I know it is the middle of the year but it is a good time to reassess to see if you are really doing what you should be doing. With exams coming up people are creating study timetables so I thought it was a good time to look at another kind of journal entries that can work for our big picture inspired school.
The cool thing about a bullet journal is you can adapt it to whatever you need. You don't have to be particularly arty either. This is about making sure all the information you need is in one place so it is easier to reflect and make plans for the future.
So I came up with some ideas of what you can do to create a bullet journal.
You can always choose your own symbols. I know some people who hate crossing out anything.
Migrated is for anything that needs to go into next week or next month. It just means it has moved into the next section. But if something needs to be scheduled for some distance in the future you are better off scheduling it.
A bullet journal can be pretty or it can be messy as you work through it. It depends on your own style.
I've started mine from Feb as most school years only start in February. But since we are already half way through the year already you might to start from August.
This is where you'll list things like events and schedule things that pop up over time that you wouldn't put into your current week.
One of the advantages of this is that you only create the pages for the next little bit that you need.
If you know where you are heading it often helps with motivation. In our school everyone is supposed to have a plan for their graduation. Where they are planning to study when they finish high school or a career planned out.
These can change but it can be interesting to focus on aiming for the highest that is achievable.
This one is for someone who wants to get Merit or Excellence endorsements and wants to go through to university. You could leave off or add things like which scholarship subjects you are planning to attempt.
But not everyone's plans are to go to university. This one is for someone who is going for something a bit more practical. And frankly will probably earn more than me eventually.
If you have already passed earlier levels you can happily leave that off or leave them in. Sometimes it is nice to be able to pat yourself on the back for things well done.
Here is a more visual way to track your progress. Again if you have already finished the earlier levels you can happily leave it off.
You can also add in a section for approved subjects or for UE literacy. Whatever suits you.
You can also do this layout for other things you want to track like your attendance or how many journal entries you've made.
We are supposed to be reading books as part of our program. Here is a way to keep track of that. There are other layouts but I find books easy to draw so I couldn't help myself.
You can go onto places like instagram and pinterest for ideas of different layouts that might suit whatever you are tracking.
I know some of my students get to the end of the term and they wonder what they can talk about for their exhibition. This way you can make notes along the term or the year about things you could talk about in each of your projects.
Reflecting on your progress is important. How you want to do this can be up to you.
I found the monthly layout not suitable for a school one and the terms or semesters overseas doesn't quite fit with New Zealand. So instead I created a term template.
Here you can put in important dates and when things are due. You can schedule tasks or events ahead of time. This could happily replace the future log or the year long page.
There are many ways to do a weekly layout but I find if there is a place to create your own personalised timetable is very useful.
Colourful keys are also useful.
Other ideas is a project planning page where you can break down all the tasks needed to complete and a timeline.
For exams I'd place something in as well to make sure you are studying everything you need for the exams.