From stuff.co.nz
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There’s a little ritual I like to perform every January.
I hit my local stationery store and splash out on a pretty paper planner.
In it, I record my good intentions for the upcoming year: I will organise my life and work, I will maximise my usefulness and manage my time more effectively. I will get myself properly sorted.
Then I pop the diary on my nightstand . . . and promptly forget about it.
I know I’m not the only person who does this. Don’t even front, New Zealand.
US author and designer Ryder Carroll knows a bit about this cycle of disorganisation.
As a kid, Carroll struggled in school, finding it all but impossible to concentrate on anything that didn’t interest him. He was eventually diagnosed with ADHD, which, at that time, was not well understood.
"I was forced to figure out ways to become organised and productive to make my way through school, and I did that using the only tool really available to me, which was my good, old-fashioned notebook,” he says, on a call from the US.
After prompting from friends and co-workers, he shared the method he created BulletJournal.com, espousing a deceptively simple and versatile system for managing your time, thoughts and productivity effectively, “in order to live intentionally”.
“It didn't arrive fully formed,” he explains. BuJo, as its fans call it, evolved through years of trial and error.
“I designed it to be very flexible, because I needed something to organise the way my mind works.
“When you have ADHD, your mind works in many different ways all at the same time. You think in images, you think in words, you think things simultaneously. I needed a system that could very quickly react to the way that I was thinking.”
A Life Saver?
From such intensely personal beginnings, BuJo has grown into a global movement so popular and effective The New Yorker called it a “cult”, while still asking if it might “save your life”. Carroll’s book about the process, The Bullet Journal Method, is a New York Times bestseller, and there are millions of #Bujo and #bulletjournal posts on Instagram.
“It's not a finished process. A big part of bullet journaling is that it continues to evolve alongside its user.”
That’s why it works as well for a busy mompreneur, as it does for a mechanic; and as well for a teenager heading off to university, as it does a nurse managing a hospital ward. The tools “interact with each other, but also stand alone”, you just use what’s helpful and leave the rest behind.
It’s also the reason you’ll have seen BuJos that look less like diaries than art works: Fans have picked up the ideas Carroll created and run with them.
Don’t let all the gorgeous double-page, calligraphy- flower- and washi-tape-covered spreads – that’s Bujo talk for layouts – put you off. While Carroll is delighted folks have turned bullet journaling into a rich creative outlet, one that’s often meditative and part of their thinking process, he stresses that’s not what it was designed for.
"Fast forward a couple of years now, people feel like the declaration is the purpose, and that’s backwards,” he says.
“When people see my tutorial videos, they're often shocked, because my handwriting's not great. It's black-and-white, it's kind of messy. That's where you begin. I encourage everyone to start there."
Carroll’s own Bujo is functional, minimal and personal
The Analog Revival
All you really need is half-an-hour, a pen and a notebook.
After just a few weeks of using a slightly truncated version of the method, it’s working for me.
I start the day with a list of tasks already created from rapid log – and what I didn’t get to yesterday. I can spread my work out over the week, so I have fewer high pressure days. I hit the ground not just running, but sprinting every single day, and find it easier to switch off at night.
Also, and don’t tell my boss, but for the first time in my working life, I feel genuinely on top of things.
And what’s more, I’m actually using that notebook. Trust me to come late to the analog revival.
The digital revolution may have started more than 20 years ago, but Kiwis have been returning to the pen-and-paper fold for a while now.
The Kiwi Way
Alongside independent journaling systems such as BuJo, more structured, guided planners like the Passion Planner, Daily Greatness, The Makers Journal and Kiwi-designed options such as Kōura, and Littleline, have surged in popularity.
"I did an initial print run of 25 diaries," says Kelly Dare, a mum-of-one and developer of the Kiwi-designed and made Kōura diary, a self-care and mental health tracker with the tag line kia māia, kia atawhai (have courage, be kind).
"I thought I might sell out of those before Christmas. But I've just done the biggest order from my print person, ever.
"I think people are really looking for ways to put 2020 behind them and think, 'how do I actually shape my world, what works for me’, rather than being told what to do."
Dare was looking for a system where she could put her thoughts down on paper and feel like she "was actually achieving something every day".
"That's where Koura came from, needing something to make sure that I was looking after myself.”
KELLY DARE/KOURA Dare's self-care tracker is simple, clean-lined and functional.
It hinges on a system called Power, that encourages you to track the five things you do each day to promote better wellbeing and self-care.
They include a physical activity; one good thing for yourself, such as getting your hair done or even just getting out of bed; watching yourself take care of yourself, focusing on it; eating something that makes you feel good (be it a piece of cake or a salad); and relaxation and rest.
When friends and whānau would come to her stressed or overwhelmed with life, Dare would share the technique with them. The obvious benefits they gained inspired her to create the journal.
"It's these five things that you do every single day, and they don't have to be big things, they don't have to be training for a half-marathon, they don't have to be like going full keto, or whatever the big dramatic thing is at the moment.
"It's just doing little things every day that add up to a big thing."
The journal can also help you plan your day, make it easier to prioritise doing those five things, and then reinforce how good they made you feel – like a gratitude journal dedicated to yourself.
"I just think there's something really special about writing something down on paper. Because it creates the practice of self awareness, you're really thinking about what you did, sitting there and putting it down.
"I get to the end of the day and I fill it out and I'm like, 'oh, I felt like I had a terrible day, but actually, I had a really good coffee with someone at work'. So in connecting pen to paper and thinking through it, it creates that feedback loop."
Practical Tool
Even when we use our planners for more practical purposes, they have a de-stressing and uplifting effect.
Busy mum-of-two and product manager Allie Sinclair is a paper calendar advocate. Her planner hangs on her kitchen fridge, at the heart of the family home, where she and her husband can see it every day.
"I put everything on it. I've literally got it beside me now, because I was wondering when we're having time off over Christmas . . . It just means I know exactly where I need to be at what time."
She also uses a meal planner, to organise food and snacks for the girls well in advance, so she no longer has to spend half the evening figuring out what’s for dinner.
Using the planners, designed by her friend graphic designer Kelly McCabe “takes the stress out of the whole week”. She just puts half-an-hour aside on a Sunday morning to plan her week and the family’s meals and, for the rest of the week, she doesn’t “need to worry about any of that”.
“I can move stuff around – I do that, depending on how the day's gone – but at least I know that everything's ready to go. It’s just so much easier, especially when you're working.
"I've always quite liked the tactile quality of having a calendar. I work in the digital space, so I do understand it and there are a lot of positives to it. But using the calendar, seeing it on the wall, at a glance, and actually writing things down, I love it.”
McCabe, also a busy mum-of-two, had new mothers in mind when she started designing her Littleline collection of planning pads, particularly the entrepreneurial kind, who are trying to balance a small business with a hectic family life.
"I know a lot of mums with small businesses are just trying to have that kind of creative output, to do something for themselves that they enjoy.
"Being able to set aside time to do that, it's so important. It’s so important that we have time to ourselves. For me, that's definitely designing and creating stationery. That's my self-care, actually."
One unique tool in her self-care stationery kit is the Pre-Pillow Planner, a pre-bed detox for your brain she designed because it was something she was already doing to help her wind down.
"When you've got a lot going on, lots of to-dos and whatnot, it encourages you to plan out your next day before you go to bed, so you can get a peaceful night's sleep.
“I always plan out my next day before bed otherwise it'll just be chaos in the morning."
Hand Made For You
Over and over again, studies find that people who take notes by hand are able to reflect on their intentions more clearly, and retain information for longer, says Carroll.
"I think there's a couple of reasons for that. Studies suggest that using your hand to write connects your mind and your body in a way that typing does not. People who are learning new languages learn much faster by writing them by hand, because character recognition is sped up.
"Of course, I didn't know any of this stuff when I was developing bullet journal, I just knew that I remembered things better when I wrote it by hand.”
PROPHSEE JOURNALS/UNSPLASH
Handwriting slows us down, creating mental and emotional breathing space that tapping away on a keyboard or phone never does. It’s meditative.
"I think in this day and age, we often mistake convenience for efficiency.
"Let me be clear, it's much slower to write by hand than it is to type. But I see that as a feature, and not a bug. Because you use more effort, you'll be more deliberate with the words that you choose.”
HOW TO CREATE A BULLET JOURNAL
Grab a pen, ruler and notebook.
Make the first two pages an index and number the rest (you can do this as you go).
The next four are a pair of “future logs”, two two-page spreads divided into six sections each, one for each month. Add the page numbers for these to the index.
The next two pages are your first monthly log. On the right page, mark the dates down the side, with their corresponding week days next to them. On the facing page, log all the tasks you have to get done this month.
The next two pages are your daily log. Here you capture all your events, notes, appointments, ideas and thoughts each day. Order doesn’t matter. You’ll know what’s what by the bullet points in front of them: Dots for tasks, a dash for notes, a circle for events. Add the pages to the index.
A star next to the bullet makes it a priority, or important. An exclamation mark means “inspiration”.
As each task is achieved, put a cross through the bullet. If you move a task to a later date, turn the dot into an arrow to show it’s been “migrated”.
At the end of each day, week and month, review the tasks and see if any are still worthwhile pursuing and migrate them to an appropriate date.
Add or change bullets, “spreads” or page styles to suit your needs and creativity.
This is just a brief overview of the technique. For more in depth explanation, and some excellent videos, check out Ryder Carroll’s website bulletjournal.com, and grab a copy of his book, The Bullet Journal Method.
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