I feel like if you watch this channel, you probably have at least
one notebook lying around all sad and empty and unused. I'm not wrong,
am I? I will not judge you whether you have 5 notebooks laying around or 30,
I am only here to help you and give you some ideas for how to fill up your empty notebooks.
This is the super obvious one that we have to just get out of the way
first. Which is not to say that journaling isn't super important and super helpful,
it's just kind of... the boring one?? I highly recommend journaling every day. I like to journal
in the morning and then in the evening before I go to bed. But at the very least, just whenever
you have some sort of big decision to make, or a lot of thoughts in your head, or you're just
feeling emotions, sitting down with a notebook to just free write is a great way to figure all that
out. I won't spend too much time on it because I have this whole video that's literally a guide
to journaling, so if you're looking to improve that habit in 2021, check that out! This year,
I'm also trying to pay more attention to my mood and what affects my mood, because in 2020
I realized that I could not count on feeling as consistently good as I did in 2019. So for 2021,
I'm starting to use this app called Reflectly. Thank you so much to them for sponsoring this
video! Reflectly is like mood tracking with journaling with artificial intelligence,
trying to figure out how to make sense of your complicated human emotions. So as I'm getting
ready for bed, I'll rate how I felt that day overall, and then I can choose from their options,
or add some custom activities and feelings. So for example, I added being indoors and outdoors,
being sedentary that day, or drinking caffeine, cause that can make me very anxious if I do it
after noon. And then you can choose how exactly those activities made you feel.
I really like data, I really like tracking different aspects of my life,
to a certain extent, I try not to take it overboard. But so this tab I think is so cool,
it shows you how your mood changes over the course of the week, how that compares to previous weeks,
and which factors contribute most to your mood, so that you can act accordingly. If you wanna try
this app in 2021, I have a link in the description for you to get access to Reflectly Premium for
one year for 60% off, and hopefully we can all track better moods in 2021 than in 2020.
One of your New Year's goals might be to study a new language, so having one dedicated place
to store all of the grammar, vocab, conjugations, and annoying little quirks of language learning is
really super helpful, especially if you are a visual or a hands on learner.
If you want to be super organized about it, it's fun to come up with a color coding system
and have sections like grammar, practice exercises, vocab, phrases and idioms, etc.
Or, at the very least, just make sure to have a clear title on all of the notes you take, and
then have a table of contents in the beginning so that you can easily find what you're looking for.
We love reading at The Bliss Bean~ But I find that a lot of times,
the reading is the fun part and then it's hard for me to actually take
notes on what it is that I read so that I can absorb it and actually apply it to my life.
So what I did was I have this standardized book notes template in Google Docs, and you can just
take these same headings and write them in a notebook, cause that's what this video is about.
So basically, I try to summarize the book in just one sentence, summarize how it applies to my life,
write down any key takeaways, quotes that Iike, and then a brief summary of every chapter.
I'm very on and off about my dream journaling, but when I do write down my dreams,
they are not detailed, very boring, and mundane. One time, I had a dream where I was having dinner
with my extended family and I was giving them tips on how to manage their email inbox. So
as you can see, this Bliss Bean stuff takes up all my conscious and subconscious brain space. But it
is very interesting to see what your brain decides to dig up from the archives, maybe certain people,
places, or events that you haven't consciously thought of in a long time, so then you can,
if you want to, get into the dream interpretation side of things and try to figure out why that came
up. Even if you're not interested in the meanings of the dreams, at the very least,
writing down your dreams regularly just makes you better at recalling them.
So I don't personally bullet journal. My most "controversial" video is titled "Why I don't
like bullet journaling". My brain is just not compatible with bullet journaling for some reason
but I really admire people whose brains are, because it seems like a really cool way to plan,
and to journal, and to express yourself creatively, all in one notebook. And even
though I don't bullet journal, I still watch AmandaRachLee's channel cause I just love
seeing other people's bullet journals. So if you need any bullet journaling advice or art tips,
she is the queen of that. I love routines. If this is not your first Bliss Bean video,
you already know that. I love morning routines, bedtime routines, weekly planning routines,
Sunday routines... When you're designing a new routine, it's really helpful to write it
down all nice and neat, because basically it's a habit that you're trying to build, and it's kind
of a complex habit, so having a space where you can reference what the steps of your new routine
are is a really good way to reinforce that in the beginning. So for example, in my Apple Notes app,
I have a folder titled "planning", and I've written out all of my routines in there,
partly as a reminder but also because my routines are still changing, so for example I recently
added some new skincare steps in there, so I had to update that. I'm not gonna say that if
you write down your goals, you will 100% achieve them, but if you don't write down your goals, I'm
willing to bet you probably won't achieve them. If you set a goal, it is so important to keep it
at the forefront of your mind, as a reminder to keep working on it every week, every day, to look
for opportunities and information that might help you with that goal, and one of the best ways to do
that is to write down in a place that is visible, so if you have a goals notebook, you can write
down your goals for the year, for each month, for each week, maybe even like your top 3 priorities
for each day. And that way, that becomes a document that you are regularly referencing and
always remembering what your goals are so that you're more likely to succeed with them.
So this year I would say I'm a little less goal-oriented, because I feel like I'm at a
point in my life where I have a lot of options and constantly changing ideas for what I want
to do in my life. So I do have a few goals, but more importantly, I feel like I just have this
general idea of what I want my life and my lifestyle to look like, right,
and so there are so many different paths that I can take to getting there and I don't know
what new paths I will soon discover, but I have a general sense of the destination, and
that kind of keeps me focused. So I'll be doing a tour of my vision board in next week's video,
but a dedicated notebook could serve as a place to do all of this manifestation work. You could
cut out some images that inspire you and make a vision board collage. You can collect your
favorite quotes and affirmations. You can journal about the life that you want to manifest. And then
just keep looking back at that. Just like the goals journal, keep looking through it
regularly so that you have this idea of the life that you want constantly in your mind.
I'm well aware that this idea is not really relevant to our current situation,
but maybe if we talk about it, we can manifest it. So I generally am not really
a fan of travel souvenirs. My parents have this amazing shot glass collection.
I tried to start my own collection of playing cards but I got like 5 decks in and I was not
enjoying that ._. So for me, the ideal souvenirs are photos, videos, and journals. They're super
dense in the memories that they contain, but they also don't take up a ton of storage space. So you
could use a notebook as an ongoing travel journal and write about a ton of different trips in that,
or if you're going on a really big trip, you can just dedicate an entire journal to
documenting that. Pinterest of course has many beautiful examples of this, but it does not have
to be artsy. You can just jot down quick notes like which hotel you stayed at, where you ate,
what you did, phrases of a new language that you learned. And if you don't wanna draw anything
yourself, you can print out some photos to tape in there, or paste in mementos like sugar packets,
or museum tickets, transportation tickets, little brochures, stamps, maps, etc. etc.
Whenever you're learning something new, or starting some new project, one of the most
discouraging things is that it's pretty easy to just forget about your progress and totally not
see it. So dedicating a journal to documenting that progress can be a really good way to remind
yourself of how far you've come. So maybe you're trying to learn drawing, and so you write about
what techniques you're trying to learn, your little successes, what's frustrating you,
who your favorite artists for inspiration are at the moment, and then you can look back at that
and see how much you've improved and how much your style has evolved. If you're starting a business,
you can write about all of the big and small challenges that you have to overcome,
how you problem solve your way through them, and then in the future you can use that as a reminder
that you can figure anything out! So I hope you liked these ideas, please give this video a like
and subscribe to my channel. I would love to hear in the comments how you fill up empty notebooks.
And if you wanna practice being vulnerable in 2021, tell us how many empty notebooks you have
lying around - this is a no judgment space, you can feel free to share. I'll be back next
week to talk about my vision board, which I love very very much, and I am so excited to be making
videos again in the New Year. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next week. Bye!