I started a "Bullet Journal" in March of 2017, and as I start a new page for January 2020 and add a few more "future log" boxes for things that don't yet have calendar pages, I'm finding it has been very handy and more efficient than the straightforward one book a year diaries I used to keep. I could skip through those old volumes and find many blank pages when there was little going on, but in this it is so compressed that pages aren't wasted. I typically use facing pages; calendar (numbered from top down on the left side) on the left page and the Task List on the right page. Tasks are bulleted with a dot or other reference point to show it's a task, an event note or a "signifier" (I haven't used that one, but it's there anyway). The third page is a Record of Activity that usually takes only one page, so can leave a fourth facing page blank. When that happens it gets used for something specific like to document a conversation or meeting, and that page number and a note ("surgery plan", etc.) is added to the contents list in the front.

You can be obsessive about it and buy just the right blank book, the recommended pen type, and (as one friend did) can practice with a book to see how you want it to look and then follow that design you work out for yourself. Me, I used a freebie bound book they handed out at work a few years ago, use whatever black ink pen is handy, keep it to notes, no colors, etc. As I get close to the last few months of pages left in this book I have another free one, also from work, that a friend gave me because she isn't going to use it (that one is a nice quality Moleskine with not as many pages and purchased commercially would cost over $30—I'll use it because I have it but I'd never spend that kind of money for one).

I have a shelf full of the old diaries, and this will go on that shelf when it is full and I'm in the next journal. For those following along in the adventures of decluttering, this is an efficient use of paper and keeps several years worth of notes in one place.

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Participation in the thread has dropped as we lose friends to the hearafter, to attrition, or to ill health. It was important to the late great Katlaughing, so I've kept it going. As long as these longer threads are allowed to run here at Mudcat I'll let this one go into 2020 and change the thread title.

Thoughts? Share them here, or send a PM.

Maggie