Tuesday 10 November 2020

Reviewing my Word of the Year 2020 Journal

Last month Valerie Sjodin published an excellent post with a video on her blog.  Do go to her website to view it.

It got me thinking about 2021 even though it's 2 months away!   Valerie recommended a journal and I immediately bought it.  I know that she will have done her research so why not take advantage of that, saving me the time.  Mind you, I do have lots of time.  But that's not the point. I immediately ordered a Wordsworth & Black Journal with a turquoise cover.  To be honest it may well have been the availability of the turquoise cover that settled the matter.

In my last post I showed you how I have used this year's journal.  I'm not a bullet journal sort of person - it's somehow too rigid for my purposes.  I have begun to feel that even what I have been doing is slightly too rigid - quartering the page and recording what I do.  Most of the recording has been to prove to myself that I have done something each day during this very peculiar year!

As you read this, England is back in lockdown.  Not quite as severe as the one in April & May but not far off.  So plenty of time to consider how to record 2021.  And maybe try out some different page layouts in the rest of my 2020 journal.

Way back in 2011 and 2012 I was following Julie Fei Fan Balzer's Art Every Day and used a Moleskine Watercolor Sketchbook to record my days.

Looking back at it now I am amazed I kept up.

I don't think this is what I'm looking for in terms of next year's journal.  It needs to be somewhere inbetween.  Not as free and easy as the AED journal but not as rigid as this year's.  I haven't been able to work out what that looks like yet.

I went through this year's journal and looked at what themed pages I had used and which worked well and which didn't.

Some pages I'm going to ditch like the 2022 calendar at a glance, and the list calendars which showed 6 months at a time.  In this year's journal I had 2020 at a glance and 2021 but hardly ever looked at them.  I think I've become too reliant on my phone.  At the beginning of 2020 I had bought a vertical planner so I could see easily what I was committed to.  I had done the same in 2019 and it was really useful even though it didn't ever make it onto a wall, which had been my intention!

Some of the pages like the gratitude log and descriptions of booked workshops I think I will incorporate into each month rather than have separate pages for them.  Always supposing I get to any workshops!

Looking back at this year's journal I was reminded that it took me the first 12 days of January to decide what I was going to do with my journal and had to play catch up.

So maybe it's just as well that I've already started thinking about next year!

What about you?  Are you going to keep a journal next year?  If so, what format works for you?


Thanks for joining me today
Bernice


1 comment:

  1. I have an organizer I've kept for several years now. It is my appointment book. I print off little re-sized photographs I've taken and glue them on appropriate the day of the week. I jot down little notes about the day there too. I keep a written journal, where I write about events and feelings. And then there is my WOTY journal. This year I used it to record growth in my word "faith". I used a moleskine sketch journal, washi taped the edge of the pages and decorated a lot of the pages with ' Valerie Sjodin's stencils. As you can see, a planner wouldn't work for me. So next year I am going to do the same thing. I might change the art up a little, but it will be a very special journal that I will use only for my Word.

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