Dot Journaling Planning System + a GIVEAWAY!

I’m a sucker for a book on organizing. Or planning. Or both. 

Have you ever tried to make a bullet journal? (Or, if you’re like me, you’ve just filled up an entire Pinterest board with bujo inspiration instead). 

I’m always attracted to the ongoing list/journaling of bullet journals and that everything is personalalized. Everything is YOURS. YOU make lists and layouts that YOU care about. 

But I have to admit, I’ve started a bullet journal a few times, and I’ve never been able to stick with it for more than a week or two. 

I recently read Dot Journaling, A Practical Guide: How to Start a Keep the Planner, To-Do List, and Diary That’ll Actually Help You Get Your Life Together by Rachel Wilkerson Miller. 

This is kind of a step-by-step how-to for starting your now dot journal. 

Call me crazy, but having a sort-of instructional manual made the process a whole lot easier! 

Here were some of my favorite systems! 

The Basics of Dot Journaling

First of all, a Dot Journal has the same planning layouts as a traditional planner (that is, if you want it to!). Yearly spread, monthly, etc. But what I was really fascinated by, and wanted to know more about, were all the symbols! 

Of course, you can always make your own, but here is how Rachel suggests using them…

. to do

x done

> migrated

< scheduled

^ started

/ cancelled

- note

She also recommends using a blank square box for events and coloring them in with different colors, depending on what the event is. For example: 

Blue Square = work event

Green Square = school event

Pink Square = personal/home event

Most importantly, make it whatever YOU want it to look like! Otherwise, it will be harder to stick with it. 

Using Your Dot Journal as a Diary

This is something I like about the Passion Planner. It not only allows you to look forward and plan, but to look back and reflect. The chapter about diaries was very interesting because guess what diaries used to look like? LISTS! 

Until about 100 years ago when we started writing paragraph after paragraph of our daily dramas in them. I kind of love this way of thinking about diaries, because it forces you to think of/write a highlight or outstanding moment from each day. And when these lists are put together, they’ll still tell the beautiful story of your life! 

Making Your Dot Journal Your Own

You know how sometimes you get a planner, and you like the layout but you don’t love the color scheme? Or you think the colors are beautiful, but you wish there was more room to write on the weekends? (WHY do they always make Saturday and Sunday so small?!?!). 

Dot Journaling means you’ll never have to deal with that. Because YOU are using the exact layouts, colors, etc. that work for you. This is where you have the perfect to follow a million Instagram accounts with beautiful bujo (or dojo?) inspiration! 

Making a dot journal is an excuse to buy a new cute notebook and pens in every beautiful color you want a sure way to keep your to-do list relevant to your life.

But for real, get those beautiful pens and that notebook, too! :) 

Ok, are you ready for a giveaway?! Enter below to win a copy of Rachel's book and get on your way to making your very own beautiful dot journal! Good luck!! 

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Do you keep a bullet journal or dot journal? If so, what tips and tricks do you have for starting one and sticking with it?! 

Follow Organized Charm’s Planner Ideas board for bujo/dojo inspiration! 

List of Lists to Keep in Your Planner

Click here to read the full post!

High School Study Tips

I spend a lot of time focusing on college study tips, and that is really important that we take the time to remember our OC babies! 

Homework, study hall, drivers ed, curfews, and the potential to get grounded. 

That’s right, this post is all about studying in high school!

Plan Ahead.

First and foremost, I’ll start this post like I start every post: Have a planner and use it religiously! (I just happen to know of a great one). But for me, high school was always a little harder to plan for because there was no full course syllabus at the beginning of the year. 

Dates for quizzes, tests, assignments, homework, (and substitute teachers) can sneak up on you… especially with 6+ classes a day! Don’t forget all the extracurricular stuff, plus bringing money for fundraisers, field trips, etc. So keep your planner with you at all times and write down EVERYTHING as soon as you hear about it!

Use a mechanical pencil just in case things change (which they will). Also, use a highlighter system to keep you on track:

Yellow = In Progress

Pink = Complete

How I Organize My Planner

Set a Timer.

When you get home from school every day, set a timer and work high priority to low priority! So…either start with the thing that’s due the soonest or the thing that’s worth the most points.

I played competitive sports in high school, so sometimes I didn’t even get home until 10:00. There was no way I was getting ALL the homework done EVERY night, so I just went with the top priority items.

So, if I didn’t make it to that 5 point worksheet by the next day, it wasn’t really that big of a deal.

(I also knew which teachers would give me extra credit for bringing in extra boxes of tissues. God bless you, Ms. Parker)

4 Rules for Effective Studying

Perfect Your Time Management.

Manage your time as wisely as possible. High school is full of important schoolwork and every day feels like it’s the most stressful one ever (or at least, that was my experience). At the end of the day, make sure that you’ve also allowed yourself the balance to actually enjoy your friends, football games, dances, etc.

Work for 30 minutes at a time then give yourself a 5 minute break. Also, work smarter, not harder. A lot of teachers assign similar assignments, so don’t be afraid to “piggyback” off of your prior projects and just make it a little better each time!

Time Management System

Even though it’s been (ahem) a while since I’ve been in high school, I definitely remember it was a high stress time… Having 3 lockers (one in each building), literally running to class carrying 30 books to make it before my teacher locked the door, and (most importantly), trying to catch up on the details of every little daily drama between classes.

If it feels a little overwhelming right now, just remind yourself that college will be here before you know it and things get SO. MUCH. BETTER. :D

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Good Habits for College Classes

Class. To go or not to go? 

That usually seems to be the question. 

I mean, we know that  it’s probably best to go… but the freedom of not having to be there is just so tempting sometimes.  

Plus, there is always so much to do. Occasionally, we're just positive that we could be more productive if we skipped class and spent that hour by ___ (insert biggest stressor of the day) instead. 

If going to class feels "unproductive" to you, here are some ways to change that and get the most out of your time spent on campus!

Here are my top “good” habits for college classes:

Bring Your Planner

Not only would I never in my life have come to class without my planner. I kept it open in front of me at all times. This just kept  dates in my mind (next class, we’ll be talking about this chapter… that assignment is due a week from today… etc.). I definitely, definitely suggest doing this!

5 Ways to Make Your Planner Pretty

Listen Proactively

For my new teaching job, we’re reading the book Teach Like a Champion. There is a technique in the book called SLANT, which provides an easy for students (or “scholars) to know how they’re expected to sit. Our brains usually take their cues from our bodies, and if your body is saying “Hey, this is interesting and I’m excited to hear it! Then your brain will pay attention, too (probably).

S: Sit up

L: Listen attentively

A: Ask and answer questions like a scholar

N: Not your head

T: Track the speaker

Study Tip: How to Let Go of Perfection

Stay Active

Unfortunately, most college courses are still lecture-style. As in, you’re sitting passively, listening (or looking like you’re listening) for nearly the entire class period. If you struggle with staying focused the whole time, I would definitely suggest writing the whole time. Just start taking notes at the beginning of class, and keep on until the end of class. This does two things: First of all, it keeps you engaged, actively doing something throughout the lecture! And secondly, you leave with some pretty awesome and thorough notes that your classmates will totally envy.

How to Get Better Grades in College

Build Class Time into Your Schedule

Remember at the beginning of this post where I talked about to go or not to go to class? The answer is always the same: GO TO CLASS! Even if you have the study guide, Even if your professor puts the Power Points online, Even if you have a friend who promised to take notes for you. Build class time into your schedule and stick to it!

Top Lessons I Learned About Procrastination in College

Keep Your Class Stuff Organized

If you’re going to math class (bless your heart), keep your pencils, calculator, book, graph paper, altogether in the same place every time! The worst thing is showing up unprepared! Try getting some of those $10 canvas bins from Target and making them your “class bins”. This will make it easy for you to grab your stuff and go (and hopefully keep you on time)!

5 Ways to Organize Your Life

College classes can be annoying, boring, and feel like time wasters BUT they’re also the reason you’re there!

Just show up, take notes, and try to learn something (of course)! :D 

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May & June Reader Questions

Here are some reader questions that I received in May and June that I think might benefit you, too! Enjoy!! :D

Q: Through last few years I've been constantly coming back to idea of starting a blog... I did read through your post about how to start a blog.. and I know my content, I also know what I want my label to be and almost decided on a platform... 

the part that I'm struggling with is that what if nobody's gonna read my blog at all.. what is normal and what is not, I know that I will not get tons of people as I start, but how do you promote your blog and if you could share how did it go for you, how many people read you when you just started, how many people are reading now? 

I guess I wanted to ask you to please share the story of your blogging with me. 

Things like how did you start doing it, how did you decide that that is what you want to do, what did you struggle with what were your mistakes?

A: At first, I was having about 15-30 readers a day visit OC. I had think I hit 1,000 pageviews around my first month or two of blogging. Just watch your stats in the beginning: What are people reading? What are they not reading? Keep refining your content to fit your specific readership. 

Additionally, always check where your traffic is coming from! One of my tumblr posts was lucky enough to be reblogged by the Organized College Student (who had many more followers than me). This helped OC grow a lot very early on! As far as promoting posts, most of my traffic comes through Pinterest! 

So building up your Pinterest account is one of the best things you can do for your blog! Another great thing to do is to share smaller amounts of content and more photographs on Tumblr. Because Tumblr. uses hashtags, you can get your content in front of people who are already searching for it! 

Pinterest and Tumblr are great resources because they're easy to build up even if you don't have a ton of your own content yet... so you can kind of build your brand by reblogging and repinning content that's relevant to your niche (just be sure to always link back to the original content creators)!

Finally, for mistakes- I still don't promote each post as much as I should. Blogging is not my full time job, you know? So, it's hard to justify taking the time to share every post across every social media channel every time. You can never promote your content enough! 

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Q: I am going to be a sophomore in high school next year and I was wondering if you had some tips on my organization of my notes and handouts. This year I took six classes and did 1 inch binders for each class. It was a bit bulky to have all of those binders along with textbooks in my narrow locker and then into my backpack when I had to take them home.

A: For notes and handouts, I would suggest following the systems in this post:

http://organizedcharm.blogspot.com/2014/04/class-folder-organization.html

And for note organization, I would suggest following the system in this post:

http://organizedcharm.blogspot.com/2014/10/note-organization-checklist.html 

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Q: Most of my classmates do a folder and notebook for each class. I like that idea but I like to go home and rewrite my notes in colorful pens. I am afraid I would run out of pages in my notebook quickly and it would be unorganized because I would have the class notes and then the notes that I rewrote at home. 

A: Get a folder and a notebook for each class. Keep the handouts on the left side of the folder and your graded assignments on the right side. Take "sloppy" notes in mechanical pencil in the notebook. When you go home, rewrite the notes the way you want them to look. Then put them in a "study binder". Save all of your neatly, rewritten notes in this binder, use tabs to divide the different classes, and refer to this organized notebook when you're preparing for a big test! 

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Q: I am entering college as a freshmen in 2 months, and Im terrified. I need amazing grades to get into graduate school, and amazing grades come with organization. 

A: Don't even start worrying about grad school until your senior year! Once you get into the rhythm of semesters, college won't be scary at all! Just have fun, relax, and work hard.  

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Q: I noticed your post on Top 10 Semester essentials, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on your "4-calendar" "color-coded" "obsessive organization" system. 

A: For the sake of "college life", I would only suggest 1-2 planners. 1 for normal everyday life and one for schoolwork. I like to be veeeery detailed when planning out my study time, so that's why I have an academic planner just for that! My husband and I also have a calendar in our house (the Post-It one), where we keep track of each other's schedules and social commitment, etc. The 4th one I use is my lesson planner for teaching.