It’s very possible you’ve heard of the bullet journal system. You may have even seen some examples of pages or spreads from bullet journals somewhere online. The bullet journal system (created by Ryder Carroll) is a popular analog tracking system that lives inside of a notebook you use several times a day.

I’ve been bullet journalling since January 2017 (two years at the time of writing). I wanted a better system to keep track of things, such as my freelancing, chores, exercise, self-care, and goal setting. I had all of this information in various places both on paper and on the computer, but never in a centralized place.

The problem was, none of this was working well for me or was even sustainable for me. I went a couple of years without really maintaining any planner at all. I would write my daily to-do lists on random sheets of paper or in digital to-do list apps. Nothing would work or be functional enough for me to use on the daily basis.

Throughout most of the end of 2016 (and when I mean most, I basically mean the last nine months of 2016), it was a very chaotic time for me. My business, January Creative, was growing more rapidly and I was taking on lots of new projects and clients. At the same time, I started ramping up a side project/hobby of mine that I had been working on for around a year, and was ready to take a new leap with the hobby.

With so much going on, I was struggling to keep up: staying up late every night to get things done, neglecting important things such as taking care of myself, pushing off things such as marketing my business, regular house cleaning, and personal finance management (the bills still got paid, but the record keeping was left to a less busy time). I could go on and on (and likely will in future posts), but for now let’s just say: things got crazy.