Claire 2/19/2016 "My Bullet Journal"

By Claire Enos

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the idea of using a bullet journal and I posted a link to a how-to guide as well.  I was so inspired, I immediately started my own! I bought a journal and the first thing I did was start doing it exactly how they said to set it up in the video. However, there were some parts I didn’t particularly like, but I didn’t know how to do it the way I wanted, and I’m not good at art. I found another video on bullet journals and looked at how some other people were doing theirs. I soon realized that there are so many different and unique ways to do what I needed my planner/journal to do. So after a few bumps, I finally found something that works for me, at least for now.

I keep everything in my bullet journal. I would tell you, but why don’t I just show you? Here are a few pictures from my very own bullet journal, and then I’ll describe some other pages I have and tell you what else I use it for.

This is what the front of my bullet journal looks like. I wanted a nice sturdy journal that wouldn’t easily fall apart, even with constant abuse. I made sure it was fairly lightweight and had plenty of pages. I love the one I found, it’s by a company called: Blueline. If you pay close attention you can also see that I have tabs at the top. Those tabs take me to individual months. I only have two at the moment because it’s only February, but by the end of the year there will be a lot more!

This page is at the very front of my bullet journal. On one of the videos I found, the girl who was showing off her bullet journal had a word that she wanted to use as a guide for her year. I thought that would be cool, so I chose the word “Explore” because that’s exactly what I hope to do this year! Around the word I have other awesome quotes about traveling and exploring, and then a bigger quote on the next page. I tried doodling the Charmed symbol but it didn’t work. Oh well, I’m sure with practice I’ll get better! ;)

This is how the video I shared at the beginning suggested doing the monthly log. With each date of the month written on each line. I found I didn’t like it much and didn’t really use it as you can see. Later I found a better way of logging stuff on a month to month basis. I will have a picture farther down in this post.

This is my daily task list page, where I put each of the things I need to do in any specific day, things such as appointments, rehearsals, homework assignments, etc. Obviously the formatting changed from the first time I did it to the next. Now I’ve pretty much figured out how I like it, but it took a little work figuring out what I liked! As you can see, I love colors. You’ll see more colorful pages ahead!

On this page, you can see that I doodled a little bit. It is totally fine to doodle as much as you like! It makes your bullet journal YOURS. On the next page, I have my goals for the semester which I wrote up and wanted to keep somewhere safe. I taped it to the page that I track my habits on, that way when I go to mark my habits I can remember to contemplate my goals and see if I’m staying on track or if I need to do better at something. It’s just an easy way to keep track!

This where I track my habits. It doesn’t matter if I forget a day or something, as long as I’m keeping track and seeing where I can fix my habits. I have my weekly as well as daily habits listed here and I mark them off as I do them. I love this page because it keeps me on track with my goals!

This is my ABSOLUTE favorite page in my bullet journal! I love how colorful and ME it is. This is how I now do my monthly log, I just do it as a calendar and then I can put important appointments and birthdays and everything in it. Then each week I transfer them over to the weekly log. This way I can remember everything that’s important. Like that the 14th was Valentine’s Day, and I had no class on Monday because it was President’s Day! <3

This is my weekly log for last week as well as my daily logs for last week. As you can see I have a format I do things in now and I’m sort of figuring this thing out. It’s so versatile and I love it!

I think the best thing about this is that it can do whatever I need it to do.

Besides the pages I’ve shown you, I also have notes from church, my expenses and finances, other doodles, sometimes even class notes if I’ve forgotten my notebook! And I plan on doing a lot more with it as the time goes on. For example, I might even include a log for my blog posts and the dates I’m supposed to post! And, I also have a page for my essays, where I submitted them to, and when. So I can keep track of where I’ve submitted to and what essay I sent them.

I hope this has been as fun and educational for you as it has been for me! Let me know if you do this, and if you have any suggestions I am always looking for new, more colorful, fun suggestions for using my bullet journal!

Live well,

Claire

Claire 1/22/16 “The Benefits of Writing”

By Claire

Now that we’ve talked about food and healthy eating, I thought I’d post about something else entirely. We’ve already gone over what it means to live holistically. We know it means living in such a way that we realize that everything is interconnected. This means that our physical bodies, spiritual well being, and mental health need to be in balance. It’s when they aren’t in balance that we start to feel sick in one or more areas of our lives.

So, you may be wondering: Claire, what does keeping writing have to do with living holistically? Well, let me tell you. Writing as a whole can be healing for your emotional and mental states. It allows you to release your emotions and work through your feelings in a safe zone where only you reside. It also helps you to manifest what exactly you want out of life. A lot of living holistically is learning to manifest what you want out of life. It is setting goals and accomplishing them. So, I’m going to provide a few ideas of how to write regularly and how they will help you to manifest your goals and dreams.

1. Blogging is a great way of writing about things that are important to you and sharing your thoughts with those around you. In fact, it’s an effective tool used by therapists with their clients. It is a way of working through your feelings and thoughts in a productive way, and it allows you to do research on cool interesting things! (Like right now I’m reading an article on journal writing in order to write this blog!)
2. Letter writing is another great way of writing regularly. In my creative non-fiction class a couple semester ago I was first introduced to this way of writing. Basically, you write a letter to someone or some entity that describes how you feel. This can be kept in a personal place where no one will ever read it, or you can share it with others. Either way it will benefit you by allowing you to work through your feelings freely.
3. Journal writing is another great way of writing regularly. Here is the article I mentioned about this. It said that if you write your daily to-do list down each day, and go over your goals, that you’ll learn to manifest them. How awesome is that?! In fact, I was reading more about keeping a planner or journal and found this awesome video that I’m hoping to try out soon. It sounds like it would really work for me and is just what I was looking for! I’ll tell you how it goes once I start.

I hope that these ideas gave you some awesome things to think about. After all, holistic living is about all aspects of your life being in balance, and writing is a great way to balance everything out. Also, please remember that you don’t have to be talented to be a good writer! Writing is all about getting your thoughts down on paper or on the computer screen in a productive way. Journaling and letter writing is private, so let your feelings flow. No one will be grading you. It requires work to develop a writing skill, but talent is such a small portion of it. Never give up!

Live well,

Claire