have TOTAL CONTROL (and no, working on my control issues is not among my New Year's resolutions). I started mine back in July, with the purchase of a cute turquoise Moleskine notebook with tiny dots that outline a grid. This makes it easy for me to lay out my pages, without being too busy with lines. The way I set mine up is with a two-page calendar spread for the month, on which I write major events, like holidays or days I don't have to work. There's a little space left in the margins, where I list what I need to do for the month for Literary Mama, for my writing group, my writing goals, and any upcoming deadlines.

After the monthly spread, come the week-by-week spreads, with each getting two pages. This is where I get into more detail with my to-do lists. Each item is either preceded by a dot, for things I need to do, an open circle, for events, or an asterisk, for things I need to make. Things that get done get a checkmark, things that don't get a little arrow to migrate them to the next day. Not every week looks as chockablock full as the one above—that was crazy get-ready-for-Christmas week.

Most weeks are more like this one. In the bottom right corner of each day I write the topic I plan to cover on my blog that day (with an asterisk, because a blog post is a thing one makes). I've also started adding little clouds with "dreamy" things--things that don't need to get done but that I'd like to do, like take a bubble bath, knit in front of the TV, go to bed early. I've also added a line for whatever I'm grateful for that day, but you'll notice (if you can read the tiny words), that they're mostly silly things. I wanted to add a gratitude habit to my days this year, but it turns out I just can't do it. Say I read an article about a family that's fallen on hard times and is suffering in a lot of ways. I'll feel a rush of gratitude that we have a safe, warm home and that we're able to feed and educate our children, followed immediately by a strong urge to throw salt over my shoulder and knock on wood. There's no way I would write anything of the sort down, for fear some evil-minded lesser god or spirit will read it and destroy whatever it is I'm grateful for. So instead I write things like "Harrison Ford," because we just watched all the Indiana Jones movies, and who isn't grateful for that?

Finally, between each month, I have two-page spreads with various things I want to keep track of, like books I want to read, writing projects, places to publish, my writing and journaling workshops, my New Year's goals (of course). I just added a list of books I've read this year, because I'm kind of curious to see how many books I read in a year, and a page for daily habits (more on those in Part 3).

My Bullet Journal makes me happy. I'm a total list-maker, and I get great satisfaction from checking things off the list. Having my calendar, my to-do list, and my other running lists all in one place is a revelation—and a big improvement over the old "scraps of paper every which way" system I used to use.

Do you Bullet Journal? How do you stay organized? Is an analog system like this one hopelessly old-fashioned or refreshingly tactile?