Everything Together [or, simple is good]

Sometimes, I am a liar-mc-liarson.
The past month or so, I've been such a person.

You see, last July, I wrote about this thing called One Book July and how I thought it was silly.
And I am a liar.
Because, for almost the past month, I've been in one notebook. For everything. And it's, well, quite nice.
Let me explain.

February was, for me, a terrible, no good month (as it was last year, which is odd). I wasn't getting enough done, I wasn't really up to a whole lot past the basic daily things (with a few new additions, sure, but the house was not getting clean, for example). So I said screw it, I'll just write what I absolutely need to do in with my jouranly bits and call it good.
So, that's what I've been doing.

Just about every evening, I take a few minutes, write out my list for the next day, and call it good. Right in-between writing about whatever-it-was-that-needed-to-be-written.
If I happen to miss doing it the night before, it's one of the first things I do in the morning.
And then, since it's, ya know, in my journal, I'm in it all throughout the day, so I'm seeing the list and referring to it rather often. This hasn't necessarily helped in getting anything done faster, but one can dream, right?

So, yeah, I've been doing all of the things in one book. And it's kind of nice.
Well, it's working, anyway. I wouldn't necessarily say it's nice in comparison to other ways of doing things. All the ways of doing things are nice in some way or another. And I'm still keeping my Happy Planner close at hand, for things that need to be tied to a specific day. And I have a whole separate book for groceries and meal planning (which I haven't talked about, but will soon, I promise).

I started by filling up two Midori Traveler's Notebook inserts that I had half-filled previously. And I wanted them full, because that made sense. So, yes, things are a tad out of order, but it isn't too bad - it's one of those things that's oddly easy to remember (the things that take up storage in my brain are not always good!).
Then I moved into my little Field Notes size fauxdori and managed to fill up an actual Field Notes insert/notebook in 11.5 days. And now I'm in a new Midori insert in my Chic Sparrow.
All of the graph paper, all of the time, is what it amounts to.

My list for today is surrounded by journaling bits about how I've been having dreams that are weird the past week which is bugging me, and that last night's involved computers, and on the other side is a game plan to review some German things and still get points for the daily-streak in the apps I use.
And that's perfectly okay for me right now.

Considering, also, that I do not really journal about what I did that day (my journals are not "I got up, I had tea, I spent hours on Reddit and watching YouTube, took the dogs out too many times...etc etc", it's more of a commentary, I guess you could say) it's kind of convenient to have the context of what I actually did that day along with what I'm writing about - sometimes it applies, sometimes it does not.

The mental separation that I thought I would need, to keep to-do's and journal-y-bits not together, isn't really terribly important. And while things are a tad unorganized, it's not that big of a deal. I've a longer-term list in the middle of some notes about stuff, and that's fine. I've another list, from today, that will get buried by other things, and that's fine, too.
I don't mind it, really, because more than a few things right now feel unorganized to me, and it almost feels like I'm living in a stable state of chaos. Which, oddly enough, makes sense and isn't working out too terribly.

Do I still think that One Book July is silly? Kind of. Because I could very easily just have made a calendar insert, stuck it in my Chic Sparrow fauxdori, and it would be called "one book" by their "rules." I'm not saying their rules are wrong or weird or whatever, but it is very much so left to interpretation.
And I'm still not even technically in only one book...because I have the few most recent journals close at hand still for reference, instead of archiving them. I'm not using them, but they are here, in case I need them (which has happened more than a handful of times, so it's not needless, I promise). Also because of the use of the meal planning/grocery planner and the Happy Planner,

Either way, I like it. It's easy. It doesn't leave the house with me, so it can be whatever it wants, and right now, it is what it is and that's cool.

~Havok