Let’s talk about your mornings.
If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you should probably know that routines are EVERYTHING to me. I start my day with with specific routines, I have always been very intentional about how I show up in the mornings. The thing about my routines, is that I like to make them glamorous. Pretty. Curated so as to really visually be lit up. That’s why I make a big effort to make everything around me really pleasing to my eye.
For as long as I can remember, I typically spend the majority of my mornings in a notebook. Whether its my planner, journal, doing the morning pages, making to-do lists, etc. I am always comforted by the act of sitting down with my coffee, pen, paper and letting all the things in my mind out. It helps me to start the day with a clear, focused mind. When I first became a new mom, all of a sudden I had zero time to sit in my notebook and to be completely honest, it gave me serious anxiety on top of all that post-partum stress. As someone who finds comfort in organizing my thoughts on paper, I felt pretty out of my element. A friend of mine suggested that the best way to plan/document/make lists for her role as a busy mom is bullet journaling. Apparently it’s an efficient form of planning that is perfect for busy people. As per usual, I had to do some extensive research on this to see what exactly it consist of and how, if at all possible, it would work for me too.
WHAT IS BULLET JOURNALING?
In a nutshell it is a method for living in the intersection of Productivity and Mindfulness. It is a system created to efficiently organize your life, with intentionality, managing your thoughts and balancing your time. According to neuroscientists, a bullet journal helps you externalize thoughts. Put simply, this frees up mental space so you can think more clearly and concentrate better. Psychologically speaking, bullet journaling is more powerful than other paper-planning methods because it’s also a life record, you document everything. In addition, writing things out offers a higher memory retention rate which makes you feel more confident in your life.
After suffering throughout childhood from ADD, Ryder Carroll wrote a book called, The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the future. He gave a Ted Talk on how to declutter your mind which I completely believe is something that holds most of us up in accomplishing all that we want in our own lives.
Quickly, I was very intrigued. I am always game for anything that helps with productivity, mindfulness, efficiency, etc. So I gave it a shot. At first it feels very complicated because you really have to look into how to set up a bullet journal. It took me a while to figure it out. Once I got into it, I became hooked. I’ve always been a person who looks everywhere for the perfect planner/calendar/notebook. It seems to be hard for me to find the perfect layout. The thing about the BuJo is that you set it up yourself, according to your needs, your interests and whatever works for you. Each week/day/month can be the same or different and it appeals to my ever changing needs. It is the only system that I have consistently used and never gotten bored. There is so much fun and variety and its in a compact notebook and over time you can keep all your BuJos as a life record keeper series of books.
Here’s what you do:
Grab yourself a dotted notebook. I went with the 1917 gold Leichtrum A5 size. I use these .03 pens that are and I love these highlighters because they are pastel and almost watercolor like.
Read this BuJo basics breakdown post here. (this post was so helpful to me). I also like this one, its fun and colorful if that’s your thing. I especially love this write up on BuJo for moms.
Look online for some inspiration and gather ideas so you can begin to plan out your book. I would start here.
What I love about the Bullet Journal Method:
Everything I need is in one place. One book to carry. I used to keep a journal, a planner, a log of lists, a notebook for taking notes, etc. So many different notebooks for different things. This method allows you to keep all of your necessary written collections in one book! So practical and efficient for any busy gal, especially moms.
The Index & Collections. I love that you keep what they call ‘collections’ which are lists of things like recipes, blog post ideas, notes for planning Romans birthday, book lists, moon phases, crystal tips, client notes, etc. Anything I want to record and make note of, I keep a collection and I document the page in the index (which makes it easy for me to find later). OBSESSED with this. It helps me so so so much.
Variety. Some weeks I am feeling creative and some I am not. With a BuJo I don’t feel the pressure to make things pretty in my planner all the time. I really like changing things up from week to week or month to month and the freedom I have to do that is what matters to me the most.
Peace of mind. There really is something to having an organized mind. When you get everything out of your head and down on paper, it transforms your life. You feel in control of all the things running around in your brain. I can remember in the early days of Real Housewives of New York, Ramona always attributed her success to writing everything down in a spiral notebook. That always stuck with me because my grandfather swore by the same method. There is something to it. I have been using the BuJo method for 6 solid months (which says a LOT for a planner ADD girl like me) and I have accomplished more at one time than I ever have before. There must be something to the productivity/mindfulness method.
