New Notebook and Mid-2022 Reset

Halfway through each year I like to check in with my intentions for the year, and adjust my goals. Things rarely play out exactly as planned. This year, for example, my revision took longer than I had hoped, but not as long as I feared it might. Now that my manuscript is with beta readers, I can move forward with other plans.

I’ve reevaluated my priorities. Though I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter for a couple of years, I’ve decided to set it aside for now so I can focus on writing and querying (once I get there). If time opens up or I am suddenly inspired to dive into newsletter land, I’ll shift course. But the newsletter has been haunting my lists, carried forward again and again without progressing, which only causes unnecessary stress.

Mid-year also means a new bullet journal, as I can only fit six months into each notebook. I’ll be using a brand new Notebook Therapy Nara notebook. I’ve been using this style of notebook all year, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

Opening Quote

For my opening pages, I’ve pared down the designs I used at the beginning of the year, reducing the number of vertical bars and restricting them to light colors. While I liked the design of my previous pages, they were too busy for my taste.

I still love this quote from Tara Mohr. I enlarged its central message for more impact. Placing the quote next to my word-of-the-year reminds me what power really means to me.

Contents

For some reason that I could not explain to you, I’ve never liked the phrase “Table of Contents.” Ryder Carroll calls these pages an Index, which is better, but I took inspiration from mochibujo‘s YouTube channel and called mine “In This Journal”.

On the first page, I’ve drawn a box for each month that will be in this notebook. To the left of each box I’ll add a page number once I set up the month. I’ll fill each box with that month’s colors. Hopefully the page will look quite colorful by the end of the year. You can get a sense of what I mean from the box at the bottom of the right page, labeled Notebook, which I’ve filled with the colors I used in these opening pages.

Goals

As I mentioned before, I’ve updated my goals for the rest of the year, as well as for each quarter.

My writing goals and plans have also gotten an update, though the spread I’m using to record them uses the same format as before. I really like this format. My six-month goals on the left are a great reference for distributing goals to each of the six months on the right page. Keeping the monthly goals in pencil until the beginning of each month has been a life changer. It allows me to have a sense of the big picture, while also having the flexibility to adjust each month.

Datebook

I really enjoy having every day accounted for in my datebook. Keeping track of four people’s schedules means that these lines quickly fill up, and I sometimes have to squeeze my notes in. The left side of this spread folds out.

I’ve found that while I do need this level of detail for the upcoming six months, beyond that I only need a place to make a few notes. This notebook I’m trying something new: an additional future log with a space to take notes on months well into 2023. We’ll see if I use it.

On the back of the foldout, I’ve got my beloved Year-at-a-Glance. I use this often for setting up each new month, but also when planning ahead.

Booknotes

This page looks like a book log, but it’s also a record of the notes I’ve taken. Once I fill in a circle in the N column, I know I’ve typed up my notes for the book. I love having my notes typed up in one file so they’re searchable.

The quote on the right is from Seneca. I came across it on Devoreuse2livres’ instagram feed. She’s a French bookstagrammer, so the quote is naturally in French. Here’s my rough translation:

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass,
it’s about learning to dance in the rain.
— Seneca —