The One Notebook Principle

Something that always astounds me about the internet is how much it seems to reinvent the wheel.  Every few years there’s some trend that arises which sounds like a brilliant idea until I realize I’ve already been doing it.

Bullet Journaling, for example, I tried for ages without too much success.  Everyone’s on Youtube and various blogs seemed so pretty and fancy that I wanted mine to look the same.  I got caught up in aesthetics and missed the practicality.  Then, while packing to move, I came across two of my journals from college (circa 2005-2009).  

There were journal entries, books I wanted to remember to read, movies I wanted to watch, appointment dates and times, assignments and their due dates, etc.  As I looked through these books it occurred to me that, without all the fancy prettiness, I’d been bullet journaling for years.  I had just never formalized it.

A similar thought occurred to me partway through a Youtube video on creating a “Personal Curriculum.”  The person in the video kept citing TikTok people and other Youtubers and halfway through the video I stopped watching.  Contrary to what the video claimed, no person on TikTok had created this.  I’m not even claiming that I created this.  

In fact, the idea of setting yourself hobbies and interests to focus on, especially in the colder months, is pretty old.  People used to try out new recipes, plan for the new seeds to start come the spring, learn a new sewing pattern, or learn a whole new craft hobby altogether.  There are whole lists that show up on my Pinterest boards, and have been for years, about new hobbies or skills to learn in the winter time.

Knowing this, and having loads of Google Docs that outlined my own personal curricula (I’ve kept ones that date to as early as 2015), I just couldn’t finish watching the video.  Must we make content that we pretend is new?  Or do we just not know that it’s old?

All that said, I’m all for learning new stuff, and I have about ten years of experience on creating personal curricula, so let me give you some advice.  Stop focusing so much on formalizing a plan unless that really works for you.  None of my plans actually worked for me and I always ended up winging it.  Progress was made, but never at the exacting levels I planned.

Second, don’t spend so much time planning that you end up not doing anything.  I’ve written about this before, but it’s my biggest pitfall by far when I want to accomplish something.  If you’re interested in art history, to pull from my own list of interests, then don’t make a curriculum.  Find a source (book, documentary, podcast, blog, etc.) and focus on that one source.  If it bores you, put it down and find something else.  Don’t stick to a plan that proves not to work for you just because it’s “the plan.”

Finally, don’t attempt to learn it all or create a sort of 101-course for yourself.  I always have grand plans for learning, systematically, new crochet stitches but the truth is that I don’t need to know them all.  I just need to know the ones that are required for what I want to make.  Those are the ones I’m motivated to learn and putting that off as a sort of later-in-the-course thing is just going to ensure that I never learn it.

Anyway, as always, do what works for you.  Happy learning (however you go about it)!