Ways to use a journal

Ways to use a journal

I wrote to you earlier this month about how using a notebook helps me as an artist. In this post I'm going share a few ways I've learned to use it as a tool for processing and cultivating creative ideas.

Bullet Journal Method

Ever since I first came across it about ten years ago, I've drawn on some of the principles of bullet journaling* (bujo for short) to create some structure in my notebooks. It's a wonderful, neurodivergence-friendly way to organize thoughts and I use it as an executive functioning aide for all sorts of projects and life management things. I'm not going to get into that side of it in depth here (though I'm open to in the future if there's interest). Instead, I'm going to highlight a few of the key bujo strategies that I use for art.

Table of Contents: In the bujo method, it's recommended to number every page of your notebook and then use the first pages of the notebook to mark down where things are. As I wrote about before, everything is mixed together in my notebook, so this has helped me keep important things from getting lost. Here's a photo of one of my recent ones: