The January #planwithmechallenge (days 24-29)

This is the end of a peek into my planner/journal for January. I’m doing a little bit of the February challenge as well, but skipping the prompts that we just went over in January… I might wait and do all of those at once at the end of the month, since there won’t be as many as in January.

Day 24: Trying Out

You mean, besides trying out the Plan With Me Challenge? Har!

Ok, this needs a little bit of backstory, first, to explain what I’m trying out. I’m a hardcore knitter, and always have to have a couple projects on the needles. At least a couple. For a few years now I’ve been wanting to make a “Sky Scarf” (which is a simple scarf wherein the colors of the rows you knit correspond to the colors of the sky that day). When researching that, I came across a very similar “Temperature Scarf” — pretty much the same idea, in that the two rows you knit that day correspond to the temperature of the day.

Because I’m crazy, I want to do both of those this year. Because I’m also a yarn dyer, I want to do them in my hand-dyed colorways. But I won’t have time to dye the yarn until the second week of February…. so I need to keep track of the temperature and the sky color until then. #bulletjournal to the rescue!!!! I’m keeping track of the sky color as I can (you can see there are a couple days I forgot to record, but I hear a website called Weather Underground can catch me up o that). I’m having difficulty trying to relate the amount of clouds into the color, though, but I’ve been talking it over with my yarn tribe and think I’ve got a solution.

As far as the temperature goes, I’m recording the highs and lows, and the color I choose for that day will be the average of the two. ………… which is probably more about my knitting decisions than you wanted to know, if you’re just here for the bujo! LOL! Anyway, to boil all this down to one sentence, “the new thing I’m trying out is tracking sky colors and average temperatures!”

Day 26: Archiving

Right now my super-amazing, high-tech archive system is a pile of old notebooks! Mostly they live on a shelf that’s somewhat out of the way but easy to get to if I have to go digging for something. This is about the last three years of the notebooks I’ve used for bullet journal; everything older than this is still packed up from the chaos of our recent move.

I kind of wish I had a better system, only so I could look like I’m more on top of things than I am!

Day 27: Goals Check-in

Mostly I use my bullet journal for work, and my biggest goals are items I plan to release during the month. Here is my “big ideas” spread, that I do about a quarter at a time (the other months are on other pages). I transfer things weekly to my weekly spread, and as I do them I mark them off both there and here on the original page. I’m a little behind in ceramics — my kiln firing got moved back a few days due to some scheduling issues — but I should be able to catch up on glazing and firing by the middle of next week.

Day 28: Help! How do I…

Don’t laugh, but… how do I doodle? STOP LAUGHING. For all that I’m an artist and maker, I’m a terrible doodler. I’m more into lettering, and … lines. You know, like… well, like the designs I freehand onto ceramics! Swirls, and dots, and swirls-and-dots-together. I’m terrible at doodling. Trying to make a thing look like an actual THING. So I thought I’d try out the ptldoodles, and all I can say is… I’m glad I’m trying to make a living selling handmade ceramics and hand-dyed yarn, and not by selling doodles. Good lord. Having said that, even though I haven’t finished this month… I did just buy some new colored pencils, and have left a two-page spread in my bullet journal for February for another doodle challenge….

Day 29: Project Planning

The year –> the month –> the week… in a nutshell.

First I plot out my year in general terms (remember, I use my bullet journal mostly for work, so, ymmv). What do I want to bring in during the year? What burning ideas do I have for new products, and when would be a good month for that product to make it to the shelves? I try to limit this to one big thing per month, per thing I make — so each month will have something big in ceramics, something big in yarn, and something big in soap. “Something big” can be anything like advertising for the next round of yarn club to an entire new line of mugs or bowls… and I try to keep the work load pretty steady – meaning, if I know the yarn work load is going to be super ginormous, I’ll try to keep the “big” idea for soap and ceramics that month a little more low-key, a little less work than other months.

Then I have a two-page spread for each month, into which I better plan out the stages, the tasks for each project. When do I need to remember to advertise it? When should I start blogging about it or posting on Instagram? When do I need to make it?

Then I transfer those tasks into my weekly spread, to make sure that I remember to do them and/or do the right thing on the right week. Whew!

And that’s it… that’s a look into my planner/bullet journal, and how I use it. Did I leave anything out that you’re curious about? Feel free to comment, I’ll be happy to ask questions!