I was served an ad for the self journal on Instagram (bestself.co). Have you seen them? They are pretty great. I was incredibly curious about the company and I appreciated their openness to share what the journals offer and how they developed the idea. I loved that it’s a mash up of a day planner and a journal. I loved that it could help me set clear, concise, 3 month goals for myself.
However, I didn’t run out and buy one because:
- We are flat broke right now and they are $30 a pop.
- I have a ridiculous journal collecting hobby. I will probably never in my lifetime fill the journals I already own.
- I knew that although their page layouts seemed great, I wanted to tweak the journal to my own tastes.
And so, I set out on my own to improve upon their design for my own needs. I grabbed my return address labels and filled out an Adobe Illustrator template with section headers from the self journal pages. I applied labels to about two weeks worth of journal pages and began using them. Each day I would add a note about what I liked and didn’t like about the sections, and noted what sections I was repeatedly adding in the free-form sections of the pages. I went back to the illustrator template and adjusted the stickers for the next set of pages. The other part about the journals I didn’t jive with was that you are supposed to start with a 3 month plan. I have been using my daily pages to come up with the skeleton for my three month plan so that I can be more confident that my goals will be successful.I am almost done with my first pass of the journal and am ready to set out on a three month journey towards my goals.
The 5,000 foot view of those goals are:
- Continue on my journey to be a kick-ass, generous, and creative developer.
- Becoming a speaker, mentor, and/or teacher for other developers, especially women and kids.
- Find positive people to work with who inspire me to do better than my best.
- Bike 700 miles over the course of 14 weeks.
My one problem is, I feel guilty about not buying one of their journals. I have benefitted so much from the efforts of it’s creator., To tamp my guilt, I’m recommending them to my friends… sort of like when I used to make mixed tapes for friends in hopes of turning them on to new bands. Maybe everyone I know gets a self journal for their birthday this year.