How to make the most of your new Personal Ephemeris journal
Where to start? Anywhere you want! The beauty of this is you create your own structure, that works for you. Here are some ideas if you have Blank-Page-Stage-Fright:
✨ Use the ALL THE THINGS pages to brain-dump everything that's in your head. Gather up all your to-do lists and tasks from your notes, emails, screenshots, calendars, ideas and pop in the most important ones here. There are 4 pages for this so you can continuously add to it. And you can create more throughout this journal.
✨ Intentions. You might want to start the first journalling page with your intentions for this book.
✨ Free Writing. This is good old fashioned long-form journalling, writing whatever comes to mind. It's a nice way to get things off your chest, out of your head and clear some space so you can focus for your day. What do you want to achieve? How do you want to use your time? How are you feeling today? What's been happening? What's on your plate right now?
✨ Monthly Pages. You can use a fresh page or double page spread for the current month. I like to use the left side to record significant things that happened each day, so I'll write the dates down the left margin 1 - 31 with M-F next to each date and it's ready to populate. I'll use the right page as my monthly "to do" list (ie. what I need to, and want to achieve that month).
✨ Weekly Pages. Every Sunday afternoon or evening, spend time going through your monthly task list (that right hand page I mentioned above), and the previous week to find any outstanding tasks. List the ones that you think you'll get to in the current week. Include appointments, lunch dates, birthdays and tasks.
✨ Daily Plan. Add your events, appointments, birthdays, and tasks from your Weekly Spread. I like to start with the ONE thing that, if I accomplished it, I would be satisfied when I went to bed that night, even if nothing else got done. Then once I've jotted that down, I'll add 2 or 3 main tasks and any little things I can do that day.
✨ Evening Reflection. You could use this journal at the end of your day to reflect; jot down any tasks, activities or events from the day. How you're feeling. What you're grateful for. And prep your tomorrow.
✨ Projects & Lists. At any time, on any page, anywhere in this journal, you can start a list to capture ideas, inspiration, notes or tasks that relate to a project. The beauty of this (which I learned from Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal method) is that you can continue adding to the project or list at any point in the journal - between daily, weekly and monthly pages; and between other lists and projects because of the Index.
✨ Index. This is where the magic happens! I've learnt through experience that holding space for pages doesn't work. We over- or under-estimate what we need and end up with squished up notes or random blank pages throughout. So the index is here for you so you can start on the next blank page for whatever you're using your journal for in that moment; whether it's your daily to do list, morning pages, free writing, weekly plan, a project, quarterly goals, your record collection or a list of movies you want to watch. Then jot down that page in your Index with a good description. You'll be capturing information effectively and have an easy way to get back to it when you need to. At any time, on any page, anywhere!
Next week I'll provide some examples of how I set out my journal to provide some inspiration if you're stuck. 'Til then, enjoy!!