Thoughts on my journal (Part 2)

          I was going to give you a break from my journalling madness this week but...oh well! I continued thinking over the structure of my journal moving forward and I decided that I liked the idea of a goal refresh every three months. However, not all the questions were meaningful to me so here is what I came up with: 

I simplified the questions and streamlined them and kept the Word For the Next Three Months portion.

          Next I looked at the upfront work that you have to do at the beginning of each year. And again lots of things just did not resonate with me and needed to be removed or streamlined so this is what my upfront work is going to look like:

Next I looked at the section where you develop an action plan for your goals and this is what I came up with:

And that is it. My thoughts on the new setup are done. I will try the monthly setup and see what works what needs to be changed and what needs to be dropped and when the time comes I will do the same for the yearly setup. I’m also in the mood to add color and stuff but that could change 😂  

June Journal Update

          This is the first Tuesday of the month of June. So it is time to give you an update about my journaling habits and a look at my June page...before I forget 😂 and do it late like last month. 

          Last month Kuwait was under a full lockdown because of coronavirus and though I was one of the few people I know who still had to go into work every day it was still a slow month for me. Plus it was also Ramadan so it slowed down even more and my days and nights were messed up. As a result of that my journaling habit was also messed up. I pretty much stopped writing in my journal around the 14th of May and even before that my journalling was hit and miss. So this month I am determined to go back to it because it actually grounds me and helps me process my feelings and thoughts. 

CULTIVATE WHAT MATTERS:

This was the break down of my goals from last month. I actually succeeded in finishing two small goals in my Korean studies. I also added one new goal which is to learn Mandarin. We’ll see how that goes. 

This is my tending list from last month and the yellow bits were me taking time off. As you can see there was a lot of time taken off for Korean and Mandarin.

Next, I did my month in review page and moved on to June prep work.



This is my June prep work page. I’m thinking of changing the structure on this for next month but it is still percolating in my mind.

This is my goal breakdown for this month.

My monthly calendar. 

This is my tending list for this month. As you can see the task list is quite short because I decided to use a paper calendar as well as my daily journal to keep track of my study and task details.

My June paper calendar, a free download from Notebook Therapy. 

MY JOURNAL: 

Like I said this past month I didn’t journal much but I did use my trackers and every day.

It worked for me really well so I made a tracker page to June.

This is my June cover page. I printed out a pretty picture from Pinterest with the word June on it and then the rest are stickers.



This is my Blog Idea and Books Read page.



Finally, this is my tracker page. I’m using the same structure as before but I added the first letter of the days so I know the date and day it falls on.

And this is it for my journal update!

Journal Update.

    If you remember in a previous post I told you about my journey with journalling and keeping a bullet journal. And how I planned on doing things this year. I also talked about my Cultivate What Matters Powersheets and how I planned on using them. Well now I've been using these 4 notebooks for 3 months now and I'm ready to give you a new update on them.

1. The Four Notebook System.

I am no longer using 4 notebooks. That system just was not working for me. I no longer use the notebook reserved for the study programs. It was not something I looked at because due to first getting sick in January and February, then the Corona Virus situation that escalated big time in March, those programs are on hold or canceled and now I just do as I can. The second notebook that I got rid of was the notebook that I was using to add my weekly and monthly tasks too. I kept forgetting to look at it and things started to slip past me. It was a total mess. So now I only use my daily journal which also has my daily tasks in it. And my Powersheets which have the month in view of my tasks and any future tasks get added to it.

2. Daily Journal

    The daily journal which I use both as a bullet journal now for my daily tasks and also as a way to keep record of my day, is still the one I got from Ferris Wheel and which I have reviewed here. I'm still using the one which looks like the Traveller's notebook. Although the notebook itself is of good quality I have to admit I'm not a Traveller's Notebook type of person. I won't be getting that size again.

    The first thing I did this month was figure out the kind of colors I wanted to use so I picked out some stickers and a washi tape that I will be using through out the month of April. You can see both below.

    I also decided that my tracker for last month was perfect so I will be keeping that as well as my Blog idea page, however, I will be adding a section on Books Read on the Blog Idea Page.

March 2020 Blog Idea Page and the Tracker

    This is what my cover page looks like for April. I postcard that I liked on one side and some stickers and washi tape on the other with April 2020 written down. I also added a tab sticker which has a tiny calendar on it but it is not shown in this picture.

April 2020

This is what my Tracker, Blog Idea and Books Read pages look like.

April 1, 2020 Daily Page

Finally this is what my daily pages look like. The date on top, tasks underneath, and then my daily activities that I want to write about.

3. PowerSheets

    One of the main things I love about Powersheets is that every 3 months you get a few pages that make you look at the previous three months and assess where you are at with respect to your goals. This is the time to change your mind or adjust things where they need adjusting.

    This is what I took the time to do during a lull at work at the beginning of April. I looked at my goals, re-evaluated myself and what I can realistically do. My goals stayed the same but they are a little more realistic now.

    These previous pages were all the work I put into re-assessing myself and my goals and I really enjoyed working on them. Next is what needed to be focused on in April and how to work on them.

April Monthly Task list

April's Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Tending list.

For now this is my journalling setup, whether it will be streamlined more in the coming months is yet to be seen. 

Repurposed notebook

My Leuchtturn 1917 journal is almost at its end. So I decided that July was going to be the last month in this journal. I didn't want half a month in one and then the other half in another.

The notebooks I backed on kickstarter I'm not sure when I'll get so I decided to re-purpose a notebook that I have and know I'm not going to use as intended. (*update: They actually arrived and I will be doing a post on them soon but since I had already decided to use this journal for the rest of the year I'm going to set them aside for next year.)

I don't do well with writing prompts and I honestly don't remember if I got this from a subscription box or if I bought it myself thinking to give it a try and failed at it. Anyway...it is getting a make over.

The first thing I did was cut the jacket and take out the slice that is the spine. Then I cut the pen that was on the jacked because I was sure I wanted to use it somehow.

I took the spine and using PVC glue, glued it to the exposed spine of the notebook. I stood it up between some books so that its weight will help the spine stick. I have a bookpress, but it is useless in this situation. I left it like that over night.

As you can see the spine and covers of the notebook are not perfect but that is okay since it will be covered anyway.

Next I'm going to decorate the covers. I'm going to use some decorated light paper and modpodge. 

This paper was covering some journal that I got as a gift or maybe in a subscription box, I can't remember now and I loved it so much I kept it. I’m going to use it to cover the notebook.

The first thing I did was measure out the paper and cut it to a little bit more than necessary (in case of accidents). 

Next I put a scrap piece of paper between the first page and the cover so that the modpodge doesn’t get on it. 

Then I applied the modpodge to one cover and the spine and stuck the paper on it. I’m going to wait for it to dry before I do the other side. 

Now both sides have modpodge on them and I already folded the edges of the back cover. This is when I realized that the cover needed reinforcement so I added a white sheet to the inside of the cover and then I decided I needed to line the edges so I used some washi tape. 

I’m not too concerned with it being neat because I like the messy look here. 

Now I’m going to start on the front cover.





The first thing I did was cut the corners and trim the extra long edges.

I decided not to use modpodge on the cover so I used a double sided tape to tape the edges down. Next I added a white page to strengthen the cover only for the double sided tape to finish on me and I didn’t have a spare one (I did this at work) so I ended up using modpodge to stick it down. 

Finally, I used washi tape on the edges (this looks neater than the back cover)  Now I’m just going to apply a final coat of modpodge to the cover before adding embellishments. 

I was going to add the pen to the spine of the notebook and add my stickers and decorations to the front and back covers. However, I loved the look of the covers so much I decided to add the pen to the front of the cover and leave the back alone. I was also going to add some ribbons as place holders and for a closure for the notebook but in the end decided against all that because I hated the place holders in my journal and I didn’t want to ruin the covers by cutting them to add the closure ribbons. Instead, I went looking for some paper clips that I’ve been saving for just such an occasion. 

I added stickers to the inside of the covers. For me they seem too empty, and being a KPOP junkie I added stickers that I made...

Some that came with the seasonal greetings from my favorite group...

Some that came with the album of one of my favorites...

And some that I bought online...

So this is the inside of the front cover...

This is the inside of the back cover...

And it is done my new journal is born. 

Back cover and inside back cover.

Front cover and inside front cover. 

All in all, it took me four days to work on this journal because I needed to give modpodge time to fully set. I love the final product and I’m glad I did this. I hope you enjoyed the journey with me.