A New Notebook System

Well, after the brain-fry of last week’s notebook envy, I think I’ve figured out a system that might actually work for me. Behold!

There are a couple of things that have been really challenging for me to pin down, namely weekly/monthly spreads (which I hate making by hand in a bullet journal), forward-looking planning (which I hate not having in a notebook), and space to make notes/capture thoughts/generally be more creative. I think I’ve solved this using this set-up:

1) my monthly/weekly planner – this gives me a long view of upcoming plans and a space for meal planning and daily task planning, but doesn’t have much space for notes. I may use it for various tracking, also (like word-count per day, submissions, habits, etc.).

2) I’m trying to use my pocket notebook (mini composition notebook) as my on-the-go notebook—I already use it to capture passing thoughts/notes, but I’m trying a rough schedule in it too, for quick reference.

3) back to the bullet journal—I’m using this for daily logging which I missed in the weekly planner, as well as a repository for other ephemera/thoughts/quotes (a bit like a commonplace, but less formal), as I needed a dumping ground for the notes I make in my daily pocket notebook.

In addition to these three, but not shown, I also have what I call my hashbook, which is a cheap college ruled notebook for doing messy daily pages and creative/unrelated thinking-out-loud stuff and writing exercises. I use bright-colored sharpie pens for that one, and write sloppy. It ain’t pretty, but it’s great for getting my whirling thoughts down in order to make actionable plans.

I also have a normal journal for capturing the general day on my bedside table, because I missed not having that. I’ve got journals from years ago that really captured the feel and mood I was in at various life stages, and I miss having that record.

I’m hoping this will allow me to funnel random thoughts/ideas in a more organized way to a more organized space, and also give me room to log the day and plan ahead more effectively. Here’s hoping!