Ready for 2018

Happy New Year!

 

Does a new year fill you with excitement of what is to come?  Or a sense of same old, same old?  Time passes and we have no control over its passing.  But we do have control of what we spend the time doing.

Last year I spent a lot of time thinking (or is that procrastinating?) and a lot of time on Facebook and other websites.   I've watched lots of creative videos on YouTube, a few clips from The Ellen Show  and a fair number of dog rescue videos.  (Hope for Paws do some great work!)

What I found myself thinking quite often at the end of a day was how little I had accomplished.  I realised (derr!) that I felt like that because I don't have a plan for the day.  I think this is partly to do with when I was a teacher and then working as a church administrator that days were full and planned.  I wanted to break away from that feeling of over-structure.  But what has happened is that I'm at the other extreme now with no structure.  And to be honest it's just as stressful - but a different kind of stress.

So really, in terms of what I wanted from an Everyday Journal, was an ability to put some structure into my days, weeks and months and to be able to look back and say 'Yes.  I did this!  I achieved that!'  I asked myself questions about what I wanted to have in this journal and originally I wasn't going to have weekly pages but quickly realised that was exactly what I DID need.

So I have come up with pages like this above, where there are 3 boxes for each day.  By the side of the boxes I shall write 3 things to do that day and then be able to put a tick in the little turquoise box on completion.  At the end of January I shall review how this has worked for me and may come up with a different way to work through February.

I have completed general pages in my Leuchtturm1917 journal and prepared for January.

The index page

2018 and 2019 at a glance

Month by month commitments.  I also have a calendar on my phone but it helps me to see it written down as well.

I don't want to have many lists in my journal but I did think it would be useful to know what I've signed up for (right) and what technique videos are available to me (left) rather than keeping the list in my head.  Writing all this down frees up space in my brain!

During 2017 I decided I shouldn't sign up for so many online courses (hah - like that worked!) and it would be better to do in-person workshops.  I have put the details of the courses here.  And have realised that I have missed off the Art Cloth workshop I'm doing at Littleheath Barn.

I belong to a textile group and we have two exhibitions coming up in March and April so I have set up pages to record what I am making and what is left to be done.  The photos on the left hand page are the finished pieces.  They are only attached at the top of the photo so that I can write on the page underneath.

The next page in the journal is the January calendar

And then my pages for January.  Between each week I have left a blank double page spread for notes and journaling or whatever comes to mind!

Every two weeks I have put a page like this.  My plan is to write down 3 things everyday that I am thankful for.  This is one way of being able to keep my word of the year - gratitude - in sharp focus.

It has occurred to me that maybe there's not enough room for any journaling but we'll see.  Perhaps I only need a single page rather than a double page for a week.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Everyday Journals ~ Living Your Word of the Year

If you read my post about searching for a way to organise my life in a journal you won't be too surprised to hear that I have found a way forward with the help of two of my dear friends ~ Mary & Valerie.   We have joined together to help each other and anyone else who would like to join us in a group on Facebook: Everyday Journals ~ Living Your Word of the Year.

Do you choose a word for the year? Or does it choose you? When we ask God for a word for the year he gives us something that he wants us to work on, to include more of during the year? Do you know what your word for 2018 is yet?

Have you tried planners, bullet journals and diaries and found they don’t suit your lifestyle? Do you want a simple, completely personalized, no pressure way of journal keeping? Do you have lots of scraps of papers with your ideas written down but often lost in the detritus on your desk? Or do you file all your thoughts in your head and become overwhelmed with all the ideas and no place to flesh them out?

Would you like a more creative way to organise your word, your ideas, thoughts, prayers, events, or your projects all in one place? Let us introduce you to an Everyday Calendar Journal.

Through 2018, Valerie Sjodin, Mary Brack and I will be sharing insights through blog posts for keeping an Everyday Calendar Journal. We will be using the journal to record events, experiences and relationships; to explore our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. It is our hope that you will make your journal your own, personalising it to make it a beautifully useful and valuable tool.

Watch for these hashtags on social media #livingyourword2018  #everydayjournals2018

Join us in our private Facebook group to find encouragement and support as we journal through 2018.

I look forward to seeing you there.
Bernice

Planners and Planning

For 2018 I would like to keep track of a variety of things – my life, my creative life, my word for the year, inspirational quotes – all in one place rather than on scrappy bits of paper or stored in the numerous filing cabinets of my brain. I like Valerie’s description of what she was going to do at the beginning of 2017 - ‘a loose design format to happily contain my thoughts, prayers, dreams and activities of the year.’

I’ve tried various things in the past. There was the Documented Life Project which was useful at the time but eventually became a chore. I tried the Dylusions Dyary but it was too similar to DLP and actually the very thing that I thought would be helpful – Dyan’s art on every other page became a turn-off for me as I couldn’t find how to make it my own, short of putting gesso over the page!

I have followed Seth Apter’s Artifacts posts this year and wanted some way to record workshops and work but didn’t feel that the Artifacts route was one I wanted to take.

Valerie uses what she calls her Everyday Journal and Mary has a Commonplace Book.   I think they do a variation that suits them of the same thing.

I spent several days researching bullet journals and planners, using Pinterest & YouTube. It was an interesting experience as over those days my internet connection had been reduced to approximately 0.97mbps instead of the normal 6.97mbps. This was really, really slow. And then it went down to 0.2 which meant that it could barely load a website page.

Bullet Journals are interesting but seem very complicated. They are about being extremely organised but actually I don’t want to be extremely organised, I just want to be more productive and more creative. I can see there are bits that would be useful but I’m not interested in what the BJ jargon calls collections. Basically they are lists and whilst I will incorporate some lists into whatever I come up with, listing everything isn’t what I need.

I set up a Pinterest board to collate my findings.

As I looked at the various things on offer I realised that what I needed to do was ask myself some questions. I needed to know what I did want to include and what I definitely didn’t want.

Did I want any of the following?

• daily diary or planner
• weekly diary or planner
• Monthly calendar or planner
• Yearly calendar or planner
• A list of goals - yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly
• A list of books I’ve read
• A list of films I‘ve seen
• A list of places to visit
• Travel planning
• Quotes
• Bible verses
• Prayers
• Photos
• My art
• Sermon notes
• Journaling
• Projects
• Health & fitness tracker, water consumption tracker
• Monthly memories
• A list of online courses
• A list of workshops booked
• Gratitude lists
• To Do lists
• A monthly or weekly review

There's also the question of how creative I want the journal to look.  I don't draw but I have loads of stencils I could use to make it look attractive.  Plus I bought a few more!

I'm nearly there!  I've got the Leuchtturm1917 notebook and I'm trying out various of my pens on the back page but most of them bleed through the paper so I went out and bought these.

So, I'm all set.  I just need to make the decision about what I'm including from the list above and then actually set up the book so it's ready to go on January 1st.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice