December 10, 2025
Wednesday

This morning I opened an email from “Bullet Journal” (the sender), with the subject line that serves as the title of this piece. I have many such emails retained in my Gmail space, part of the digital clutter I live with. Hanging on to things I don’t need and will never use is a major characteristic of mine, some might say a character flaw. In fact, I say that. The fact that emails do not appear to take up any physical space is not the point. They are as much a drag on forward motion for me as are the numerous print books, unfilled notebooks in a variety of sizes, filled notebooks (I’m in Volume 72 of my regular J), and of course there are project notebooks and folders of notes, all my tangled unfinishments.

“Hello Margaret,” it began. The editor in me winces. I think there should be a comma. “Have you ever opened an old notebook and not quite remembered where anything lives? A project scattered across pages. A half-formed idea drifting in the margins. A reminder that made sense when you wrote it, yet now asks you to solve it all over again.”

Have I ever? You see into my soul, Bullet Journal Team (the entity that signs the notes). “This week, Ryder [Carroll, the inventor and developer of the Bullet Journal Method] explores a question many in our community ask: Should you keep everything in one notebook… or is it better to use more than one?” There’s a video, then, and more explanation (go here to see/read it yourself), and as I continued down the path of the “five reasons you may want to work with separate notebooks” (permission to be cluttery?), I began to feel excitement about engaging with this official group of like-minded people who just want to keep track of themselves.

But I must be on some official list. Why would I be getting these emails if I were not? I think I paid for something once, maybe a short series of Zoom lessons?

I did. On December 31, 2024 I paid for full access to the Bullet Journal materials. There were nine units. I had not begun even the first. There was an overhaul and redesign of the materials in July. Everyone was going to have to re-enroll.

One of my favorite exercises in character development is to imagine your character as he or she was a year ago from the present action, and what he or she will be like a year from now.

A year ago I was in the same anxious, confused, bewildered state I am now, unknowingly coming to the end of the first year of following Ron into the dark. I sought help, and was willing to pay for it. But I didn’t follow through. As our mutual struggles increased, I sank deeper into depression and an abandonment of nearly everything that wasn’t a caregiving task I don’t want to be like this a year from now.

The prayer guide I follow used Isaiah 40:25-31 this morning. The last verse reads:

those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.

Recognize where you need renewal, the commentary directs: physically, emotionally, spiritually.

I’m ready. I’m signing up again.

And the answer to the question about how many notebooks should you use?

As many as you need.

I knew that.