Monthly Update (January 2021)

          I started working on my goals at the end of December. I used a workbook that I put together myself. I worked on each of my goals separately but first I did a survey of my goals from last year.

Since I had my yearly goals all set I decided to work on my new journal. I knew I didn’t want to stay in my ferris wheel journal because I wanted nothing to do with anything from 2020. So this is the notebook from Notebook Therapy that I am currently using. 

          First I set up the pages that are going to stay as a staple like a grid that shows me the box count on each day and how many boxes I am going to need for my month at a glance for example. 

          Next a title page for 2021, a review of last year and my budget page. 

I made a title page for January and a month at a glance page which included my trackers.

Finally a page for my goals, blog ideas and books read. 

I also have a weekly study tracker and a daily study tracker which I made for myself. I like to know what I expect of myself all week (weekly tracker) and what I actually get done during the day. 

This is how I use the daily tracker. 

By using this daily tracker I can see what bits take up more time and how much time I am really spending at studying.

I love my new journal. The pages are really thick which makes it easy to use watercolor and other mediums on it. 

Notebook Therapy Haul

For a while now I’ve been wanting to get some of the beautiful Notebook Therapy books and finally after deciding that I wanted to start the new year with a new journal I took the plunge and bought a notebook...or 2...errm okay 3.

          My current journal is good but the pages ghost and sometimes the ink from the fountain pen seep into the pages (depends on the ink) and feathers. I heard good things about the notebooks from Notebook Therapy and that made up my mind. 

          I must confess I wanted to buy all the notebooks on the site. They all looked so amazingly beautiful even the ones with black pages but in the end I settled on these three. 

Tsuki “Dreamy Nights” Limited Edition Bullet Journal

Tsuki “Torii” Limited Edition Bullet Journal

          

Tsuki “Falling Star” Limited Edition Bullet Journal

The first two I have interesting cover textures and the last one is a normal hard cover. But all are beautiful in my eyes. With the red one I even got the spiral paperclip. All the pages are very thick (160 gms), dotted and white in color. Each one has 176 pages and is A5 in size which after using the travel journal size and the square size journals I realized I like the best. Each one has 2 book marks. I’ve decided to start the year with the Tsuki “Falling Star” journal. 

I also love that it lays flat on the surface. Makes things very convenient.

          Finally, I also bought the Tsuki Bullet Journal Tracking Stamp Set. 

In total it has 25 stamps that include boxes, to do lists calendars, trackers and even the weather just to name a few. I don’t know if I am going to use all of it but it is certainly handy to have. 

Next week I will be showing you my adventures in setting up my new bullet journal.

Language Studies

           I started out the month going easy on myself because I honestly had no motivation to study much but as the month moved on I realized that if I left myself like this I would forget all the stuff that I learned and then I would have to start from the beginning again. So this week I bit the bullet and texted my teacher to let him know that I was ready to go back to taking weekly classes. I also decided to take Korean classes on italki and found a teacher through a series of trial lessons. She wasn't my first choice but my first choice doesn't have the time slots that I need and so I took my second choice. I've scheduled a series of five lessons and I will reassess after that. My Chinese lessons are still on going. 

          I also am focusing on one book at a time where it comes to Chinese and Korean and when that book is done I will move on to the next one. Doing two or more books at the same time was too much load work and made me confused at times. Focusing on one thing and later after it is done reinforcing it with the next thing is much better.

       So now for Korean I am working through Practical Korean after finishing Korean Grammar For Speakers and for Chinese I am working through Developmental Chinese with my Chinese teacher. Quality not quantity is what I am currently going for.

        Basically, when things aren't working change up your routine, don't stop and hope you retain when you have been doing while you get back your rhythm. At least not where language is concerned.

          As you can see from my tracker, there are days when only half a box is filled and that is okay. Half filled means I didn’t do all the tasks in this category but it can also mean I did half of them. I chose to see that I did half of them.

     

          

Monthly Update (December)

          Last month’s lack of motivation really messed me up when it came to my studies, and my journalling. I went days with out writing one sentence in my journal and I hated it. So I vowed that I wouldn’t push myself too much this month but That I should write as much as I can. 

NOVEMBER TRACKER PAGE:

Notice the crosses and brown splotches. The brown is me taking time off and the crosses are just me not having enough energy to do anything. 

There is one thing that I did do and that is pass the first semester of ZAD Academy.

DECEMBER TRACKER PAGE:

I messed up the grid a little so I used white out and then added a sticker on top. 😂 

I took out my morning routine and instead I added Apps as a thing I wanted to track otherwise nothing else changed. 

MONTHLY REVIEW:

I did do the monthly review and I poured my thoughts into it and what I might do different in December. 

DECEMBER COVER PAGE:

Yeah, don’t ask me why unicorns are a thing on this page, in fact don’t ask me why it looks like this. I have no idea.

MONTH AT A GLANCE PAGES:

December month at a glance page. 

This is November’s month at a glance.

MONTHLY GOALS:

Notice how compact it is. Yeah, I’m not doing much this month and that is deliberate. I need to regroup and relax. 

I decided that doing one book at a time right now was the way to go instead of working on many books all at once. 

Well, this is my update for this month.

More on Lack of Motivation

          In my previous post I talked about how I’ve been lacking motivation thanks to the whole 2020 catastrophe year and end of year blues. In this post I’d like to expand a little and maybe share with you all what I’ve been doing. 

1. Look at your goals and see which ones you can shift around or add more tiny steps too to make things easier on yourself and to not give .

2. Take a break. I gave myself a few days to just chill and do nothing but the absolute necessary. 

3. See if there is something that sparks your interest, that makes you want to do it then turn it into a reward for yourself if you do something, even if it is a small thing.

4. Change where you usually sit to do your work. A change of scenery is always a good reset. 

5. Be gentle on yourself. There is always tomorrow.

"End of Year" Motivation

           I don't know if I am the only one who has this problem, but I'm beginning to have what I like to call the "End of Year" lack of motivation syndrome. It is not a real syndrome as far as I know but it is real to me. End of October through to the beginning of the new year is a little bit of a dead zone for me when it comes to motivation to do anything. It is the time of the year where I tend to give up and just not do anything because I can't get over my lethargy. This is the time of year that I usually just give up on my goals that have not been done and just decided that I "can't do it". I realized this pattern after looking through my previous journals, and my goals oriented journal for this year. I decided to do things just a little differently.

          Looking at my goals now, I'm going to do what I can do, in small bite size chunks and what doesn't get done gets moved to next month and so on. It is OKAY for a goal to be shifted to the next year. What doesn't get done this year can still be finished next year when I am fresh and rested. Plus 2020 has not exactly been a normal year...

Monthly Update: November 2020

          As we neared the end of October I realized that by the end of the month I would not have enough pages for a full next month so I decided to move to a new notebook. The new notebook is the exact same one as the one I was using from May to October so no change there.

          Now let us talk about October. For the most part I started strong and then at the end I kind of lost steam. You can see it in my tracker a little bit. I decided to give myself some time off each week and there are times when for Korean and Mandarin I just studied using the apps which I don't think of as real study but at least I didn't leave off completely, and most of this happened at the end of the month mostly.

          I'm going to talk about my language studies and what I plan to change this month in a separate post suffice it to say, I'm tweaking my routine a bit. I might start a study challenge but we'll see. The first thing I did on October 31 was review the month and see which goals are working and which ones aren't or need tweaking.

I looked at my calendar as well as my monthly goal's page from October to see how I did and assess everything.

          Next I set up next month as usual. I did a title page using a simple post card that I liked and then set up my month at a glance calendar and my trackers.

Also as usual I set up my goals for this month. I'm happy with how the setup turned out as usual.