Collecting what’s good
Like a warm greeting from the sun, words carry energy, and sometimes you just need good energy. Jolinda takes us on her journaling journey as she learns the importance of documenting what’s good keeping her connected to the positive happenings in her life.
Our items are more than one of our storytellers they serve as symbols of reminders to check in with our energy. Most items in your space will either have you releasing some form of energy or taking it in. And then there are those that have us doing both.
The art of journaling has developed into this masterful piece of work. Who am I kidding, up until recently, my journals have consisted of me writing my thoughts down in a bunch of different notebooks. But for others, there's so much more to this elevating experience.
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If you tuned in to previous episodes you might have heard the one about my personal journaling journey. The episode opens with me going to a workshop to build my own unique journal. This was super fun and it made journaling even more personal, if it could get anymore personal. But, if someone is hosting a journal making workshop, you know they must have some serious experience in this department, right. When I introduced my diary and talked about what journaling means to me, I already knew I wanted to invite this multi-creative, manifesting journalist named Jolinda to the podcast to talk about her document keeping experience and share a few gems with us.
Jolinda: Yeah. This is super fun. I'm excited for our conversation.
Christina: And I'm excited to introduce her to all of you too. Since I moved to [00:06:00] Richmond, I have met some really creative and inspiring humans. I have even overcome some shy tendencies and invited a few to the show. You've probably heard the saying, "six degrees of separation" meaning all people are six or fewer social connections from knowing each other. Well, if you have visited Richmond it might not be hard to believe we are probably only 3 or fewer social connections from knowing each other. That said it's no surprise that Jolinda knows at least one of my previous guests.
Jolinda: Mecca is one of my style inspirations. Um, I think I've told her this, so it wouldn't be news if she heard it. Um, I met her through, I think, creative mornings. And so when I saw that you had her on, I was like, Ooh, I have to tune into this because whenever I see her, I'm just like, your whole look is just, it's a feeling and I love the breadth of her style.
Christina: This is so true. Mecca was our very first guest and her episode has titled A Style Full of Energy and Spirit... so there you have it. Jolinda also has a fun style of her own and well a few other things of her own too.
Jolinda: So I am actually in my office. Um, so I have owned my business now since the fall of 2019. And. Uh, I do graphic design and web design on a daily basis. That's what pays my bills. Um, and then outside of that, I am a volleyball player and I like the creative community. I miss the creative community.
We haven't seen each other since pre-pandemic times. It feels like. Um, but usually I love being out around art and music and just creativity in general. I do it digitally for myself. Um, but I really appreciate and thrive and get a lot of inspiration from, um, the creativity that exists all around Richmond.[00:10:00]
Christina: Jolinda has designed a lifestyle that allows her the time and space to do what she enjoys. Like Rome, this lifestyle shift wasn't built in one day. Nope, she had a strategic plan and in developing that plan she always kept a little something in or near her hand.
Jolinda: My bullet journals because it is filled with. I mean, I call it my life dashboard. I usually, um, put my yearly intentions, my goals. I put, um, little ephemera. I kind of scrapbook in it. So I cut things out that I collect from experiences.
It could be a ticket stub. A wedding invitation or a receipt from a place that I went with my partner, um, and it's usually got colorful things inside of it. So it would fully tell my story. The other secondary things that I've thought about were, um, I carry a handmade pencil bag. That's got lots of, um, pencils and markers. But I used to like filling out my bullet journal.
Christina: Awe, yes! The bullet journal. Now if you're new to bullet journaling, hold on because we're going to dive deeper into this type of journaling. For now, the bullet journal is considered a next-level, one-stop [00:12:00] shop type of diary. If you search bullet journals on social media you will come across a masterful collection of journaling styles and some might even seem a bit intimidating. But don't fret, bullet journaling is not about creating the prettiest journal, its mission is to be mindful of how we spend our time and energy while boosting productivity. If you've ever journaled you probably have a story about how you found it or it found you. I started keeping a diary as a little girl to express myself, but some people start it later in life. There is a quote that says, "the best time to journal is whenever you decide to". Well, ain't that the truth.
Jolinda: You know, I feel like I had little notebooks where I would write things from time to time or practice my writing or sketch things, but I definitely did not have practice. I would say the practice of journaling became something I relied pretty heavily on on. Um, after college I was in a marriage that was not the right fit.
And so it didn't take very long. And then we got separated. And I was in my first design job and going through that, like as a mid-20 somethings. Um, and I felt like my life was being turned upside down. And so I sort of started journaling as a way to collect evidence that there were happy things in my life because, to be honest with you, I was severely depressed.
Not suicidal. And the fact that like I was planning anything, but I would just wake up in the morning and feel so heavy and so sad and just think I don't want to be here. And that was enough for me to be like, okay, this is not how my brain usually works. Usually, I'm a joyful, happy, friendly person. Um, I reached out for counseling.
Thankfully, my job at the time had a really good employee assistance program. So anybody who's ever. Um, dealing with thoughts of depression or crippling anxiety, like look at your local, um, corporate employee benefits because I was able to get counseling for free and it was confidential. Um, it was, I can't remember how many sessions, but it was part of, one of the benefits of working at that job, which was amazing because I'd never pursued formal counseling.
I just knew I did not want to wake up thinking and feeling that way. Um, and in that process, Um, I don't know that my counselor suggested it, but I just remember thinking like, the reality is not awful and sad, but this is how I feel every day. So I need to find evidence to prove the opposite. So I used that little, it was a little sketchbook and I started using it as a journal and I was dumping out all of my thoughts good, bad, and ugly. Just getting them out of my head. But then also if someone wrote me a kind note at work, I would print it [00:16:00] out and paste it in there as proof that like the world is good. People are kind, um, when I would go to shows or like, I went to a music festival that summer and cut out a bunch of things from the little playbook and put it in.
Um, thank you notes. Thank you cards. Um, Pronounce a beautiful thing that I would find on the internet. So like I went to a show, um, or different shows that I would go to like the little artist postcards that you pick up if I would go to a show and I really loved it and liked it, I would cut pieces of that out and collage it into my book or just draw and sketch things.
Um, so it, it really started with. A functional way to help me collect the happy parts of my life, even when things were going really negatively in other areas. And then I kind of got through that and was a daily journal or through that time, but then later it CA it kind of fell off in terms of a habit.
Christina: As a young journalist, my diary experience was all about pointing out all the bad things that were happening around me that I didn't feel I had control over so I appreciate hearing Jolinda's story and how she purposely started keeping documented track of the good things that were happening in her life. Life's lessons have definitely taught me the value of approaching situations with an optimist lens. For some, journaling can feel like a mental workout and when it's hard to stay consistent with working out in general, adding another activity to our "to do" list doesn't help even when we know it's good for us. After taking a break from journaling, Jolinda continued to value this practice and it's benefits, she just wanted to incorporate it in a way that was sustainable.
Jolinda: 2017 was the first time I took up bullet journaling. And, [00:19:00] um, so that was a new experience for me, that became integrated in a different way, um, through that system. So bullet journaling is a method of. Structuring how you keep up with things in any notebook. So it's not like there's, a bullet journal book that you have to buy. Um, there is an official product that the bullet journal method sells, but if you just Google the bullet journal method, it's a free system created by a developer.
Uh, I wanna say his name is Ryder Carroll, and he described himself as a developer. With all of our digital tools he felt completely overwhelmed all the time. And so he needed a more physical way to process his thoughts and commitments and intentions. And so you can watch that video. And basically what I loved about bullet journaling is there's a structure to it, but every person is encouraged to adopt the systems that fit and function for their life and their own.
And so there's a lot of Pinterest and a lot of like Instagrammers who bullet journal and they make it these like elaborate beautiful things. And that is really not the intention of it. It's great. If that's what you find joy from, like, if you want to make your pages beautiful on aesthetic and you want to do hand lettering and make every spread its own illustration, I don't do that.
Um, there are a few pieces that I do. Pretty regularly. And I would say kind of religiously one is, um, uh, beginning of the year intention setting where I visually write and draw what I want to do in a year. And that began because the first, like I'm going to do this year was just a list and the list is boring.
So I never looked at it. So after that first year, I was like, how would I actually use this to make it visual? So I draw and write and illustrate. A whole page of like, these is all of my intentions for the year. It's not necessarily like goals or, um, resolutions. It's not one of those. Like I'm going to do this by this time.
It's more like, one of my intentions is to use less, um, to go plastic and to-go coffee cups. So now I do that is I have a little zip bag with bamboo cutlery in my car all the time. And I carry a to-go mug. So it's not like I'm going to beat myself up if I ever have plastic cutlery in a bag, but I just try to remember, I want to do less of this.
So what's the structure around it. Um, so I do an intention setting at the beginning of every year. I do a habit tracker every month with things that are important to me. So sometimes they shift around. Um, but I do that every month. Pretty religious. Um, I also do a money check-in every month, so I write down every expense.
So I track everything. I spend my money at the beginning of the month. I also track my income, my existing debts, the financial numbers, and all of the accounts that I have. So, um, my business account, my personal account. I have a capital one savings account. So I just throw money in there because it's a place where I don't spend it.
So it's a good place to kind of squirrel it away. Um, so the bullet journal method is set up so that you use pages as you go. And this was part of what drew me to it. I had bought, I can't even count the amount of money I have spent on planners that I got busy and a month would go by and it was empty and it felt like it was yelling at me.
Like it was shaming me cause I hadn't used it because the calendar was there and the lists were there and the weeks were there and I didn't feel anything up and I didn't use it. So with the bullet journal method, it is an empty notebook and you build it as you go. So my, um, Financial check-ins happen when I get to the next blank page after the page I'm on.
So when it's, when it turned, the end of May, I've turned to the next page and started my habit tracker for June, and then turn the next page. Put my expenses page on the next page. I put my, um, financial income and accounts review. So you kind of just turn the page and use it as you go. And, um, pro tip for me.
I bullet journal for three or four months before I decided what my method was going to be because of course you see all the suggestions and you try them all. And if you [00:24:00] never use it, why force yourself to keep doing it? Um, so for me again, the expenses thing has stuck around the financial check-in has stuck around and the habit tracker has stuck around.
I don't often do like daily or weekly layouts. Um, I just kind of have a running to-do list for the month. Um, You know, I tried it, and then once I decided what I would use, I created my own little print-outs. So instead of my hand drawing the habit tracker every single month, I just have a printout sheet that I cut it out, paste it in and it's ready to go.
Christina: Jolinda, took time to really feel out this system and find what works for her. She's connected with her journals in a way that can categorize them as one of her best buds keeping her on track, staying accountable towards her goals or intentions, and not forgetting to celebrate along the way.
Jolinda: Yeah, my bullet journal is like my dashboard for my whole life. So it comes with me everywhere. I've got, um, so I have on my desk behind me, three of the bullet journals that I've carried over the years, 20 17, 18, 19 20 20 is at home. 21 is in my. Um, and it's got my logins to certain important things just in case something were to crash.
Um, and it's like code in a way that I can tell what the passwords are. Um, but I have all of my super important logins in a part of the book I've got like my dad. So social security number somewhere in the book, because he's older and, you know, as you get older and you have to do things for your parents, like there certain things you just need to know about them.
Um, so I have some things, um, some records in there. Um, and then, because I practice sort of a daily, weekly, um, scrapbooking sort of thing, I call it like my analog Facebook. Um, I'm not posting as much and participating as much. My personal Facebook as I used to, but what I do still take pictures and, um, friends will send me images, and my boyfriend will send me pictures of our cats from home.
So a lot of times I'll take time at the end of the month and print those, cut them out, and sort of, um, scrap them into, paste them into my bullet journal and sort of write little notes and memories from what those things were. Or like if something fun happens or, um, something exciting happens. You know, being asked on a podcast like this, this is such a unique, fun experience.
You know, that's a memory that I will probably print out the logo or maybe, um, the page of the website when it's posted, I'll print out that section and paste it in and just reflect on this was a unique experience. Again, I think that habit of collecting proof of the positive all those years ago, um, made a huge impression on me.
Christina: I love her "dashboard for her life" reference. This girl has this journaling thing down. I hope you're taking notes. Now, I must admit this interview was recorded in the early fall of 2021. It is now 2022, ya'll please charge it to my energy, not to my heart! But seriously, I hope Jolinda still remembers this experience and it has either slid into her 2021 journal [00:28:00] or will make its debut in 2022!
You know that feeling when you figure out a good thing and you're happy to share it with those around you? Let's talk about the inspiration behind the build your journal workshop?
Jolinda: So it came from just a very practical experience. I was in a. I describe it as like a summer camp for graphic designers. I was in, um, this workshop in the summer of 2016 in a summer camp setting in Texas with the Texas AIG. They planned something called design ranch, and there's a woman there named Judy who is a paper rep for OK.
Paper. And her workshop was. Build your own journal. So she had created this experience and she works at a printer so she could print out and have access to all these fancy. And so each of us in the workshop picked out our cover, our spine, our binding thread, and our interior papers and sewed a handmade journal.
That was five by seven. Now that thing set on my shelf. Because it was beautiful. And I didn't use it for over six months because I was like, it's so pretty. Like I don't want to mess it up. And like, nothing I put in it will be as pretty and interesting as what it is. And then at some point later that fall, I discovered bullet journal.
And part of what attracted me to bullet journaling is you can use any notebook. You don't have to buy fancy materials. If you have something to write with and any journal in your home, even if it's just like the last section of a journal you've already used, you can start. And so I just was really attracted to that idea of starting with what I had.
And so I started the practice of bullet journaling. I did it consistently for about three months. And I had all these like big visions of I'm going to do this every day and every month. And I'm like, no, I'm not. So getting through that, um, sort of like trial period at the end of that three months, I was like, you know what?
This journal will fit inside the purse and the bag that I carry every day. And I will use this journal as my bullet. Um, at the end of that workshop in 2016, I bid on a kit of materials. So I had four or five other sets of journals that I could create. And so after I did that, the first year in that first journal, I was absolutely hooked.
I was like, this is the size. This is the format I used every day. I didn't have to pay 60, or 80 bucks on a brand new, um, beautifully curated. Journal and planner that was art that somebody else had made. This was something I physically made with my own hands. I got to customize it myself. Um, and then once I ran out of all those materials, I contacted the original, um, workshop creator, asked to purchase all of her leftover materials, which she let me do.
Once I ran out of those materials, I started to source my own papers and work with local people too, um, So sometimes I will cut my own paper spines with like an all, and I'm a hammer and my own materials that I've purchased, but sometimes I'll work with a local. Laser vendors like laser-cut wooden spines that go on my journals, I've figured out different sizes of them.
So I've taught workshops. So having the materials and extra materials is good. So like before COVID times we would get together and a group of us would make our own journals. They'd pick out papers, they'd pick out their covers, their wax thread. I would bring all the supplies and we'd make a journal together.
For me, I make a new journal at the end of every year to fill up the next year, but then I also sell them usually just one-off through my Instagram. Um, I was doing, um, vendor fairs, but any like vendor and seller know the fees that go into like having to. Um, apply to a vendor fair. If they get in there's another fee, the [00:33:00] time invested to get out there.
You don't always know if the people out there are going to be your people or if they're going to like your stuff and then all their credit card fees. So for me, I'm not trying to do a huge volume. I think I've decided this year that I'm, I'm just kind of selling through Instagram. When people see something they can reach out, and we figure out a way to do that more of like a one-off transaction versus like.
so, yeah, last year, at the beginning of the year, I did a couple of virtual journal-making workshops and they were, and they were fun, but I love the physical experience of making something with my hands, especially since my job is so digital on a computer. So it was [00:34:00] fine, but I don't know that I loved it. I don't, I put kids together and I mailed them out and I think people had good experiences and I absolutely loved it, and I always loved teaching people and sharing my technique for this.
And I think the journal attendees and the workshop attendees enjoyed their experience, but there's just something about being in a room with people. You get to look and see what other people are doing. You get to be inspired. You get to hear how they're going to use it. Um, you get to physically touch all of the papers and figure out what combination you want.
And so I probably will go back to doing a workshop again, maybe later this year. Um, sometimes the fall is a good time for people to start thinking about the next year. So like October, November. Um, but to be honest, over the last couple of years, I've just been building my solo design business. So that's kind of been where more of my focus has been.
Christina: I don't know about you, but I'm feeling inspired to do more journaling. I know that bullet journaling is supposed to help you turn the practice into a habit. With different ways to integrate this into each day, I asked Jolinda for sustainable journaling practices.
Jolinda: Yeah, I mean, I can share what helped me. I like seriously felt judged now. I don't know how you feel judged by a book, but I felt judged by these journals that were preceding. Like Monday the seventh. And I'm like, okay, I didn't have time on Monday blank page. So now you're judging me. Cause I didn't fill you up for me.
What helped was using a blank book and not needing it to be this perfect prose eloquent expression part of an hour would encourage anybody to look up the bullet journal method part. The suggestions that they, um, give for the bullet journal method is how do you want to work? Because your journal is for you.
So if you don't want to sit down and carve out 30 full minutes, don't do that. Or if you don't have the time for that, don't do that. Or if daily is not something you're comfortable with, don't do that either. Maybe it's five minutes on a Saturday when you're not rushing out to work and you're having coffee and you.
Brain dump. And it's not, doesn't make sense. It doesn't become this beautiful expression of what your week was like. It's just, that I'm going to throw words onto a page and see what comes out. Um, and they give some tips about that. Um, I can't remember the exact method, but it's like a quick recap practice [00:38:00] where just put two bullets down of like, what happened today, just so you sort of track.
Things that happen. And for me, a lot of times it's tracking positive things like what happened that was helpful or nice, or what happened today that I want to remember, or that made me happy. Um, so it could be that. And I would say maybe giving yourself a framework that you won't beat yourself up over.
So if you're, um, a person of faith you could think about, um, you know, what are some of your favorite quotes from. You're a religious text that you want to capture and collect. So maybe it's not like you have to generate all of it, but in your faith practice, if something hits you, maybe you write that down to reflect back on.
Or if you are somebody that loves restaurants, maybe you just write down a list of restaurants that you want to try and you give yourself space to review them or reflect [00:39:00] on the meal. W, you know, so I, I think it can, it should feel fun and like helpful, not something like that's another job. And I think if you're thinking of it as a job, then maybe that's not the way that you would best be served by journaling.
So, you know, and maybe it's a sticker collection. Maybe that's what you start with. Or maybe it's, um, Practicing analog, Facebook, where you just print out selfies or print out pictures from friends or times, especially as we start to open up, like, what's that like to be around people, you know? And just document the moment or even just document your thoughts of like, you know, I'm going to go to a happy hour for the first time in a year.
I'm nervous. I'm anxious. Just get some of that out before you leave or think about how you felt after you got back. Like that might be a good opportunity to just dump. So it all plays and mixes in together. So that's why I was like, oh, this makes sense for me, you know? And, and again, it may not be for everybody, but, um, that this is the platform that I have found that I will use. And that's the point of it like to use it. You know, ‘cause if you don't use it, then what's the point..
Christina: A quote from Tony Robbins says, "Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach".
Thank you Jolinda for sharing your journaling gems with us and because we know you have so much more creativity to share we want to be sure our listeners know where to find you.
Jolinda: Yeah, so I am at jolinda.com, J O L I N D A. And I hang out on my Facebook business and my Instagram, those are the easiest to find. Uh, through that website. So if you just go to jolinda.com and scroll down, you can find links to my other platforms.
Christina: Thank you for sharing space and tuning in to another episode of Retail Your Story. Don't forget to subscribe and leave your reviews as it’s always a pleasure to hear from you. Until next time...
