Journaling
I have a very simple approach to my physical journal.
Elements of my journal
Table of Contents
This is one of the most important aspects, that actually makes a physical notebook functional with no search. The idea is that you don’t divide the notebook into sections before writing, but that you write down anything you want to in whatever order it comes out of your head. Then, if you have anything that you think you’ll want to find later, you add an entry to the table of contents with the page number.
For example, instead of setting aside a couple of pages for recipes, you write down each recipe as they come, and add page numbers to the “recipes” entry in the table of contents. At the end of it, you may have recipes on pages 4, 23, 34, and 60.
Media log
I log all of the sizable media I consume. This ends up being mostly books, movies, and TV shows. I check off the box when I finish, and give it a rating out of 5. If I don’t finish, I strikeout the checkbox. At the end of the year, I go back and review all of my five-star entries to compile into a best of the year blog post.
Daily log
I make sure to write at least a quick daily log every day, to keep up the habit of adding to my journal every day. Many weekdays are very similar to others, but I do my best to write down at least two things about every day.
Things I tried but did not stick
Monthly pages and todo lists
Per the bullet journal philosophy, I tried having a page for each month for writing down plans and todos. In reality though, my events are already kept in my iPhone’s calendar, and my todos are ephemeral enough that I don’t really need a place for them in my physical journal. Most of my substantial todos are work-related, and I have a digital system for my work things.
Health log
I tried keeping a simple daily log of my mental and physical health. On the aforementioned month-page, I colored one box for my mental health and one box for my physical health for each day. It was a 5-color scale, where red=bad and green=good.
I did this diligently for a few months, but started to realize that I never needed to look back on this information. I guess it was helpful to remember when I had a cold? But honestly, that’s really not that useful. It was just busy work, so I stopped.