HI EVERYONE!
I’m Georgia and it looks like I’m kicking off our new #SayYESto series 🙂
So, a little about me… I’m the Communications Development Officer for the YES Project and have been since October 2019! Before working on YES, I did the same job for our sister project, The GREAT Project.
One of the things that I do to help me unwind is bullet journaling. Bullet journaling is basically a way to be creative, keep a log of what you’ve done and helps you get organised. I first heard about it in, maybe like, 2017 but never actually did it. I used to think that it had to be really structured because most of the bloggers I’d seen doing it had spreads, planners, trackers and loads of other things that made it seem just so… ORGANISED.
So it wasn’t until November 2018, when I started working on the GREAT Project, that I actually started doing my bujo (the short term for bullet journal). I became friends with one of their Employment Support Officers, Yach, and she showed me hers and that was history! I went home that evening, found an old exercise book, dug out some pens and just had a go. (P.s. check out Yach’s post here).
At first, I got super demotivated because mine didn’t look like the others I saw on YouTube or Pinterest, and the bloggers were planning their upcoming weeks, whereas I wasn’t. But as time went on, I realised the beauty of bujo-ing is, IT’S YOURS; you can do what you want with it. It’s personal to you, so make it what you want! It’s a great way to be creative with stickers, drawings etc, whilst logging your day-to-day life, your future goals, inspirational quotes, and pictures – literally anything.
I find it helps me because I use it like a diary, it lets me offload stuff that’s private to me. I can get lost and completely zone out with drawing too and drawing is a great way to practice mindfulness. I also like the fact that over time, I can see my lettering skills improve and I find it enjoyable flicking through and reading stuff that I’ve done in the past. Overall, I just find it a really therapeutic experience and it’s something I’m proud of. If I am ever organised enough to plan my upcoming weeks, I also get great satisfaction ticking off things on my to-do lists, or checking off the weekly goals I set myself. I personally also track things too, like how often I worked-out, or how often I watered my plants (lol). So when I see that I’ve done these things regularly, I feel happy with myself and it’s a reminder that I’m proactively doing things.
One of the things I’d say to you if you wanted to get started is just go for it. Try not to get too caught up on what other people are doing, or how other people’s look, because it’s your journal, not theirs. Do look for bloggers or on Pinterest for some inspiration to get started though – I found that really helpful. So grab an old notepad and a pen, and see where it takes you!
And if you do decide to try it out, share it with me! It would be super cool to see what you’ve done if you’ve decided to give it a go. You can use #SayYESto on social media and we’ll be sure to see it 🙂
Good luck!
G x