Chris J Wilson

I’ve noticed (and I feel the temptation too) to think of task management/PKM/bullet journaling/jorunaling/whatever as a binary thing — either you have some incredible complicated system which you use everyday the way the gurus on YouTube use theirs, or your “not doing it right”.

Rubbish.

Task management is about managing your task. If a post-it works for you, that’s great! You have a system that works.

PKM is about storing and retrieving ideas - if a pocket notebook works for you, great! You have a system that works.

Journaling is about getting thoughts out of your head and on paper. If you do that every now and then and find it useful, great! You have a system that works.

Maybe you would benefit from adopting some practices or ideas (or more consistency) but you shouldn’t do that out of some sense of envy or guilt. You can always try things out and stick with what works for you.

Give yourself grace to experiment.

Writing what you’re grateful for is a common journaling activity and for good reason.

Practicing gratitude is one of the most effective ways to increase your happiness. If you aren’t doing it, I highly recommend you start.

But it’s easy to stop there. To feel better about ourselves and what we have but not respond out of that. There can be knock on effects such as a more positive and warm outlook to those around us, but what if there was a journaling prompt that encouraged us to be more generous too?

Here’s one I’m trying today.

What am I grateful for today? How can I help others share this gratitude?

It might seem like a small addition, but I’m hoping it will lead me to take action.

• If I feel grateful for someone helping me, how can I be helpful?
• If I’m grateful for learning something, can I share what I learned?
• If I feel grateful for some part of nature, can I share it by taking someone else to the spot?

Sometime it might be trite, but just perhaps a small act of generosity will make someone else grateful too.

I’ve been less patience recently.

It’s been a growing issue since my daughter learned the word “why” and now her brother is “stealing attention” from her, at least from her perspective.

Blaming my situation is the easy and half-true option.

While I certain have some extra pressures, these are an opportunity for me to demonstrate greater patience. Plus I can always choose my response to even the worse situation. And that’s where my journaling experiment comes in.

A journaling prompt for patience

“What are some situations that typically trigger impatience in you? How can you prepare and respond more calmly in these situations?”

I stumbled upon this journal prompt yesterday and started to write out my answers.

As soon as I did, I saw some common trends in my triggers. But more importantly I noticed that the solutions had even more in common.

Accepting the situation as it is

Mentally preparing for the situations

Taking actions to prevent those situations from arising.

I still need to see how I actually live these ideas out and I’m journaling every day to track what happens, but I’m hopeful. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Today I came across a writer with a boring site.

He has a single profile picture at the top along with links to navigate to his various writings and podcastings.

It was wonderful. I was soon on a wikipedia-like spelunking trip through his various article.

His site feels like such a breath of fresh air in an age of full page cover images with email popup forms. Admittedly, the depth of articles he has written helps a lot. And I’m publishing this on Micro.blog where this kind of design is the norm.

While there is a place for the website with landing page, I’m grateful that some people still publishing on boring blogs.

I am not a consistent journaler.

Over the last 8 years, I’ve tried lots of different system with varying degrees of success, but every time I keep the habit going, I gain a lot from it.

In my experiments, I’ve found three prompts which have helped me more than any others. So I thought I’d share them with you.

What’s on your mind? - answer this often reveals a hidden fear.

What are you grateful for? - this shifts my perspective to one of gratitude.

What would make today great? - it often does take much, but this prompt helps me improve my days.

There you have it, 3 quick prompts that you may find valuable.

I’d love to hear any prompts you’ve found beneficial.

UPDATE: I’ve realised that even these thoughts aren’t completely correct. I’ve noticed exceptions to my main issue. My new working theory is that I just wished we were all a little self obsessed, and when someone is less obvious with it, it make me realise the issue in myself.

I’m finally preparing the latest edition of my newsletter to send and got caught on the invitation for suggested content.* I always assumed people would refer someone else’s content which has happened but I have one reader who sends their own content every time I open the invitation.

At first I thought it was my cultural background that makes me view that so negatively. Then I wondered if it was the implicit, if not explicit, request for other people’s content. But as I really thought about it I realised the strongest reason for my reaction.

I don’t trust someone’s opinion of their own creation.

People generally have good taste when it comes to other people’s work and certainly don’t share everything they like with everyone. But that instinct frequently get’s turned off by the kind of person who promotes their stuff all the time.

While I was selfishly asking people to act as a filter and finder of quality instead of taking that responsibility myself, this reader redistributes that work back to me again. So I suppose it serves me right really!

*In the end I cut it. I couldn’t be bothered to work out a good way to phrase it. At least not today.

I’ve been thinking about minimalism again. My main prompt is reading “The Life We’re Looking For” by Andy Crouch. He lays out how “devices” can take as well as give and advocates for technology that makes us more engaged with our whole being rather than passive. As is common, I’ve started to see patterns everywhere. Suddenly stoicism seams very minimalist, I started to look at some of Patrick Rhone’s old essays and I’m wondering about how Christian “simplicity” is similar and different to minimalism. Oh and I’ve coincidentally decided to clear out my desk and draws at the same time.

In the past I commented that my big issue with minimalism is that it provides a diagnosis without a prognosis. I still believe there’s truth to that critique, but it doesn’t make the diagnosis less true.

Now excuse me while I go back to holding some old T-shirts and asking “does this spark joy?” Over and over again.

I’ve got the week off work (but my daughter is still going to pre-school) so I’ve drawn up a list of things to do that I would normally struggle to do due to lack of time or her presence! There’s a lot of big topic conversations with my wife plus making sure I’m fully present and engaged with her in the evening.

First item on my list - cleaning up my desk, notes and old clothes that need to be thrown out.

I had to renew my phone contract and had a chance to upgrade my four year old phone. In the end I decided against it. The offer sounded good but I wouldn’t have wanted to upgrade this year anyway so it was just spending money I didn’t want to spend.

As I reached the conclusion that I should declining the offer, I felt an uncomfortable pain. I knew it was a good offer, I knew I wanted the new shiny thing, but I also knew it wasn’t a good use of money and I’d be getting a phone and deal I wouldn’t have chosen otherwise.

I knew the decision was right, but I didn’t want it to be the right decision.