Juggling All of the Things

Hello there blog, it’s been a while ❤️

I have been overwhelmed to say the absolute least. Between finding a new apartment (which is thankfully now locked down), finding a new job, and preparing to graduate, this year started going from 0 to 100 in terms of what’s on my plate. Am I handling everything perfectly? Absolutely not, but let’s be real, we’ve already established that perfect isn’t something I aim to strive for anymore.

It’s really freaking hard to juggle all of those things, things that I deem necessary, on top of all of the unnecessary things like posting to social media. One thing I’m realizing now though, four weeks into the year, is that I completely abandoned everything that holds me together. I haven’t been journaling in my hobonichi cousin, though I have been keeping up with my weekly pages. I turned my hobonichi weeks into more of a planner and it’s working well, but again, I haven’t been using it as consistently as I should. When it comes to Notion, I spent hours before the end of the year setting up all of my goals, and then I ignored them completely when the year actually started.

So how do I fix this one month into the year? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

The first thing I want to focus on is using the systems that I spent so long setting up. Being aware of where everything goes is extremely important to me, so I’m going to start by going through each of my systems and how I use them.

My Hobonichi Cousin is my journal. I use the monthly pages to snapshot the month but just like in my previous books, I don’t refer back to those pages very often so they tend to be mostly decorative, which is perfectly fine with me. I use digital systems (which I will touch on in a little bit) to plan on that scope anyway, so my monthly spread doesn’t need to do anything functional for me. I also am using my year-at-a-glance vertical pages in the very front of my cousin to mood and mental health track.

My weekly pages are essentially a copy of my Google Calendar weekly view, which again is mostly decorative, but it does actually have a bit of a function. I have rebuilt my time tracking system, so I am trying my best to track my hours every day for a few reasons. My overall hope with time tracking is that it will show me how much time I waste and deviate from my plans. I time block my scheduled blocks of time, and I like to compare that schedule to how time was actually spent.

My daily pages have evolved this year already away from being functional. All I do on them at this point in time is write about my day. There is no to-do list, and this week I even stopped putting my scheduled events on that page, so it’s just entirely free for me to dump all of my thoughts about my day. My overall goal for 2023 is to have something down on every page and I am completely fine with needing to go back and use my pages in another way to fill them up. I have also started to pre-decorate my pages a little to overcome some of that “empty page fear” that planner people know so well.

My Hobonichi Weeks is a space that is very functional, but I am still figuring all of the elements out. My year at a glance page is a movement tracker for the whole year, so I’m mostly tracking whether I do cardio, strength, mobility/yoga, or nothing on any given day. I straight up haven’t kept up with this in January, but I also haven’t kept up with my movement routine so that makes some sense. My monthly pages are also a place where I’m really struggling at the moment. I really don’t know what to do with them and I don’t want them to be a duplicate of my monthly page in my cousin, so I’m still figuring that out.

My weekly spreads have become a well-oiled machine in the last couple of weeks. On the gridded right-hand page, I keep my schedule just so I can see it at a glance, but most of the page uses the Alastair Method in two ways. First, I use it to track my reading. There are a couple of books that I have that I read a page a day (The Daily Stoic for example) so those are listed first, and then the book(s) I’m currently reading for leisure go next. Then, I use another list to track my tasks for the week, mostly related to school though I think I want to just leave all of those tasks in Notion. The left-hand page is where I’m currently tracking my daily tarot card pulls. I made itty bitty tarot card stickers to put in there, and I write down the card before heading over to Elliot Oracle to read more about what that card might mean as a daily card. Then, I’ll jot down any realizations that I have about that reading in relation to what’s currently going on in my life.

Now to the blank pages in the back of the weeks. I had literally no idea of what I wanted to use these pages for considering my cousin and digital systems cover pretty much everything else I could think of, but then I remembered seeing reading journals and I thought that would be a great fit since I’m tracking reading in here already. I am using some reading trackers from maaepaperco on Etsy, but I figured that the back of my weeks could be more of a place to jot down key takeaways and a more in-depth review of the books I’m reading. I am not a very avid reader so I don’t expect to run out of room for this haha!

Lastly, let’s talk about Notion and my other digital systems. I spent the most time before the new year setting up my Notion using the Jules Acree Design Your Year pack as well as other templates I’ve gotten from around the internet. I started using that notion pack last year and really enjoyed using it to track my tasks for work, especially while I was on co-op. The only problem that I have with the system actually isn’t an issue with the pack itself, but with how I have it set up, specifically with how I handle content management and my tasks for school. Both of those areas are actually their own lists and not integrated into the notion pack, so it makes Notion a little bit busy for me. I do think that having those spaces separated has its benefits so for now, it will all stay as it is.

I do also use Google Calendar as I mentioned, so anything I have that is scheduled (mostly recurring things like class, work, appointments, etc) goes into there and I take calendar invites through there as well so it’s all in one place. All of that runs into an app called Tiimo which I have on my phone and watch, and it does a really good job of making everything visual and easy to check throughout the day. Any other digital systems have more to do with scheduling posts and things like that!

So yes, there is in fact A LOT that I use to manage everything that I have going on in my life, but this is what works for me. I think the most important thing to remember is that everyone works differently, so copying my system exactly probably won’t help you. Writing all of this out and really thinking through what I use each space for did help me a lot in terms of getting back into the swing of things and setting myself up for a much stronger February.

Fingers crossed that some of what I’m juggling decides to settle down soon too 😉