After moving into my Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook last quarter, I experimented with a bunch of different spreads to track my academic progress through the quarter. Now, a few weeks into the spring, I think I’ve finally found a way to make my Bullet Journal work for the quarter system. Why the Bullet Journal Bullet Journaling is still the best method I’ve found to organize my life in college. I’ve mentioned this before, but the adaptability of the system that gives me the freedom to change things up frequently is the best part of the system. So for the last nearly 6 months, I have been trying all kinds of cool spreads to…
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Do I Have Time for This: A Guide to When You Can Say Yes
Moving into Spring Quarter, I’m taking on a couple of new projects to an already busy schedule. I love filling my time around my schoolwork with my projects, so anytime I have the opportunity to take on something new, my gut reaction is to say yes. Too many yeses later, and I’m stressed and overwhelmed, unable to balance all those commitments. So this is my step-by-step process to deciding when to say yes. So Much Stuff to Do, So Little Time Over the years, I’ve found I have two settings for my attitude to new endeavors: YES and OhMyGodNo. I fluctuate between them depending on how overwhelmed I am. By…
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Winter Came, I Saw, and I Conquered: Winter Quarter Review
The last twelve weeks have been a whirlwind of events and amazingly, we’ve made it to the end of another quarter. With the new projects I’ve been pursuing while taking classes, my life has become increasingly complicated. Despite pushing myself harder than ever before, overall I had the best quarter I’ve had since starting college. This is what I discovered worked for me and what I’ll be carrying over into my Spring Quarter. Quarter Diagnostic Just like last quarter, I am doing a complete review of my life so that I can keep improving. Inspired by Lisa Jacobs from Marketing Creativity, I completed a review of my achievements for the…
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Using My Bullet Journal to Tackle Final Exams
My college is on the quarter system, which means we get three sets of finals! To ease the incredible stress of this period, I create a home-stretch schedule to help me do all the studying I need to, as well as everything else that keeps me sane. This is how I use my bullet journal and Google Calendar to keep track of it all. Keeping Track of It All This quarter, I am taking four classes, which translates to two exams and two essays with varying due dates. For each class, I breakdown the work I need to do for that final into individual activities. I then assign a time allotment…
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Beginner’s Guide to Calligraphy and Hand Lettering
Since I started Bullet Journaling, I’ve seen hand lettering and calligraphy everywhere on Instagram and Pinterest. My handwriting isn’t a work of art by any stretch of the imagination, so I figured I’d leave that part of Bullet Journaling to the professionals. However, for Christmas my mom got me a calligraphy set for me to experiment with, and this week with midterms finally over, I had a chance to give it a try! Experimenting with Hand Lettering I first tried hand lettering in my first bullet journal back in August. I played with different styles, without any prior planning. It turned out pretty well for a first try, especially using…
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Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook Review
Over the last 6 (!) months of bullet journaling, I’ve heard the whole “you just need a notebook and a pen” story a thousand times. It still seemed like everybody was using the same notebook, the Leuchtturm 1917 in A5. Even the Official Bullet Journal notebook is made by Leuchtturm, so I figured there must be some reason for it. After using it for a whole month, here is how it changed my Bullet Journaling experience. Before the Leuchtturm 1917 I started bullet journaling using a lined Class Act Stationary notebook my friend Becca got for me. I used it through my fall quarter, and it served me well. However, it…
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Time Tracking in my Bullet Journal
As we move into midterm season at my school, there isn’t a ton of time to waste, but somehow I’ve found the day getting away from me. Since this seems to be a running theme for me every quarter, I’ve been looking for ways to improve my time management skills. Inspired by Kara from Boho Berry, I started including a Time Log in my Daily Spreads. I’d been hearing about time tracking as a way to increase productivity for years. There are all these apps both for your phone and computer that can track your online time. I tried using Toggl for my computer last year, but I didn’t use…
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School Year Resolutions
Happy 2017! It’s been years since I’ve made New Years Resolutions, but when I started the 2016-2017 school year I decided it was time to make some goals for the year. Now that the first quarter of school is done, here is how I made them, how (badly) they held up, and the changes I’m making for the next quarter to accomplish them by the end of the school year.
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Fall Review: The Bullet Journal
At the end of every quarter, I review my organization system’s effectiveness in an attempt to always keep improving. During Fall Quarter, I adopted Bullet Journaling, a DIY Planning System. This is how it worked. Bullet Journaling Just before the beginning of this school year, I implemented an organizational system called Bullet Journaling. It is a DIY organization system that in its most simple form only requires a pen and a notebook. It combines to-do lists with future planning, in a format that allows complete personalization. This system can work for everyone, but this how I used it to track my school work, exercise, social commitments, and activities. I used a notebook…
