PigPog

I used to take the proverbial out of my husband for the way he’d constantly be fiddling around with his ‘system’. He’d scribble his thoughts and ideas into notebooks, various sizes of filofax, various digital devices, but nothing really sticks and he’s always changing his mind. It seemed quite hilarious and very odd to me, until a week or so ago. As 2007 prepares for the final curtain and 2008 waits in the wings, I also find myself in need of a comfortable and reliable way of recording my food diaries and other bits and bobs.

This year, as I settled into doing Slimming World, I played around with various different ways of keeping a food diary and planning shopping lists. I had a Hipster PDA for a while, various notebooks and two different sizes of Filofax. I ended up settling with a Paperblanks diary that the Organisational Master himself bought for me back in Nottingham last year. It worked a treat. So, you’d think the solution would be easy… get another one? Yeah, I thought that too until I couldn’t bloody find one. Our local suppliers seemed to run out of any diaries around, er, Christmas…

In the absence of the obvious answer, same again for ’08, I went on the hunt for a suitable replacement. It seems no other diary has the same layout as the Paperblanks, and most seem to think that weekends don’t need as much space as the rest of the week. I looked at Filofaxes, and in a moment of utter lunacy bought a cheap ‘personal’ size one. I was happy with this for a while, until I tried using it. It just doesn’t feel right. There’s not enough room, the damn thing’s too big, and it’s not a Paperblanks diary, dammit!

So today I’ve tried going the way of the DIY Planner, making my own special custom diary with space to write everything down, little tickboxes for what day I’m doing and… feh, it smacks. Frankly it requires more time using Excel than I’m willing to when I’m not being paid.

Michael, it’s no good. I’ve got to get a Paperblanks. Nothing else is going to work. You know how it is. That’s why you’ll be asking for your A5 Lyndhurst back in a couple of months, and this time I promise I won’t take the piss. I know how it feels now.

Latest Update: Added a post from Working On Me on how to restart when you’ve stopped journaling.

Thinking of starting a journal? It’s a popular activity now, particularly among women, to help make sense of life by keeping a written record of thoughts, hopes and dreams. Here are a few tips and links:

Benefits of Journalling

• The main benefit of keeping a journal is the same as GTD’s – it’s getting stuff out of your head and onto paper.
• When keeping a journal you are your own audience, so your writing can be as wild and free as you wish. You don’t even have to write. You can draw, or collage… you call the shots.
• It’s a record of your life and your thoughts.
• You decide who gets to see it.
• You can swear as much as you like.

How to Start

• Get a nice notebook, Moleskines are a favourite here, but there are loads of great notebooks out there to choose from. Depends on what size you want, whether it needs to be pocketable, or whether you’d like to be able to do other stuff in it too, like paint.
• Start on an occasion, like a birthday, or a wedding, or a birth – I started my first journal on New Year’s Day, 2005. Starting on a new year is a good chance to review the year gone by and write about your hopes and dreams for the future.

How to Restart

• If you’ve let your journal go unused for a while, Working On Me has a great tip for getting started again – not just ignoring the gap, but not trying to jump in and cover it all either.

Other Tips

• Use whatever feels most comfortable at the time – pen, pencil, felt tip, eyeliner…
• Have you written something you’d be mortified with embarrassment about if anyone else saw it? Paint over it! Get out the markers and scribble over it. Turn it into a piece of art.

Handy Links

• Two Quick Journalling Techniques and a Hack – a couple of interesting new tricks to try and advice on how to fit it into a DIY Planner.
• Creative Journalling – helping you to turn your journal into your personal creative playground.
• The embodiment project 2007 – designed to inspire participants to contribute to their journal every day of 2007.
• innowen, journalling expert at DIY Planner, has a page on her own site on crafting a Tarot Journal
• Emberlexi has uploaded pages from her journal onto Flickr – some lovely examples of the possibilities of creative journalling.
• innowen’s Book of Countings a really nice way of actually counting your blessings and reminding yourself of the times when you’re a blessing to others. Thanks, innowen!
• Doug is quite literally writing the book on paper-based productivity, and he’s posted a draft of the first chapter on D*I*Y Planner – an introduction to journalling.
• innowen’s posts on Sketch Journalling, and Journalling Prompts.
• A good page about illustrated journalling
• An article explaining how journalling can help your health
• A collection of articles on journalling
• Personal Journaling Magazine
• DIY Planner’s Journalling Section
• Ninth Wave Designs on using a Moleskine Diary
• Illustrated Journeys thread on MetaFilter – starting with Kathrin2305′s amazing journals, but with lots more links in the comments.

In my journal…

I’ve recently started journaling again – using an A4 landscape Snowdon Cartridge “Fat Pad”. So far the book contains dip pen sketches, watercolour patterns, writing and a bit of collage. It’s a big colourful mess of a book, but it’s so much fun! Photos may come when I have a page I feel like sharing…

What’s in your journal?

Got pictures of your journal you’d like to share? Post links to your photos here in the comments.

Happy journaling!