The one good habit that's stuck

 

Twenty five. Twenty-five rolls of washi tape. That’s how many I found in the stationery drawer earlier.

Too many? Probably. For a single fortysomething woman who lives alone? Most definitely.

But buying stationery is one of my few vices. And as habits go, it’s a relatively harmless one.

Quite apart from anything else, strips of patterned masking tape liven up my bullet journal.

I bought into the journal trend almost exactly four years ago as I went back to ‘school’ to complete my master’s. 

I was facing a year of reading, research, writing essays… and maintaining my day job.

I needed a central location where I could keep my various to-do lists, track my time before it could be frittered away, and trap and capture ideas that entered my head.

A blank notebook that I could customise by creating occasional double-page spreads marked ‘September’ or ‘Week beginning August 30’ was one of the greatest gifts I could have given myself.

I’m not constrained to the five or six lines given over to a particular day in a printed pocket diary. And I can even assign projects – say, Christmas presents, or progress on an essay, say – to a specific page.

If you’re not familiar with the bullet journal concept, you can pick up the basics at Ryder Carroll’s website. Meanwhile, YouTube offers a slew of videos from people who have truly cracked how to get organised. 

What I love about the system is how easy it is to tweak and make my own. For instance,

* on the double-page spread where I plan out the month ahead, I run a length of washi tape down the outer edge of the left hand page (left), allowing it to run about 5mm above and below the page – when I flip down the overmatter, I make sure to leave a little overhang which becomes a tab that makes it super easy to flip back to that page

* I’ve become an expert in generating my own bespoke ‘collections’… really just a fancy word for specific to-do lists. So, items that I’ve been meaning to bring to my parents’ house? They go on a list marked ‘Mum & Dad’s home’ that I can turn to when I’m packing for a trip home. A brand of concealer that can only be purchased at a specific department store in a part of the city centre that’s off the beaten track for me? That goes on my ‘South Side To-Do’ page which I can consult the next time I’m in that neck of the woods. 

* Brain dump. Just a regular purge of whatever tasks are on my mind, and a place where I can tease out what steps are required before I, say, renew my home’s contents insurance or start planning a weekend break.

Using a notebook as a journal has made my life run more smoothly. I no longer panic about forgetting things or get that feeling of everyday life getting on top of me. Once something occurs to me, whether it’s to ‘buy salt’ or ‘apply for that job’, it goes into the journal, committed to the page where it can be revisited at the appropriate time.

Do you use a journal as a productivity tool? What approach do you find useful? Is yours a feat of artistic creativity or do yours a pared-down version? I’d love to know…