#journaling system

[imanbenerrabeh]

4 pm, almonds and tea and journals

[whalelotofstudy]

My journaling system - an overview

For @iwillsurvivecollege!

I currently use five journals. The number varies - I sometimes keep just one multipurpose notebook, I sometimes use more. (I think five is the most i’ve had so far)

I usually write in notebook 2, 4, 5 daily and 1, 3 two or three times a week.

Purposes/contents:

1) Commonplace book: mostly about books, but also movie reviews, quotes, stuff i like on the internet, etc.

2) Daily planner: I used to keep a bullet journal but I’m trying to simplify my to-do list and routines, so it’s just a long list of stuff I need to do on that day + sometimes a time log.

3) Diary 1: for stuff I don’t want to read again, so no index for this one. Mostly for emptying out my thoughts.

4) Music note: with a fitting cover! Stuff I listened to that day and my brief thoughts, favourite songs.

5) Diary 2: for ‘happy’ events, and stuff I want to come back to and reminisce later. I stick teabags and restaurant receipts in here too.

[archivesweats]

Ok I’m still agonizing about wanting to get a sterling ink planner or notebook so please enjoy (or not) this breakdown of my current system and the debate I’m having with myself re: what to purchase—under the cut

My current every day carry setup includes:

Paper republic A5 portfolio (note: too narrow to fit proper A5 comfortably, but perfect for moleskines)

Inside portfolio: blue moleskine for creative writing

Red moleskine for journal writing

Slipped into portfolio pocket: Log Book (where I keep track of what I did daily, monthly overview of events, monthly overview habit tracking, tracking when I water my plants, grocery and to-do lists) this is just made from maruman loose leaf paper I cut, stapled, and rounded the corners on

On top of the portfolio: A6 plain midori Mess Book (where I put anything and everything, doodles, stuff on the go, etc. it’s a mess)

Not in the everyday carry setup I have, at my desk:

A commonplace book

An ink notebook where I swatch, try mixes, do currently inked, keep track or purchases, and do transcription stuff.

Current issues with my system:

Main issue is that I got into fountain pens right after buying the portfolio and the moleskines.

The moleskines are not fountain pen friendly (the creative writing one is somewhat, but that’s the one I use the least frequently). This is partially why I bought the ink notebook, and entirely why I bought the midori mess book. Its main purpose is giving me a casual use book where I can use my fountain pens.

The portfolio doesn’t comfortably fit A5

I don’t want to abandon my moleskines 1/4 way through

I don’t want to abandon my portfolio at all

What I want, within the boundaries of not wanting to abandon any of my books, but feeling the itch to try out a sterling ink notebook or planner:

Something that can be my log book and my mess book at the same time. I make my log books every other month approximately and I’ll def be done my mess book by the new year, so I wouldn’t have to abandon them to replace them. They are similar in size, so I could easily combine them.

An A6 common planner would make most sense: log my days in the weekly pages, habit track in the quarterly sections, use the blank pages as mess book.

Issues that have me worried:

I want the horizontal weekly layout, but I like the two page spread like in the passport size. But passport is too small for the mess book and in A6 horizontal they cram all 7 days on one page, which is way too small.

Solution to this could be to get the vertical one and use it horizontally. This gives slightly more space. Still a bit worried because my current log book is just blank grid space, so I write as much or as little as I need and just draw a line between days

(Horizontal passport | horizontal A6 | vertical A6)

So the solution, if I decide that even the vertical version is potentially not enough space to log my days, is to just get the A6 notebook instead of the planner, and make my monthly overview spreads myself like I’m doing currently. Log my days from one end, do the mess book from the other.

I’m just a little lost and a little frustrated hat I wound up committing to journals that aren’t fountain pen friendly right before I got into fountain pens.

But even if I were to finish my moleskines and could replace them with a bigger planner, so I could log my day comfortably in the weekly section, and use the dailies for journaling I don’t know what I would do. This portfolio is just slightly too narrow for A5, and if I went with the B6, it would fit perfectly in width but have an awkward amount of empty space in length.

One thing I could do is get a compact B6 and keep the creative writing journal so at least one of the books would fill in the height of the portfolio. In this scenario, the B6 planner would be for log book and journal. And then I guess I could either get an A6 notebook from Sterling ink or another Midori for my mess book. But this scenario involves finishing my moleskine journal by the new year, or soon after I guess.

(Edit: the B6 horizontal only exists in full year. Don’t know if that would fit on top of the moleskine. So i would have to do B6 vertical 🥲)

asdfgghjkfkwfoemrnw what a mess

[dissociativecollective]

Grieving, grieving, constantly grieving. I mourn what could have been, what should have been, what will not be, what I cannot save.

[beatrizjournal]

I must say that I have finally found some planner peace, I have been using my a5 ring binder and just updating that system for the past 3 weeks. It isn’t much but I am feeling the relief of consistency and I just hope this feeling last. 🕯️📎

.

(Pages are from @petite-gloom)

[the-northstar-collective]

Youuu know what? I'd like to thank Tumblr for making me pro endogenic. Thankyou everyone who helped me change my beliefs about systems. Its truly wonderful to know what its like to be pro endo for over a year now.

[obsob]

one small step for. kitties

[purpleenma]

Finally the ✨Zine O'biology✨ @zineobiology is out for everyone to feast upon! 🙌

*Please, click for better quality

"With a Mind as Fertile as the Chenesi": A Brief Exploration of the Interrelatedness Between Telepathy and Sexuality of the Vuhlkantra.

Read in AO3

And within its many pages full of absolute genius of all kinds you can find this new collaboration with amazing @ex--astris--scientia (CampySpaceSlime) where this diagram comes from. If you like Vulcans, mind melds and the fra'als I highly recommend you give it a read 🖖✨

✨ Download your copy for free here

✨ Get your physical copy at cost here

[thefluxsystem]

10 mindsets about my DID that have helped my system:

[This is solely for the sake of sharing experiences & supplying food for thought. This post is not implying these takes are the “right way” to view systemhood.]

1. We’re individuals and we’re parts of a whole. We see each other as people in our system, but in a different way than those in their own bodies. We share a brain. We share a life. I’m me, but I’m also him/her/them at the same time. If you take a piece out of a puzzle, it doesn’t cease to exist, right? It’s still its own object. It just doesn’t make much sense when it stands alone. We need each other to be truly complete.

2. Time keeps coming. I know it’s not an unlimited resource, but it’s not scarce either. Okay, so somebody in the system didn’t get to do what they planned today. They’ll do it tomorrow. No big deal. No need to fight about it or stress over “how I’ll ever manage all this”. We’ll simply give it another shot in the morning.

3. Reality is subjective. We’re a very philosophically-inclined system, and I could write books on what “reality is subjective” means. Basically, reality is based on perception. On a societal level, it is based in the common agreement of what something is. If anyone’s perception tests the limits of this common agreement, it is labeled as untrue. This ties into why DID is largely disbelieved; it doesn’t fit in with the common reality (perception) of the average person. So it is seen as fake. And, well, if I’m going to be told I’m wrong for the most basic, inherent part of this disorder… I don’t really care if they disagree with any other aspect of it. My reality is different. That’s okay.

4. There is no original. I strongly believe the Theory of Structural Dissociation. Maybe science will prove it wrong with a more suitable theory to take its place in the future, but it’s what I roll with at the moment. Now, to us, this translates as “there is no original/we were all the original”. We’re Adventure Time fans, so we think of it like the “Mother Gum”. If all of the Mother Gum broke off into people (like PB & Neddy), no specific one of them would be “the original”. Rather, they’d all be repurposed parts of the original whole. (In a less serious way, we like to say “we all came from the primordial personality soup”.)

5. Our body is shared equally. We’ve decided our body has its own identity & “look” that helps represent us as a whole, but doesn’t take after one member specifically. In a gnawingly self-aware way, I know this is a further form of dissociation. But adopting this view changed a lot for us in a positive way. We don’t fight about hair or clothes anymore, we don’t have discomfort around our legal name, we don’t even really have struggles with gender/sexuality anymore. (We identify differently internally, but externally we identify as nonbinary & bisexual. Even if the person fronting at the moment is, for example, a gay man.)

6. Be open-minded to what happens internally. Seems straightforward enough, but we’ve wasted a lot of time trying to “make rules” for each other in the system. The biggest example I can think of is in-system dating. Around 10 years ago, as we became more aware of each other, it became clear that two system members were basically in love. We immediately became defensive. We told them that they couldn’t do that, that two system members being together was absurd & “impossible”. (This view became stronger after discovering online system spaces & “fakeclaimers” that come with it.) Though we regret it now, we shamed those two a lot in the hopes they’d drop it. They didn’t. About 3 years later it became an actual problem. They didn’t trust us; they were fronting & we were coming back to absolutely no memory of it (we usually have a vague idea at least). Eventually, they wrote us a whole thing about how they were going to be together & there was really nothing anyone could do about it, seeing as we couldn’t technically keep them apart. In modern day, we’ve had an in-system couple recently fuse. Upon reflection, we were standing in the way of genuine healing by trying to break up the first two, and we did so solely out of shame. As long as it isn’t genuinely causing harm, we try to be accepting of each other these days. This applies to a lot of other aspects; how system members appear internally, the pronouns and/or identity labels they choose, anything to do with how system members engage with each other, our differing individual perceptions of an event, etc.

7. We don’t have to like each other, but we do have to love each other. Mostly because, if we don’t, we’re holding hatred for ourself. There are certainly members of my system I would never choose to befriend if we were actually separate people, but we’re not, and we don’t get to act like we are. So even though it’s hard, I’m learning to love every piece that makes up “me”, no matter how difficult they try to make it at times.

8. Nobody’s system works like mine except for mine. Meaning, no two systems are going to be alike, and experiences aren’t often going to translate perfectly. This is true for people who aren’t systems as well— everyone’s experience is going to be different, because nobody is wired exactly the same way. Once I took that to heart, it became easier to focus on my own way of being. I could take the pieces of represented/online systemhood that resonate with me & leave the rest (which probably resonates with someone else).

9. There’s a reason for everything. This kind of ties back into the ‘we have to love each other’ thing. Each component of the system is a clue regarding how to move forward. We had someone in the system getting really uptight & controlling, to a point that it was irritating, but, taking a step back, we recognized it was a response to feeling a lack of control. Instead of simply getting angry at him for how he was acting, we were able to address the problem. My collective self is more laid-back for it.

10. It’s okay not to focus on it all. DID is a part of my life for the rest of it, whether I like it or not, but it’s nice to let it be a background thing every once in a while. Who’s fronting? Who cares. What roles do we have? I don’t know. Who’s this new person in my head? I’ll figure it out later. We’re making it through as a team, and sometimes that’s enough.

[annadiplosis]

A few months ago I posted a couple photos of my index cards, saying I still didn’t know how and where I’d keep them, and I’ve since developed an Archiving System that combines the cards with a digital spreadsheet and has taken more hours than I will ever admit.

So, since I don’t have a “notebook system” to speak of, I'd like to share the way I archive my journals / sketchbooks / whatever you wanna call them, because I’m very proud of it, and who knows, someone might find it helpful :)

WHY I NEED AN ARCHIVING SYSTEM

The reason I don’t have a notebook system is because I use my books for absolutely everything, from sketches to grocery lists and journaling. It is crucial to me to not have any restrictions or expectations when it comes to my books, and that’s how I’ve managed to fill 43 of them over the years.

But of course, when you’ve been using notebooks without a system for most of your life and you want to read a specific entry, you can easily spend a full hour flipping through a sea of paper until you stumble upon those notes on the Bubonic Plague you took in 2011 or whatever you were trying to find.

SO HERE’S WHAT I DO

When I finish a notebook, I try to determine what its most important contents are: stuff I might want to reference in the future (project ideas, meeting notes) or is very characteristic of a period in my life (friends' drawings, travel logs). Every single page contributes to making the notebook what it is and gives it a unique personality, but not all of them are gonna be keepers, and that's fine (I'd even say fundamental, at least in my case).

These are the extremely generic categories I sort my Chosen Entries into. It's similar to the dot system so many people use, just applied retroactively:

🟣 Study notes 🔵 Work 🟢 Personal 🟡 Projects 🔴 Misc

And here's where the real archiving begins. This info goes into:

1. THE INDEX CARDS

(I always write them in Catalan; this one's a mockup and most of these are not real entries)

A little piece of cardboard with the notebook number, its start and end dates, and most important contents. I keep each index card inside its corresponding notebook, either in its own backpocket or an adhesive one I stick there myself.

This way, whenever I want to take a quick look through the book, I get a general idea of its contents at first glance. Sometimes, just holding it in my hand and reading the index card brings me back to the time when I was keeping it, and that time-travel feeling gives me a rush like no other. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm crazy about my notebooks.

2. THE SPREADSHEET

Same as before, just a couple more pieces of info (number of months, physical description) added to a file with the rest of my notebooks' data. Again, these are not real entries for privacy and language reasons, but they're very similar to the kind of stuff I do keep. The spreadsheet helps me find specific entries with a simple ctrl+f, and it's also a bird's-eye view of my progress through the years as a notebook keeper. I can see when my interests shift, how long some of my most important projects took to come to fruition, and even similar types of entries that repeat every few years which I wasn't even aware of before putting it all together. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I hope this was useful, or interesting at the very least! If you’re a notebook keeper trying to find their own archiving system, my main advice would be to start early so you don’t have to deal with almost two decades of material like I did :’)

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask.

Good luck 🖤

[imanbenerrabeh]

jar from the farmer’s market !!

[glowettee]

✧・creating a personal library system that actually works゜✧・゜✧

hey lovelies!

so last weekend i had a complete meltdown when i couldn't find my copy of "pride and prejudice" (the one with all my notes!) and ended up reorganizing my entire book collection at 2am. classic me behavior. but honestly? it was the best decision i've made in ages because now i actually know where everything is and i'm not buying duplicate books anymore (yes, i somehow owned three copies of "the bell jar"… don't ask).

i thought i'd share my super simple system for keeping track of my little library in case any of you are drowning in books too!

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ the physical organization ･:.ೃ࿔

i tried organizing by color once and while it looked pretty on instagram, it was literally impossible to find anything. so now i do a mix of these categories that actually makes sense for how i use my books:

favorites shelf - these are my ride-or-die books that i reread constantly and want to grab easily

to-be-read shelf - keeps all my unread books in one place so they don't get lost in the mix

read-but-keeping shelf - books i've finished but want to hold onto

reference section - cookbooks, style guides, etc that i need to access quickly

borrowed books corner - a special spot just for books that aren't mine so i actually remember to return them (sorry to everyone waiting for their books back…)

within each section, i organize alphabetically by author because i'm basic like that. but honestly it works!

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ the tracking system ･:.ೃ࿔.

this is the game changer! i used to rely on my memory (lol) to keep track of what i'd read until i found myself 50 pages into a book before realizing i'd already read it. now i use:

a simple reading journal - nothing fancy, just a notebook where i write the title, author, when i started/finished it, and a few thoughts

sticky flags in different colors - blue for beautiful quotes, pink for plot points i want to remember, yellow for things to research later

the inside cover trick - i write the date i finished the book and a tiny heart rating (♥♥♥♥♥) system on the inside cover

a digital backup - i use storygraph (not goodreads all the time because amazon owns enough of my life) to keep a digital record

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ the borrowing system ･:⋆.ೃ࿔:･

if you're like me and constantly lending books to friends (or borrowing them), this will save your friendships:

a dedicated "lending library" note in my phone with who has what and when they borrowed it

book plates that say "borrowed from mindy's library" (these were like $8 online and so worth it)

a rule that i only lend books i'm okay with never seeing again (learned this one the hard way)

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ the "did i already read this?" solution ･:.ೃ࿔

this was my biggest problem! now i:

take a quick photo of books i read but don't keep (like library books)

keep a "books i've read" list in my notes app for quick reference while browsing bookstores

add a tiny dot on the upper right corner of the first page of books i own and have finished

it's not a perfect system but it's simple enough that i actually stick with it! the key is finding what works for your reading habits rather than trying to create some instagram-perfect color-coded situation that you'll abandon after a week.

what about you guys? any genius book organization hacks i should know about?

xoxo, mindy 🤍

[archivesweats]

I’ve been into making my own planners this year. I buy journals for my journaling/writing, but I wanted something low profile to just log my days (stay aware of time passing/what I’m doing on the daily) and put my little notes and to-do lists. A couple weeks ago I finished a 4month planner I had made, and started with a different layout. Ultimately I scrapped it because It was a bit clunky and didn’t fit in my system nicely. It also didn’t have room for my miscellaneous lists and notes.

After playing around with some layout ideas, I came to the conclusion that I could use pocket notebooks as monthly or bimonthly planners, but for some godforsaken reason I decided it would be better if I made them myself instead of buying them. It’s a lot of work so I might end up buying them in the future, but I am a bit picky about my grids.

So these are 48 pages of ~5mm grids, with slightly darker lines to create top and left side margins for my monthly layouts.

First layout is just a monthly event overview. I haven’t done a heading/decorated yet bear with me lol

Second is monthly habit tracking (pictures pre-backfilling)

A page to track plant care (my info is very limited so far this month bc my last log book didn’t have enough space for it) // I put in a page to track what music I’m listening to, but it might become just a general media page idk.

Days aren’t pre-written, so my to do lists and grocery lists etc. just come up when they are relevant

[judgmentbytheh0unds]

you. you made me out to be something special, your prized possession, your protégé, and i trusted you with the deepest parts in my mind.

you just left me like everybody else.

i’ll forever wait for you to return with my collar still intact, じま.

[beatrizjournal]

New video coming up soon, also I think I finally cracked this system.🕯️🗝️

Soon at Beatriz’s Journal on YouTube