Daily pages (or rapid logging) – the bread and butter of my bullet journal

Whilst I have now had a few posts about bullet journaling. I haven’t actually mentioned one of the most integral parts – the daily logs (or pages). For me, these are not only the most helpful part of my bullet journal, but they also take up the bulk of it. Again, if you haven’t checked out the creator’s (Ryder Carrol) video on the bullet journal, I urge you to do so. You can watch it here, also if you want to know more about bullet journalling check out my blog post on the basics.

So, what are daily pages, and how do I use them? Daily pages are basically whatever you want them to be, they are there for planning, journaling, recording, tracking – anything you want. For me, they are mainly planning and to do lists, with the occasional bit of journaling added in there (especially when I’m away or on holiday!) Other people use them primarily to journal, or to track things like water intake, moods, the weather, and a whole host of other things. 

My thoughts on CBT (I)

I started this post, and it was intended to just be one post, but as I wrote, I realised that it was going to be a little endless if I did that, so instead I thought I would make it a series. I intend to get this series out in the not too distant future, in the next couple of months as an absolute maximum! But without further ado, let us drive right in.

I mentioned very briefly in my last post that I had recently finished CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). I thought that this would be a good opportunity to talk a little about the things I did with my therapist, and the things that I found most useful. Obviously I wont be sharing *too* many personal details because well, they are super personal, but I will share some examples, and helpfully lots of the worksheets my therapists use are available online, so I can share those with you too!

This is obviously not meant to replace any therapy in any way, or to be used remotely for therapy, but it may have little tricks or tips that might help some people. Or you might just find it interesting to know how I found therapy and what I found helpful.

February plan with me

Welcome to the (slightly) late February plan with me. I was hoping to have this out before today, but as I predicted I might, my February set up was only finished yesterday – so what can you do! Here’s to getting March’s out before the beginning of March… Normally I would try and start these posts with a very brief review of the pages I used last month, however because my January one was so late, it had some of the reviews in it, but watch out for next months, when you’ll see how these pages went for me! So anyhow, without further ado:

My hello February page. So, this was not how I envisioned this page, well, it sort of is, but it was supposed to be without the washi. But guess what – I went wrong! The first time I wrote February I hated it, I missed part of the U and they Y, it was too bunched together and not central in the page. The welcome was also off centre; basically, it upset me when I looked at it. Thus, in true Kayleigh style, I found a way of loving it again. I covered the original February with two strips of washi and slightly curved the edges. I chose this washi because you can’t see through it, and it kind of fitted my colour scheme. I put an arrow next to the Welcome and rewrote February below. And behold, a page I can feel proud of:

Books read in 2016

How many books read in 2016? 17, 142% of my aim, so I’ve vastly increased my goal to 30 books in 2017, I’ve recently rediscovered my love of reading.

Fiction/non-fiction? 15:2, I much prefer reading fiction, though I should probably try more varied non-fiction books. If you have any suggestions, give me a shout.

Male/female authors? 15 women:2 men. Bizarrely the two by men are in my bottom three!

Favourite read? Probably “Behind Closed Doors” by B.A. Paris, had me so gripped I read it in record time (which is even more remarkable because I was at a guide weekend), and I was actually talking about it for days. I also hugely enjoyed “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart, which the plot twist of I reread about six times to comprehend it; and “The Woman in Cabin 10” by Ruth Ware, which I also couldn’t stop reading because I needed to know what happened.

January plan with me

Hello, and welcome to what I hope will be a series of blog posts. Usually, I will aim to get this out before the month begins, but to be fully honest, I’m regularly setting up very last minute. I didn’t finish my January set up until about the 3rd – so we shall see how that goes! If you don’t try you’ll never get there! Though, I would also like to say right off, my inspiration for my bullet journal comes from a great deal of sources, as well as some of it being my own ideas.

Anyway, enough of my rambles, these blog posts will show my bullet journal set up, this one for my January set up. I’ve changed things up quite a bit for January – I decided due to my New Years’ Resolutions or 2017 goals (which is what I’m calling them – but more on that in another post), I really wanted to try out some new things, so let’s dive right it.

First up, we have my ‘Hello January’ page, I like to do these because I think it’s nice to show a new start and space for the month, and it’s fun to do! At the moment, it’s quite plain, but I might come back in later and add some doodles. I went for a blue and purple colour theme for January, primarily because they’re my favourite colours right now, and they were pens I already had at home, so there was no need to buy anything – which we like!!

Rock Bottom

I have hit rock bottom twice and I am still here fighting.  Once you have the only way is up.

Rock bottom because the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life – J.K. Rowling

The first day I hit rock bottom was the worst day of my life. I had failed my first year of medical school and the boy I was completely in love with (I mean that I thought this guy was the one, the love of my life), the boy I had lost my virginity to left me. Via an email. The second time I hit rock bottom, three years later, was an even worse day, it then won the worst day of my life. Thus, I decided I needed to change my life, and that it was in my hands. Now don’t get me wrong. That decision didn’t come overnight, I was at rock bottom for a few weeks before that came, and that decision was the hardest one I ever made, but finally the penny dropped that in my life I had to be the most important person.

17 before 2017

17 before 2017 is an idea I got from Kara over at Boho Berry (http://www.bohoberry.com/), she did a 16 before 2016 in 2015, so in October 2016, I decided to try out a 17 before 2017. Now if you have been researching bullet journaling, I’m sure you have heard of Kara, she is the bullet journal queen. Lots of people, including me get a huge amount of inspiration from her. If you haven’t already, go and check her out.

Anyway, 17 before ’17 is basically a method of trying to finish off the year really strongly. Lots of people start the year with resolutions, goals, and aims, but by the end of the year are just attempting to get through the rest of the year. Actually, at this point, there is so much potential left. So, what you do is make a list of 17 things that you want to achieve in the remainder of the year to try and keep their goals in mind. Alternatively, you could do a list of things before your next birthday. I turn 23 in April, so I could do ‘23 things before 23’, though people more commonly do this for milestone birthdays, but it wouldn’t need to be. You could even completely mix it up and just make up your own list by your own random date.

Book review – The Happiness Project (Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun) by Gretchen Rubin

I didn’t enjoy reading this book; it is very strange to have my first book review on this blog to be a book I didn’t actually enjoy, but the reason behind this is that I absolutely loved the idea and some of the content of the book. In fact, I actually learnt things from it, but I didn’t enjoy the way it was written.

In short, the premise of the book is the writer’s one year project to try and make herself happier. She was not particularly unhappy at the beginning; she is a happily married woman with two children, who gets along with her parents and in laws, does a job she loves and is relatively well off. She has a revelation on the bus one day that although she is happy, she could be happier (which I think is something that everyone can relate to), so she sets out on a mission to become happier without drastically changing her life. It is basically an experiment to see if she can “change her life without actually changing her life”.

An Introduction to Bullet Journalling

So, I constantly mentioned this thing called bullet journaling in my last post, so what on earth is it.

“The Bullet Journal is a customizable and forgiving organization system. It can be your to-do list, sketchbook, notebook, and diary, but most likely, it will be all of the above. It will teach you to do more with less.” – Ryder Carroll (the inventor of the bullet journal)

Basically, it is an organisation system, journal and to-do list all in one, a system that can be anything and everything that you want it to be. And it all begins with a notebook, and a pen; any notebook and pen. I started my bullet journal journey with a £4 notebook from ‘The Works’ and the pens I had at home. I have since brought more pens than I would like to admit, and I have a new (more expensive) notebook which I just moved into at the beginning of January. But none of this was necessary; I could still be using the biro and a £4 (or less) notebook and I would still love my bullet journal.

Hello there!

My name is Kayleigh* and I am a twenty-two year old, fourth year (ish) medical student in the United Kingdom. I plan my life using a bullet journal, and I consider myself a spoonie (more on this later).

I have decided to start this blog for several reasons. The first is because I have wanted to for a while – I want to share my experiences, in the hope that they can one day help other people. The second is because I really love bullet journaling and I want to share my ideas and my inperfectly perfect bullet journal with the world. The aim of this is to write about my life, and my bullet journal, and anything else I happen to want to share (e.g. book reviews, recipes).

‘What is a spoonie?’ I hear you ask, well if you have not read the spoon theory I highly recommend it to everyone (available at: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/). But basically, it’s the theory that states that someone with a chronic illness (in my case chronic depression and anxiety, with acid reflux and chronic pain in my shoulder) does not have the energy (or spoons) to do the things that the average person does, so that they run out of spoons to do things, and must make conscious decisions on how to use their spoons. My chronic depression means my energy is very low and unpredictable, so that is the main reason I consider myself a spoonie. Some may not think that my mental health conditions make me a spoonie, but through this blog I do hope to explain why that is.