If you are like me, there is never enough time to get everything accomplished that you want to. I often think that I have 24 hours in a day and so do some of the most successful people in the world. We are all equal from that perspective, but we differ in how we spend our time.

I love to make lists and check them off. I heard on a TED Talk once that checking off items on a list actually gives you a momentary endorphin rush. I guess I’m addicted to that feeling because I live for checking those items off. To that end, I was searching for a new way to keep my schedule and lists in a handy system. I’m tired of using my smart phone for everything so I decided to try an analog system.

To my surprise, Pinterest led me right to the greatest thing since sliced bread IMHO — The Bullet Journal. You can organize it to make sense for your life. If you crave creativity like I do, you can embellish to your heart’s content.  Or, you can be as straightforward as you like. Its completely up to you. Search for it on Pinterest or Instagram for inspiration.

I discovered this gem only 72 hours ago and I’m already knee deep in it. My husband and I ran over to the craft store yesterday where he helped me pick out markers and pens that wouldn’t bleed and do what I wanted them to do. I already had a brand new journal to keep track of things at work so I was set.

I’ve been pouring over pictures and ideas on Pinterest, and most of what I’ve done so far is borrowed from the layouts of others. I’ll probably do that for a while until I find what works best for me and then branch out on my own. I find that creating my pages is incredibly calming and helps me to shut out all of the other things going on in my mind that stress me out.

Here are a couple of pictures of the calendar I am working on.

 

I challenged myself to read two books each month over the summer. I used to read a lot but not so much in the last several years. I’m staying away from leadership and self-help books mostly and just reading novels (especially action thrillers!). I decided that I would develop a page for my journal to help keep track of books that I read for the rest of 2016.

I’m already thinking of other things I can keep track of. The list goes on and on. Here are just a few ideas:

• Movies I want to see
• Restaurants I want to try
• Places I want to visit — or a map of places I have visited recently
• House improvements I want to make
• Pictures for a very important album
• Recipes
• Daily gratitudes
• Quotes/Bible verses
• Weight training reps and graphs
• Blogging ideas

I’m fully aware that I can keep track of all of these in an app that does all of the work for me, and I have used many of them — I’m just ready for a different perspective and to pry my smart phone from my hands.

If you have already discovered bullet journaling, please post a picture of one of your layouts below. I’d love to see what you have done!