terriko

One of the ideas from the “bullet journal” method that never really worked for me is the “future log” one. The idea seems solid: you need a space for writing stuff that’s coming up but maybe not in the current month or week or however you divide your journal. It’s a solid idea and it was very handy. But every time I actually looked at it, it felt… messy? hard to read? It bothered me more than I expected when stuff I jotted down wasn’t in order. I didn’t like not being able to immediately see if there was a conflict in dates I was jotting down. I made it a bit better for myself last year by reading through this future log blog post for inspiration and adding mini calendars into my journal so I could circle or highlight dates and stuff.

But I still didn’t love it. I knew this was something I’d be iterating on again with my next journal. And then after deciding to try one that was considerably smaller than my old 2 year monstrosity, I faced another problem: this journal was likely going to last less than a full year, and it might even last less than my kid’s academic school year. (See choosing my next bullet journal for more about why I chose that.) I was almost certainly going to need to write out a future log now and then another one in probably 6 months.

I spent a lot of time drawing dots in my current journal and measuring and trying to figure out how to fit usable calendars into the future log, and wondering if I was wasting my time if I wrote in a full academic year calendar into the small journal.

As August rolled around, suddenly people were talking about Hobonichi and other beloved planner systems that would be coming out in the fall. Two years of bullet journal have taught me that I like having variable length entries and not having empty days glaring at me when I didn’t feel like writing. But I love the idea of pre-printed planners and I used them for many years, so even though I knew they weren’t the best fit for me right now, here I was reading about entire systems that I knew I’d never buy. I could claim it was some sort of planner research (and indeed, I do get good ideas from these articles sometimes) but mostly it felt like the stationery nerd equivalent of reading trashy celebrity magazines. I just couldn’t resist.

Eventually, I came back to the idea of the Traveler’s Notebook. As I mentioned in my post about auditioning notebooks, I love the whole vibe of their system: reusable cover, relatively cheap inserts and accessories so you could customize your experience. I tried out the passport size thinking maybe it could be a travel notebook, but it was too small and to this day I’ve only really used it for testing pens. (It’s got nice paper and it’s a good size for that, though. I may actually keep it as a pen and ink testing notebook so I’ll have a nice collection of writing samples.)

I was somewhat convinced that the regular sized Traveler’s was going to be too tall and still not wide enough, but I’d learned a lot from getting the tiny notebook. What if I got an undated calendar insert in the bigger size and tried it out? Rather than getting frustrated with the whole “future log” setup, I could just have a monthly planner that went with my bullet journal. The info would be organized the way I wanted it, and it would hopefully be small enough to tote around with my new, smaller bullet journal. And I could quit drawing dots in my notebook trying to make it work.

Lucky for me, I actually prefer my year to start in September, so the timing was good. (Look, I have three degrees and a postdoc — most of my life that’s been the “real” beginning of the year and with my kid in school now it’s when I get the biggest pile of new dates to write down too.) So I picked one up in August before the planners dropped. This might have been an attempt to head off the temptation before I went and bought something that I knew deep in my heart wasn’t going to suit me.

I was delighted to find that the monthly book fits comfortably in one of my A5 Tom Bihn ghost whale pouches — the measurements made me nervous that it would feel tight around the zipper but it doesn’t seem to be a problem since nothing in there is too thick. I’ve written about how I use the ghost whale pouches for travel, and when I’m not travelling that one of the A5 pouches lives either in my knitting bag or my purse/backpack. The goal is eventually to have my bullet journal in there on the regular once I switch to the smaller one, so I threw it in so you could see the size differences in the picture.

I left it in the knitting bag for a week to see if it stuck out or got destroyed by the other things I carry. Typically I carry my knitting bag around the house with me so I can work on my knitting project or read my book no matter where I happen to sit or what activity my kid wants me to do, so it often contains large library hardcovers or other things that might squish a little monthly planner. But it survived ok in the bag with the ghost whale for protection, so on to the next phase of actually setting it up!

The calendar itself is a little less wide than I’d like because the whole book is less wide than I’d like (they call it an “A5 Slim” sometimes), but it’s reasonable enough that I’m wondering if I should forgo my usual calendar spreads in the bullet journal and just use this for my daily tracking as well. I find looking at the calendar almost daily helps a lot with me keeping track of stuff so it’s not all just me being started by notifications on my phone, and maybe it would be better to be opening the whole calendar book? I’ve duplicated the calendar for September in my current bullet journal so that it matched my other months, but I’m likely going to finish my current bullet journal this month so I may go the other way and not duplicate in October and see how I like it. I can always change my mind again in November.

I’ve written out a whole academic year calendar through to June and transferred the rest of this year’s “future log” onto calendar pages. I had some fun using a dip pen and some ink samples to add some different colours once I ran out of pens that I had inked right now — I hadn’t even thought about calendar colours as a use for a dip pen but it was nice to have the option without cleaning out a pen.

As an aside: a recent email missive from the place where I bought my ink samples mentioned their church involvement and made me question whether their values align with mine. A little bit of research says they’re heavily involved with an anti-LGBTQ+ church, so I’ll probably be buying my next round of ink samples somewhere else. Thankfully I had another company I wanted to try out for samples anyhow! But I’m sad to have learned some not so fun pen world gossip as a side effect and now I have a list of brands to probably avoid unless things change.

Anyhow, back to my future-log replacement calendar:

I’m glad to find that the “regular” size isn’t so tall that it can’t survive in my bag, and I’m *very* tempted to go get the leather cover and actually try using the whole system. I still kind of want the extra width of a larger A5 and maybe I could find similar notebook systems that work with that, but even though I’m no longer much of a world traveller the whole branding of the Traveler’s Notebook just appeals to me. I want to be that person sitting in foreign cafes writing journal entries and sketching, even though I’m more of a “bike to the park and knit” kind of person nowadays. But maybe I could bike to the park and write sometimes? Or take nicer sketch notes at my next conference? Now that I know that it’s not going to feel unreasonably huge, it’s probably only a matter of time before I start grabbing more stuff to match.

For this bullet journal’s lifetime, though, it’s going to be two slightly different sized A5-ish notebooks in a pouch.

I think the next step for using the calendars is going to involve stickers and more colour. I know colours and cuteness will always help me enjoy a system more, but these little boxes are so tiny that it’s going to be challenge to find some stuff small enough to fit in there. I’m glad I had small enough washi tapes already! And the tiny stickers I have from pipsticks that I use as a reward for flossing will fit on there if I decide not to use a separate tracking calendar in the bullet journal. But it’s time to go digging through the stash and maybe figuring out some targeted purchases for tiny colourful things. I did already pick up a 13-day halloween countdown from Stickii that I’m hoping will have some tiny stickers, and I may have to open it starting at the beginning of the month so I can use some spooky stickers right when October starts!

I’m hopeful that I’ve found a valid solution to my “future log” problem and I’m prepared to play around with it over the course of the academic year and hopefully as I blow through a new bullet journal. I’m also kind of excited that I finally found an excuse to find some new-to-me sticker artists, since the artists I support right now tend to make bigger laptop-sized things. (Though I do have space for a few on the planner cover if I can ever decide which ones to use.) I’m feeling a lot better about this solution than I was about both my previous attempts at a future log, but I still expect to tweak things a lot before I finish this planner!