My sister saw my weekly spread and said it looked like a to-do list for a robot

We were at her place in Madison last weekend, and I was showing off my new habit tracker. She just stared at it for a minute and said, 'Piper, where's the fun? This looks like you're grading your own life.' I've been bullet journaling for almost two years, and I always thought the point was to be super organized and efficient. My spreads are all clean lines, color-coded tasks, and perfect little checkboxes. But her comment made me realize I've turned my whole journal into a performance review. I don't draw, I don't write about my day, I just log. It hit different because she's right. I'm so focused on getting the checkmark that I forgot this was supposed to be for me, not my imaginary boss. Has anyone else gotten so caught up in the system that they lost the point of having a journal at all?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthew_owens916d ago

My bullet journal looked like a spreadsheet for six months straight (I actually counted the pages). I had this whole system with four highlighters and a ruler, but I was just tracking what I failed to do. My friend finally asked why my "fun" column was always empty. That's when I started scribbling in the margins, bad drawings and all. It feels messy now, but way more real.

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dylan_green5816d ago

Honestly @matthew_owens9 I get where you're coming from, but I totally see it the other way. That spreadsheet style with the ruler and highlighters sounds like a solid system to me. Ngl, my own journal is just lists and boxes, and checking things off feels good. The mess of scribbles would just stress me out. I tried the fun drawings once and it made me not want to open the book.