Jumping in with Bullet Journaling...

I usually order a Circa Master Planner from Levenger and use it for planning my activities, events, and so forth.  As you know, last year, I got 2 planners.  When I attempted to use both, one for work and the other for health/miscellaneous, my life got pretty complicated.  So many calendars, work and personal, and trying to maintain some sort of order in my life. I was finding my life was becoming more chaotic as I was trying to make doctor appointments and consistently gettting meeting requests for work during the same time.

I had known about the Bullet Journal from a friend on Facebook, Stefanie Harvey, as well as Random Cathy.  Initially, I thought - This would be great!  I could see the ease of use and so forth.  Recently, I began to see all of these people who put their "BuJos" on display.  Oh - My - God!  Talk about overwhelming!  These beautiful pieces of art that you would love to be able to do, but yet, you feel like "How would I have time to do that?"  After awhile, I got too caught up in that overwhelming feeling.

Finally, I simply put my foot down and said - Just make it clean and simple.  Do you really need all of that frilly stuff?  Not really - I need the Bullet Journal to just do the simplest of functions for me.  Maybe later, I can add some pretty things to it, but let's not push it.  

So, I sat down and followed BohoBerry's suggestion - Mind dump.  Put down on a sheet of paper what exactly did I want the BuJo manage.  I feel that should be the first step for anyone about to create a Bullet Journal - sort out what you want to get out of this - what functions do you want to manage?

On Monday, I had a small notebook with lined paper and decided - This will be my step-off.  So, it won't be beautiful, but in order to find out what works for me, I need to "play" with it.  I went back to Ryder's BulletJournal.com site and watching the video.  Taking notes for what the "basics" are and working from that point.  I honestly believe, we should all start "clean and basic."  Later, if you wish to make it fancy, go for it.  However, I feel that this initial step is very important.

So far, I am writing down my activities, getting my appointments sorted out and updated in my various calendars, and setting up a health tracker.  I am working to track my blood sugar and pressure as well as setting up a "food log".  The food log helps me track how well I am working on eating better and seeing where I am making mistakes.

We shall see how well this test Bullet Journal works out for me.  So far, I am using it quite a bit to keep myself updated on my activities and so forth.  Trying to make it a habit forming thing to do.