Mid-July 2016 I invested in an Erin Condren lifePlanner and dropped mad cash on stickers and washi tape. Each month had a different theme with new sticker sets. It helped me stay organized with assignments, tests for school, my work schedule, family and friend’s birthdays and when bills were due. I also had arguably the cutest sticker sets from Sweet Kawaii Design. Although the planner worked OK for me then, my life has changed drastically since. I am no longer a student nor do I work full time. I do however now have the massive undertaking of teaching myself how to code. I wrote a checklist of languages, frameworks, plugins, programs, and concepts I need to learn for the route I want to take into basic front-end web development that is pretty daunting to look at. After taking a few courses on Codecademy and writing some notes through OneNote that hardly made sense a few months later I was convinced that I just wasted months of my life and I forgot everything I learned. I realized I needed a record of my accomplishments. I have since then improved my note-taking skills but still needed to have a history of what I have learned to keep my sanity.

After watching some YouTube videos of Bullet Journal setups I fell in love with the simplicity of it.  I bought the Leuchtturm1917 journal from Amazon.

The How to Bullet Journal video is recommended and describes the analog system it uses. This concept tracks the past, organizes the present and allows you to plan the future.

With my Erin Condren planner, I ended up falling out of using it. I would plan a month ahead cleaning schedules, face mask days, workouts three times a week, and even meals each day. My life just didn’t work that way no matter how much I wanted it to. I even stopped using it for remembering Birthdays thanks to Facebook reminders.

I still have my planner but I don’t see myself ever looking back through it. Since I spent so much time and money on it I  feel like its now one of those necessary things I can’t part with even though I have no use for it anymore. Keeping this in mind I decided the Bullet Journal was only going to be for Code-related stuff and nothing else. That way it would always be useful. Since the analog system is so fast and easy to set up there is a higher chance of me actually using it.

My bullet journal thus far:

a Key Table of Contents Goals for 2018 Future Log 2018 (Year calendar)

Monthly Log Weekly Log With Month Focus (Topic of focus for the month) Daily Log Next, I have a few collection pages which are great for checklists, notes or anything you want.

Podcasts to listen to Books to Read Web Design Track Video Checklist Front-End Web Development Video Checklist Console Foundations concept notes These checklists give me a quick birdseye view of what I have accomplished and what I still need to complete. Same with the concept notes. I wrote them as a spread so I don’t need to turn any pages to see all the notes. With a quick glance, I can see what the code is needed when using the console.

So far the bullet journal works better than I could even imagine. I honestly never thought about all of the potentials a journal could have. Planner, sketchbook, notebook, calendar, address book… etc. smh

Hope this post was insightful for those considering giving bullet journals a try.

Thanks for reading!