My COVID Project
Each time I start a new journal, I always ask myself “why am I keeping this old journal?”
It turns out that one of the benefits of Bullet Journaling is that my old journals are extremely useful for reference. Rather than being a dumping ground for random thoughts and unorganized notes, pages are thoughtfully planned and created for a specific purpose, even if they don’t end up working in execution. Bullet Journals are full of mini-experiments for self-improvement, productivity, health, work, and life management. Because I look at my old Bullet Journals regularly, I have always had a hard time with the idea of throwing them out, but I recognize that adding 2-3 journals to storage every year will not be sustainable. So what is an avid journaler to do?
Last week, I finally contracted COVID, after avoiding it for two and a half years. When I started feeling better by day five, this idea of an electronic journal archive popped up from my recent needle list (things that I want/need to do, but haven’t gotten around to and are, therefore, needling me). I was still doing my best to isolate from my husband and our toddler, so the idea began to really come together with idle time on my hands.
Like all my best work, the archive started with a table; an Airtable to be exact. I’m extremely happy with how it is shaping up! I may not be able to Marie Kondo my journals yet, but I think this archiving process will set me up to feel more comfortable with the idea in the future. While a COVID diagnosis came at a really inconvenient time in my summer, I’m always grateful for time to sit and evaluate my priorities and practices.
This first Airtable view is the Journal Table, logging high-level characteristics of each of my journals, since 2017. It’s so nice to see additional information at-a-glance about each journal, beyond just the dates and color. It will make finding my references so much easier to spot!
The second view is the Entries table. Now to be clear, this is not every page of each journal. My intention is to capture important journal entries that either show how my bullet journal methods have changed or capture important events in my life that I will likely want to reference in the future. I also like that I can relate entries to each other for their similar topics. Here is a sample of my journal entries which shows how I’ve recorded the books I’m reading as well as my habit trackers. These layouts change and evolve over time depending on how invested I am in my Bullet Journal practice at the time. The flexibility and freedom of the structure are treasured features of Bullet Journals. The tool is always there to meet me wherever I am.