Just realized my bullet journal almost made a bad day worse

This past Tuesday was rough from the start. My car wouldn't start, I missed an important call, and I felt totally behind. I opened my journal to log my mood and tasks, and my habit tracker just showed a line of empty boxes for the week. Instead of helping, it felt like proof I was failing. I almost tore the page out. But then I grabbed a green pen, the one I save for good things, and wrote 'Today stinks' in big letters across the daily log. I drew a box around it and added three tiny things that went okay, like my coffee was hot and my dog was happy to see me. It didn't fix my car, but it stopped the spiral. Has anyone else had a day where your own tracking felt like it was working against you? What did you do?

2 comments

2 Comments

vera5416d ago

Oh wow, this hits home. I mean, I had to stop tracking my water intake for this exact reason. Seeing that empty row felt like a scolding, like I was bad at being a person. It's weird how a tool for help can turn into a list of rules you're breaking. What you did, grabbing the green pen, is kind of genius. It flips the script from tracking what you didn't do to just stating how it is. Maybe the real trick is letting the journal be wrong with you, not a judge of you.

barbara2786d ago

Exactly, it turns into a list of rules you're breaking. I read something once about how tracking apps can mess with your head. The writer said we start to serve the data instead of the data serving us. Like you're not drinking water to be healthy, you're doing it to fill a stupid circle. Your green pen idea is way better. It changes the whole point from proving you did something to just writing down what happened. That takes the power back.

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