Bullet Journaling for a more productive life

Folks, so, so, so much has happened since I last wrote! First, the Relay for Life was a great success (you can read my buddy Erin's recap for a good summary). I also picked up a part-time job at a math tutoring centre called Mathnasium (I actually started end of February, but it's still news!), and then, mid-June, we found out about a really gorgeous house for rent that was actually within our price range. I'm talking back yard, in-suite laundry, central A/C… the whole nine yards! So, at the end of July, we moved! I promise to write a post about our new home, but perhaps when it's a little neater after we've unpacked a bit more.

So, here we are, in a new home for just about two weeks, still with what seems like a gazillion boxes left to unpack (though I have been making progress). I've felt like there's just so much to do that it sometimes gets overwhelming. This is why, at the beginning of August, I decided to start a Bullet Journal. You can read more about the process on the creator's website, but the basic idea is that you just write down things as they happen and distinguish between tasks, events, and notes with little bullets. I bought a cheap unlined notebook at the dollar store because I wasn't sure I'd enjoy the process, and I didn't want to waste a lot of money, but I'll probably go for a Moleskine or something similar for my next journal.

On the very first page, instead of making an index, I gave my contact information and wrote a little legend to keep track of the different bullets and signifiers. I put the index at the back of my journal instead of at the front so that if I ran out of space, I'd be able to continue on earlier pages. I've also seen some people use multiple indexes at random points in their journal. That could work too, I suppose, but it seems confusing. Here's my first page, decorated with colourful doodles on a slow day at work:

The next spread is my monthly calendar and tasks. On the left side, I made a list of all the days in the month, with the date and day of the week, and then started to fill in the more important events I already had planned. One small change I've made since I scanned these pages is I put a little event bullet to the left of each date so I can check them off as the days go by, which makes it a little easier to see where I am in the month. For my September spread, I'll definitely give my days a bit more room! On the left side, I started listing all of the tasks I could think of that I wanted to accomplish in August. I keep looking back on these and attempt to tackle one each day. The especially important and urgent tasks, I mark with an asterisk (for example, Daphne's sweater, which I need to finish before she leaves for England at the end of the month).

Then, we get into the meat of the journaling. Each day is a series of bullets. Tasks are demarcated by empty boxes, events are unfilled circles, and notes are filled in smaller circles. Every morning, I write down the things I want to get accomplished and the events for the day, adding more as I think of them. I check off tasks as I complete them and events as they happen. If, by the end of the day, there is a task left unaccomplished, I migrate it to the next day (with a little arrow) or cross it out if it became irrelevant. For the future, I think I'll probably only migrate tasks when I change pages, since they're still visible until I turn the page. As you can see, I've been pretty good at getting stuff done this way! It feels unnerving to still have little unchecked boxes at the end of the day, and just so good to add in that little checkmark when a task is complete.

Once I have enough tasks (or events or notes) that are similar in nature, I migrate them to collections, which I note in the index. The ones I show in the image below are for Blog Ideas and Crafting Projects. Some other collections I've added since are: Books to Read, Movies to See, and Songs to Learn on the Ukulele. I also added a collection for Future Dates. One minor issue with the Bullet Journal system is that it's difficult to plan for events further in the future than just the current month. So, as things come up, I just add them to the master list of future events, and when I start a new month, I'll migrate them there. Easy!

I've also personalized it a little with some Dalek post-its. I have a black one to indicate the current month, and a blue one to bookmark which page I'm currently on.

So that's my bullet journal! I've only been at it for two weeks, but so far, I think I'm enjoying it a lot. I'll admit to spending a lot of time fooling around on the internet, trying to find the perfect bullet journaling system, but overall, I think I'm getting more done this way. I'll certainly give a progress report once I've been at it for a bit longer.

They love me! They really love me!

Well, Lynn over at Sweet Little Stitches, who is a good friend of mind and a crocheter from my weekly knitting group, loves me. She gave me the Liebster Blog Award, which goes to a blog with fewer than 200 followers. The idea is that when you receive the award, you then pass it on to five other bloggers.

Thus, in the spirit of the award, here are five blogs that I really like to read, and are deserving of this award:

1) Jori Baldwin - Sketchbook, as you might have guessed from the name, is a collection of sketches made by my friend Jori, who is quite a talented illustrator. I have a few of her pieces adorning my apartment, this one and this one to be specific.

2) Cassandra's Tears is my mom's blog on which she posts short stories that she has written. I think she's pretty talented, though she doesn't post nearly often enough.

3) Chez Emilie is my friend Emilie's blog. I knew her when I was doing my undergraduate degree in Physics. She's pretty amazing... she has two beautiful daughters and a lovely husband (whom I also studied with), and on top of that, she does quantum physics! She mostly blogs about her adventures in sewing, which I think she's pretty awesome at.

4) Iris is not exactly a blog (though it does have a blogspot address), but I thought it deserved a shout-out anyway. It's a fantasy and science-fiction zine that a few of my Lennoxville friends contribute to (and edit and publish), and you should go read some of the stories right now.

5) Last but not least, Sneaky Milk is my friend Jenny's blog. She's a comedian and story-teller, and a very funny writer. Her blog is mostly just about her life in Toronto. She hasn't written much in a while, but hopefully that'll change.

Hundreds of crocuses

A defiant spread of crocuses, jagged,
Noble, everywhere in interstices
Of soil between rocks, showed,
Indifferent -- oh, indifferent. Whether
Prophecy had god, had doom in it
To come, they exulted, white,
Purple, stamens gold, six petals,
Unknown except you bend down to it.
But colour far, near, some yellow,
Out of the debris of April roots,
And marks and tendrils left in the snow gone.
Nobility was there to see, never
Mind resurrection, beauty
Was here.
_______A path of landscape,
An acre.
_______I gazed.
You looked again and to the right, behind,
A bunch of crocuses grew there.

-- Ralph Gustafson (1909-1995)

Note: I don't think those flowers are actually crocuses, but ever since the little flowers have started poking their heads through the grass, I've had this poem in my head. Ralph Gustafson lived near my hometown until he didn't live anymore, and my dad set a lot of his poetry to music, and I've been humming the tune to this one over and over...

A frabjous weekend!

This weekend, which will include Monday just because I didn't get any work done yesterday, was awesome. A few friends were visiting from Ottawa to see a Muse concert, and as a result, there was much partying. Besides the necessary boozage, there were a few interesting items of note, namely a walking tour of the seedy parts of Toronto, a lecture by the author of one of my favourite web comic artists, and a drawing session with a pretty belly dancer. Ok, the last two had nothing to do with my friends from Ottawa visiting, but bear with me.

First of all, the walking tour. Of the group of friends who were visiting, there was only one female, and we shall call her L. L didn't want to walk around aimlessly all day on Sunday and so picked up the NOW magazine and discovered a teeny tiny add for a walking tour entitled "Blind Pigs & Card Sharks". It was led by a novelist named Lisa Pasold, who spent a lot of time promoting her book, but who was otherwise an excellent tour guide. We started at Union station, where we learned it was built in 1922, but not opened for five years after that because they had to reroute the train tracks. We then went through the Royal York Hotel, which is absolutely gorgeous, and learned that it opened right before the stock market crash of 1929, but was still a place of absolute luxury and class.

We then walked along Front street until just passed Yonge, passed the Hockey Hall of Fame and through Berczy Park, then up Church street to King. On the way, we learned all about the more disreputable life in Toronto in the 1920s to 1940s, about prohibition, the gambling, and the poor neighbourhoods. We then went back up Yonge towards Queen and passed by the King Edward Hotel and through Cloud Gardens Park, which was probably my favourite part of the tour. I'll have to go back there for a picnic. The tour ended at Old City Hall. Overall, the tour was really fun... I'd love to do that sort of thing again.

The next exiting event was a lecture by the author of PhD Comics, Jorge Cham. It was quite entertaining, but a lot of it might have been because the audience, which was 99% grad students, was so ready to laugh. The comic is about the lives of a few engineering grad students, with a token Humanities student. It's all about free food, being terrified of one's supervisor, the "graph"... for the most part I can really relate. Jorge's talk was mostly about how Procrastination is a natural mechanism for grad students to cope with the stress of being in grad school and all the expectations that come from that. It was a good time.

Finally, last night, I dusted off my sketchbook and went to a Dr. Sketchy session at Cameron House. And by "dusted off my sketchbook" I mean that my last drawing was done in July, 2008, and the last one before that was done in September, 2005. Anyway, I went with my friend Jori, who is a much better artist than I. The lovely Samara was modeling, and though she was pretty good at it for her first time, I found her poses to be a little uninteresting. I think she made up for it with her gorgeous belly-dancing costumes. To finish off, here are a few of my sketches:


(One-minute poses)



(Five-minute poses)



(Ten-minute poses)

J.W. Waterhouse at the Musée des Beaux Arts

Merry Brumalia eve to everyone! I had awesome plans to upload the pictures off my camera, and post some in an incredible blog entry, but then I forgot my camera cable in Toronto. Hahaha! Funny joke!

Anyway, as you might have surmised, I'm in the Townships right now. On the way over, I spent a couple of days in Montreal. Among other things (such as hugging the beer fridge in a dépanneur), my friend Stevie and I went to the Waterhouse exhibit at the Musée des Beaux Arts. Besides some sub-par lighting, the exhibit was fantastic.



The most famous painting of Waterhouse's is the Lady of Shallot, which is absolutely gorgeous, as you can see above. There's a good video on this site (and lots of other nice stuff), so I won't say much more about the symbolism and whatnot. I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of artists studied this during their MFA degree program. One thing I did notice though is that all of the models in Waterhouse's paintings (who are all beautiful with soft features and perky boobs) have very strong chins. I'm not sure why I noticed that... but it's an interesting ideal of womanly perfection for the chin to be very long...

It looks like I'm going to do some shopping with the mom man, so I'll have to leave it at that. Pictures of Christmas knitting will have to wait until after I get back to the city.

Knitting Super-heroes

I knew it would happen someday: a comic featuring super-heroes who knit. I'm debating whether or not to buy a subscription.

I have awesome friends

Well, at least one friend, and by awesome, I mean super artistically talented. My buddy Jori painted this picture of my band about a year ago, and she just gave it to me the other night.



I just love her style (you should also check out her website), and the image made me miss my old band. This is the picture she used as a reference. It was taken by my mom and photoshopped by me.



*Sigh!* I used to be such a rock star...

Apology

Forgive me internet, for I have neglected my blog. I haven't written in a good two weeks with no real excuse. Sure I've been busy finishing up my first-year project, the culmination of about 6 months of (more or less) intense research, and I've was busy organizing the astronomy department's part of Science Rendezvous, but that's no excuse for the die-hard crafter! By the way, I totally spazzed out and forgot to take pictures at Science Rendezvous. It's probably for the best though... we had some crazy-ass weather, and the day was mostly miserable with poor attendance.

So, to make up for it, I have a whole camera full of pictures to post over the next couple of days. To keep you busy for the moment, here's a sketch of the professor in charge of my first-year project...



Edit (June 3, 2009): I've since been told that about 10,000 people showed up for Science Rendezvous. I guess it wasn't so poorly attended after all!

Skulls on the brain

I'm not the most fashion-savvy person, but I have noticed that skulls are pretty prevalent these days. Three of the knitting books I own have toques with a skull and crossbones design, and one of my crochet books has a pattern for a skull applique, in fact, the same one I used for my off-the-shoulder top. Maybe it's the revival of interest in pirates (with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), or maybe skulls have a badass esthetic that everyone wants to get behind. At any rate, I've been seeing skulls everywhere... even on my wall...



Turns out it's just the reflection of our coffee table on the wall with a few strategically placed remote controls, but it was still pretty cool.

And for good measure, here's what happened to the skull applique from my sweater after I unravelled it (the sweater, not the applique):