Procrastination is the bane of my existence, and while no magic bullet can solve it, a bullet journal might. My sophomore year at Rollins, my English grammar professor Dr. Forsythe taught my classmates and me the therapeutic effects of visual art. Instead of outlining an essay for him in writing, he asked us to draw an amusement park blueprint representing the structure of our essay. Before this, I had little appreciation for how drawing, even lousy drawing, might provide writers another outlet for creative relief. Then this summer, a friend of mine introduced me to bullet journals through Pinterest. I was skeptical at first, but once I started at American University, I found them a useful tool to track my workloads. Conventional planners limit how I can organize my day and visualize my progress. Bullet journals kill two birds with one stone: I can “procrastinate” by doodling and turn the doodles into work and leisure plans. On the one hand, I now can function only using a pencil pouch filled with every color of the rainbow. On the other hand, scheduling work never has yielded more satisfaction.
In addition to their help with personal planning, bullet journals make it easier for me to acknowledge and learn from my mistakes. Any given day that I open my journal, I see the days I did work and the days I did not. The cumulative effect of these daily reviews means I face a record of my accomplishments and mistakes side by side. I see good days and bad days, and I see the unwritten days ahead for me to start anew. Rather than feel burdened by this history of successes and failures, I feel hopeful that I can learn from them and achieve future success. If I fail again, it means only that I have another day to mark as a lesson. That said, I still regret making one mistake: Waiting for so long to start bullet journaling.
