Journal and planning: Mid-year review

Instead of sharing my June planning/journaling pages (which by now are very similar to previous months), I thought it would be a good idea to share with you the fantastic benefit of the daily practice of journaling/planning!!

This was my evolution:

• last September I discoverd bullet journaling! I grabbed a cheap lined notebook and start making lists, spreads, watching YouTube video... my love for paper, doodling, little creative bits every day just exploded!
• in October I wanted to see if the practice would stand the test of time... would I keep doing it daily for months? oh yes!! it grew stronger and stronger and I needed more space!!
• in November I moved to the Quilter's Planner! Now I have a ton of space to play with!! I didn't like the bound coiled format and played around with different options. But I kept experimenting with the regular daily lists, tasks, goals, projects, doodling etc
• in December I discovered disc bound planner options! Wow, watching youtube planning videos got me into the rabbit hole of stickers, pens, DIY covers, dividers, etc... all this while the daily use of the planner was keeping my life in order!
• January and February were crazy for million reasons... I tried to keep up with the planning... I did some, but not very consistently... but that's the beauty of this system: you can start, stop and restart at any time!
• in March I experimented with more ideas like "habits" and "weekly specials": they changed my life (see below)
• in April I consolidated those ideas and I started including exercise in my trackers because it's good to get in better shape!
• in May I moved out of the Quilter's Planner to a smaller journal: I graduated to a blank journal where I can express myself more freely and where I can customize every page to my own needs!
• in June I tested if I really like that size of journal... I love it... so I moved out of that journal and graduated to a "higher end" journal (more on this next month)

Lesson learned:

1. writing things down (todo, tasks, etc) makes a HUGE difference in getting things done... it may sound counterintuitive, but the more time I spend planning, decorating and sketching in my journal, the faster and more efficient I am when I am actually doing the tasks I wrote down! Probably is because my brain already processed the activity so I don't need to think about it, I just do it!
2. the only way to improve is to do something over and over again: there are pages that are decorated in a way I don't like... well, I turn the page and move on. There are so many beautiful talented people that share their creation... I don't need to be like them, I can be inspired by them and learn from them... but the important thing is to keep doing it!

One of my words for the year was "Habit". Every month I wanted to focus on building specific habits. And here is where my journal changed my life.

From flossing my teeths, to cleaning the fridge, to doodling, to cleaning my scrap bin, to reading all these activities were added in my planner (as daily, weekly or monthly activities). It's not that I wasn't doing them before :) but I was not consistent... by building these activity into the structure of the planned day/week/month I am now doing all those (and more) without even thinking about them! That's the power of habits!

I also started cooking (more)... again, I was cooking before :)

I am actually quite a good cook and I bake great cookies and cakes too... the "problem" is that I do it only for "special events" so when I have to think "what should I have for dinner" I default on boring things :) so, thanks to the "Weekly specials" section in my planner I tested 36 completely new dishes in 4 months!! :) :) some of them ended up amazing... some a complete disaster, never to try again :)

But now I have some more tested dishes that I will add to my regular rotation and my meals will be less boring!! :)

The point is, I just needed some motivation and structure! so including 2 new dishes a week was duable and fun!

I started learning more about female artists!

As part of my monthly spreads, I have my "Doodle an Artist", where I pick one artist and draw/doodle pieces of their work in my planner. This year I will be exploring female artists because women were not included in my art history classes :( :( :(

I learned about Kara Walker, Yayoi Kusama, Beverly Fishman, Kesley Montague and MadC. I am exploring now Agnes Martin.

It's not in depth research, it's just an activity to open my eyes to artists out there! :)

I also started reading again!! I have a "reading list" where I track the books I read... just setting up that last month reinitiated me to the pleasure of reading paper books... in 2 months I already finished 4 books (which is not much considering that I was reading about 200 books a year during highschool... but it's better than the 0 paper books a months that I have been doing in the past few years :) ) 

And last, but not least, I am getting extra money! :) :)
By watching youtube videos about DIY planner covers I discovered channels that I started following. On one of those channels, the host mentioned an app (Ibotta) that gives you cash back for purchases you make (grocery and much more). I heard about these apps, but I don't have time for coupons and other things like that so I never explored that. This sounded simple enough and I tried it. In 4 months I got about 70 dollars of cash back (that are sent to the paypal I use to buy crafty things :) :) ). Not bad for very few and easy steps! The app has also ways to earn more money if you connect to your friends on FB but I will never do that (I am super suspicious of apps that want to get too much information from me... why do you need to know my friends to give me 50 cents cash back for my tomatoes purchase???? :) )
Anyway, here the lesson is: you never know what you will learn when you explore more about the world around you, so by learning about planning, you may earn extra money :)


I am all set up for July: I moved to another journal and I love the new one! I will share all about her next month :)

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!