4
My five year old nephew asked me why my bullet journal has a 'sad page'
I was setting up my monthly spread last week, and my nephew was watching me color in my habit tracker. He pointed at my 'mood tracker' page from the month before, which was mostly dull blues and grays (you know, a rough patch). He just looked at it and said, 'Aunt Hugo, that's a sad page. Did your book have a bad day?' It hit me that I'd been using my bujo to just log the low points without much thought. His simple question made me rethink the whole point of tracking my mood. Now, instead of just coloring a box, I'm adding a tiny note next to the blue days, like 'called a friend' or 'went for a walk', to remember what helped. It turned a passive record into something that actually points me toward what works. Has anyone else changed how they track something after a simple outside comment?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
adams.cameron20d ago
That's a really smart shift you made. A therapist friend once said tracking moods without the "why" or the "what helped" is like having a map with no roads on it. Just seeing the sad colors can make you feel stuck. Adding those small notes, like you did, builds a little guidebook for yourself. It turns data into something you can actually use.
3
park.robin20d agoMost Upvoted
Totally agree with your friend's map idea. I used to just log "bad day" and stare at a wall of red. Now I force myself to add one line, like "bad day, but a 10 minute walk helped a bit." Those tiny notes are the only reason I keep going with the tracker. They turn a useless chart into a list of small things that actually worked when I felt awful.
5
hannah42213d ago
Your nephew's question is really smart for a five year old. It shows how just seeing the data can make you feel worse instead of helping. I started adding a "what helped" column next to my mood tracker last year. It changed everything because I stopped seeing a bad week as a failure and started seeing it as a list of tools. Do you find yourself looking back at those notes more than the colors now?
1