[bujo] someone asked What Don't You Keep In Your Notebook?

[kaberett]

... and I rambled.

I keep quite a lot in my notebook, but there's a bunch of stuff I do digitally too. Like:

• I use Keepass2 as a password manager. (I am nooooot writing down passwords in a notebook I take everywhere.)
  
• I use gnucash to do my accounts (recurring payments happen by magic! I can get it to show me regular income and outgoings a few weeks in advance, so I can manage cash flow better! There is no way I am ever doing longhand accounting.)
  
• My household uses Trello to keep track of shopping lists, what we have in the freezer and pantry and booze cupboard, DIY projects, and date ideas. Trello works well for my partner, who has ADHD, and the shared lists are Very Useful.
  
• I use Google Calendar to some extent -- more when I'm working, which I'm not currently, because that's how shared resources get booked at work, mostly because that way I don't have to keep reminding my partner (... who has ADHD... ) about where I'm going to be when.
  
• We use Tody to manage house-cleaning tasks -- again, it syncs between devices, shows when things are due increasingly emphatically, and means that instead of going "hey, have you done the dishwasher filters this week?" (which obviously we only ever remember to ask at the least convenient moments possible) we can Just Check The App. Sync requires paying, but for us it is definitely worth the £4.59 (I think it is) a year.
  
• We use Splitwise to keep track of who owes whom what. (This is especially convenient when we're doing things regularly or going on holiday with other friends, but it's also useful just in terms of managing shared expenses.)
  
• I keep a digital "tada" list of Things I Have Done That Day -- it's sort of rapid-logging after the fact, as a record of how I've spent my time. Digital means it's searchable and that I'm happy to record things in more detail, because my typing's fast and I don't have to worry about running out of paper.

Oh, and for bonus points I keep a separate physical disc-bound address book. Was this just an excuse to buy more stationery? No, it's actually working out pretty well for me -- certainly better than any attempt to store that sort of thing digitally ever has... (and I also keep my sowing calendar there -- yay for being able to always have the current month at the start of the section!)

... okay so I recognise that you might now be wondering what I do keep in my bullet journal. :-p To which the answer is, for the whole year:

• Future Log including birthdays, which I have otherwise always been terrible at
  
• annual migraine symptom tracker
  
• a long-term todo
  
• garden planning (what do I want to put in which bed? what did I have there last year or the year before?) and records (what did I plant when? when did I harvest it, and how much?)
  
• (maybe, I'm still working this one out) a Pilates tracker -- list of exercises down the side, dates along the top, mark boxes to show which I did when, write how long it took me at the bottom -- this reminds me of the sequence that exercises are supposed to come in, tells me what I should be adding next, and gives me a concrete visual for how much I'm improving!

Monthly:

• meal planning for the month (dinners only; a page split into PLAN/REALITY/TO USE, which we do once a week along with making a grocery order)
  
• a monthly gratitude page -- one-line-a-day, as specifically about things that actually happened that day as I can make it
  
• a physio and med changes tracker
  
• a sleep and activity tracker
  
• (at the end of the month) reflections
  
• (maybe, trialling this month) a "waiting on" tracker -- I'd previously tried this as an annual collection and it just didn't work for me, but earlier this week I saw someone who'd set it up as a monthly and went OH THAT'S BRILLIANT and yoinked it

Weekly (in one column down the side of a page):

• birthdays
  
• an "inbox" of tasks I don't want to assign to a day
  
• a brief list of things I've done for fun or enjoyed that week (skeleton vital functions!)
  
• a mini-tracker for meditation exercises, when I'm working through a course with formal "do meditation x for one week" structure

Daily:

• right underneath the day+date, a set of small symbols for recurring tasks, which I colour in when I've done them (watering plants, music practice, Duolingo, making the bed...)
  
• a space for me to draw in a weather icon quickly (so that I can look back over the week and go "ugh, it hasn't rained since Thursday last week, it is definitely time to water the outside plants in pots :|")
  
• a todo list!
  
• notes on ideas and Things That Have Happened that I want to follow up on or remember
  
• reflective notes (usually brief)

As non-temporal collections:

• notes on books I'm reading (mostly non-fiction, but I got a bit red-string about Nona the Ninth) or virtual conferences I'm attending (I actually just mean "Migraine World Summit", but hey)
  
• notes on specifically my migraines, as prep for doctors' appointments and the like
  
• notes on recipes I'm tweaking and adapting (once I'm happy with the results, I digitise them)
  
• packing lists, and Things To Do When I'm In A Specific Place lists
  
• notes on games and visual media (what I want to do next, where I'm up to...)
  
• a wishlist, so I can actually answer when people ask if there's anything I'd like as a present
  
• budgeting! spending tracking all happens digitally, but working out how much "spare" money I have per week on average seems to work better with pen and paper

Comments

[lunabee34]

I am loving all this organization. I think I have a contact high. LOL

[kaberett]

Hee! Sometimes even I actually Get Things Done, in addition to playing with stationery. ;)

[lunabee34]

LOL

Well, you've got to have both, I think.

[oracne]

THIS.

[sporky_rat]

I may ask you about gnucash, that sounds like what I need versus my long form.

[finch]

I too would like to hear more about gnucash if you're up for sharing.

[kaberett]

I will attempt to get my act together to write up a post about how I use it!

[kaberett]

Noted! I will try to get my act together to write a post -- it is digital double-entry book-keeping, I still sometimes have to have a flail at me_and and ask how to enter a particular thing, but it has been working well for me for... four and a half years, or thereabouts? So!

[swingandswirl]

You are ORGANIZED! I need to get better about actually using my planner, lolsob.

[kaberett]

... or at least I have the trappings of organisation, or perhaps I just like playing with stationery ;)

On which topic: are there things you can do to make your planner more appealing? Because I definitely bribe myself with, er, playing with stationery...

[harpers_child]

Do you have the spoons to talk about migraine tracking specifically? I need a system for that and can't seem to make one happen on my own due to a combination of chronic low spoons and ADHD.

[kaberett]

I do! I will get my act together to write up a post with pictures, but short version: I've got One Column Per Month, and a set of symbols that are quick to scribble, so I have "lightbulb" for "photosensitivity" and "a note" for "phonosensitivity" and "a spiral" for nausea and "two lines plus some scribble representing closed eyes" for "I can't keep my eyes open", plus a few others including a "+" for "see daily log for more notes", as well as one- or two-letter abbreviations for a variety of meds so I can note what I took and how much of it over the course of any given day. In the leftmost column I rate pain on a scale from 0-5 and in the rightmost I write what day of my menstrual cycle I'm on (number enclosed in drop for bleeding and three dots for spotting).

This doesn't record how long I've had the symptoms for, or how severe they were (other than pain), but for my purposes what I'm interested in is (1) knowing how many days I had any migraine-associated symptoms at all, and (2) helping me identify migraine onset sooner rather than spending an age dithering about whether one is Really starting (because it turns out, I discovered when I started tracking, that I basically do not ever get 3+ of the symptoms I track unless I am having a migraine attack, and usually 2 is enough to go "... :|".)

(I also know a bunch of people who use and find Migraine Buddy useful, but that is something I have no direct experience with.)

[azurelunatic]

I am currently Looking At My Life and going Hmmmm and maybe I would get more things done that I want to get done if I put things more regularly. (Also it does not hurt that they have given me the tiny yellow pills that turn my brain on and my tired off.)

[kaberett]

oh HURRAH for the Little Yellow Pills.

I am definitely finding that I am spending less time in executive dysfunction paralysis and more things are getting done! Not none executive dysfunction with left productivity, but nevertheless a more nutritious balance.

[finch]

Thank you for sharing, it's really cool to see something like this broken out. It makes me think about things that I could be tracking that I'm probably overlooking!

[kaberett]

Hee, I am glad you enjoyed! I am definitely getting more done and spending less time in executive-dysfunction paralysis with this system. Not no time, but... definitely less. :-p

[vass]

(maybe, trialling this month) a "waiting on" tracker -- I'd previously tried this as an annual collection and it just didn't work for me, but earlier this week I saw someone who'd set it up as a monthly and went OH THAT'S BRILLIANT and yoinked it

Oh, I do that! I call it "pending", and it goes on my daily to-do list, down below the tasks and above the shopping list. It gets a lot of use for phone calls I'm expecting, mail orders that haven't arrived yet, and upcoming appointments.

[kaberett]

oh I LIKE "Pending". that is much more appealing terminology. I yoink!

[silveradept]

I appreciate your systems in place and that they appear to be working as intended.

[kaberett]

<3

[oracne]

I found this post exceedingly satisfying even though I am not planning to become anywhere near that organized.

[kaberett]

Hee, thank you for saying!

[sfred]

<3 <3 <3

We use google calendars and a shared online shopping list, too, because D needs to be able to see those things.
I have an online wishlist (recently moved from the big online shop to an independent list site), and I do budgeting in google sheets.
I have packing lists in google keep so I can easily search for an appropriate one and duplicate it.

I have similar stuff in my BuJo to yours.

[kaberett]

I appear to have decided that packing lists live on paper, to my mild amusement, but "setting up an online wishlist" is definitely something A would like me to get around to...

[sfred]

:-D