Biting the Bullet

I trailed in the digest for last week that a conversation with Justin on Stationery Adjacent had sent me down the #bujo rabbit hole. Again.

I have already decided on more than one occasion that whilst Bullet Journaling has many merits, it's not quite right for me. Then Justin uttered the phrase "a single notebook for everything". As someone manically tidying and lusting after minimalist setups, the phrase resonated like a strike on a meditation gong.

Could I get back to one notebook?

For once, I instantly vetoed myself from buying more stuff "to be more minimalist". As it happens, my current daily driver is a Leuchtturm 1917 A5, the same book that is slightly amended to be sold as the Bullet Journal 2024. That one is yellow, mine is more tangerine and doesn't have all the BuJo bells and whistles.

On pages 88 and 89, I marked out a future log until the end of the year, and went and updated the index at the front of the book. Next, I made a Month log on pages 90 & 91. On 92, I started rapid logging my daily log. Boom! I was back on the system. That is a massive appeal of the approach; at its core, Bullet Journal is simple.

I knew that I wanted to include my reflective journaling, so I just went ahead and wrote a note. I read my page from the Daily Stoic and journaled on that too. Then, I started rapid logging tasks.

But wait! Reflective journaling? In a Bullet Journal?

Sure. why not? I don't reflect in bullets, but wait for it...the book doesn't care. And neither do I. My journaling habit is for me - not for posterity, and I have discarded all my old journals. I get something from the practice, not from the review. Likewise with the Bullets. I know that many preserve their journals, and even thread collections from one book to the next. I don't. I keep a daily driver for a while after it's finished. Maybe two or three months, in case I need something from it, but then, off to recycling it goes.

There. In one fell swoop, "The Journal" has been retired. The "Lime Daily Driver" discontinued. OK - I still have a pocket notebook in service, that acts as my quick capture when I'm away from my desk, but in terms of A5, I'm down to one book.

Naturally, I wanted to consider what pen to use. Rapid logging implies speed, and if there's one thing that I'm not with a fountain pen, it's fast. Great! time to buy...once again, I had to intervene before I bought ten new pens to be "more minimalist". What do I already have? Quite a lot, actually.

Baron Fig Squires. Mark Ones. Retro 51s, Spoke Design, Fischer Space...I tried them all. The Leuchtturm is the 120 gsm version (it is for the Bullet Journal too) and the paper is great for fountain pens, and the rollerballs looked a bit...weedy. None of them looked right for me.

Hmmm.

Oh wait! Graphite. I have lots and lots of graphite. Perhaps my minimalist core would enjoy filling my existing note books with my existing graphite, diminishing stocks of both. Now, there's an idea. Sharpened now, I have a pencil from "Wilder." the 811 by Blackwing, a Tennessee Red from Musgrave and a Nero's X Musgrave. They're all glorious!

I'm into BuJo with all the zeal of the convert. For a whole four days, two of which were the weekend. Perhaps best wait a bit before I throw everything else away.

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