Most parents need ways of staying organized that are tailored to the specific needs of their family. The Bullet Journal®, an analog system designed by Ryder Carroll “to track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future” has gained much interest from people who seek a better way to log their schedules, tasks, and events. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, you can watch a short video that explains the idea here:
https://help.bulletjournal.com/article/37-start-here
This revolutionary (and yet, brilliantly simple) way of tracking life and to-do lists, has inspired some rather artistic approaches (Google it, you’ll see!) and has people creating systems with good old-fashioned pen and paper to manage their chores, goals, and schedules.
Some users also implement the system to go beyond their schedules & to-do lists by creating logs of important reminders for themselves such as charting their daily water intake, physical activity tracking, and progress toward personal goals. Examples are shown on this post about Self-Care and Bullet Journaling.
Research tells us that writing down our goals helps us achieve them, and we see in our Live Healthy Live Well challenges that tracking your progress keeps you motivated along the way.
Consider creating logs for yourself and your family to stay on-track with the things you want or need to accomplish. Some ideas are:
- Daily water intake
- Exercise
- Daily mindfulness practices or daily “unplugged” time
- Minutes spent reading (especially great for children)
- Weekly family meals, aiming for 3 per week
- Daily fruit & vegetable intake, aiming for 5 servings per day
- Meal planning
- Scheduling annual checkups, dental cleanings, etc.
Some people are motivated and inspired by creating colorful and visually appealing logs, like the ones in the post linked above, but simple, clean ones work best for others.
Journals don’t have to be organized daily. You can create different logs for the frequency that is most appropriate. I have several tasks that are best tracked monthly, so for those, I have created a simple table for the whole year, organized by month. I found it made the most sense to combine my work and personal monthly tasks into one list. At the end of each month, or the start of a new one, I go down and make sure all of my monthly tasks are complete.
The Bullet Journal® is an actual product that uses dots instead of lines that you traditionally see on the pages of a journal. But the Bullet Journal creator says that the concept can be used with any journal of your choice – lines, dots, grids or blank pages.
What do you log or journal to keep you & your family healthy, organized, and happy?
Sources:
https://www.dominican.edu/dominicannews/dominican-research-cited-in-forbes-article
Reviewed by: Shannon Carter, Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, Ohio State University Extension, Fairfield County
Live Healthy Live Well 
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