Blog 9 Bu-jo Adventure

In blog 5, I shared my initial experience of bullet journal adventure. Let me share with you my bu-jo story in the past month!

The adventure of learning bullet journal is such a joy! In a month, I learned the basics of bu-jo, three habit trackers, reading notes, and simple cursives. I’ve been learned from four sources: YouTube videos, help forum, social media, and Reddit. In the beginning, I watched many videos. YouTubers’ bu-jo were so good! I was like entering a restaurant, and wanted to try every dish on the menu! I copied their pages down on my notebook. Then I realized that my bu-jo was like a “hotpot”. Each page looks fine on its own, but it looks cluttered together. I also spent plenty of time on each page, which is not efficient. I only browsed the help forum and Reddit couple times, because there is too much information and I can’t find what I need. I also found myself flipping through content unrelated to bu-jo. One night I saw a funny video and continued with many similar videos, then two hours went by! I chose to use Instagram, Pinterest, and XiaoHongShu to learn bu-jo. These picture sharing social media gave me a lot of inspiration. I can directly search book tracker, habit tracker, or beginner cursive. These results are very targeted, but only if I know what I need. This is a simple sharing of my learning process.

The process of learning bu-jo reminded me of TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge). In this situation, technology is social media like Pinterest. Pedagogy is learning from others’ bu-jo to find out pages that fit myself by constantly trying and adjusting. Content is different kinds of pages. How to use these pages to achieve personal goals is the core content of bu-jo. When I studied TPACK content, I thought it was just a theory to help teachers think about how to effectively use technology to reach teaching goals in classroom. 

When I learned Bu-jo, I realized how difficult this was. For example, the content is book tracker. Pedagogy is how to get into the habit of reading by using book tracker. Even the “sweet spot” between content and pedagogy is hard enough! Most often, I drew a book tracker and got excited to use. I used highlighters to track my reading time and wrote a short reflection every day. If I didn’t finish one day, I have to make up. In the end, I was tired of tracking reading time and made reading a burden on me. This also happened with workout tracker. Later, I adjusted the content and used the simplest table form: the above are habits like reading, workout, skincare, etc.; monthly dates are on the left. After finishing, I colored the box. It motived me to read because whether I read for 1 hour or 10 minutes, I can color the box! This reduced my every day burden because I don’t need to make 10 habit trackers! I will definitely continue to learn and try more bu-jo. If you also want to try bu-jo (you should!), I recommend you to start with YouTube videos. There are so many experienced bu-jo YouTubers, and their videos help me to understand what is best for me. When you decide what you want to try, you can switch to Pinterest or Instagram with more specific pages.

My Top 5 Bullet Journal Channels!

No. 5 Bullet Journal (many useful tips!)

No.4 AmandaRachLee (beautiful drawing!)

No.3 LasagnaOli面奥利 (Trackers are adorable!)

No.2 lootengstudio (Plan with me videos are helpful!)

No.1 不是闷 (Everything is good if you understand Chinese!)

Through this learning journey, I have two suggestions for adult beginners no matter in what field! First, no matter how old we are, it is never too late to learn new things. Other than bu-jo, I started learning International Latin Dance at the age of 26 with zero experience. I have learned it for 4 years, and I can do the competitions! For adult beginners, the hardest part is making up your mind to learn. Let’s get our growth mindset ready! Second, internet has given us many opportunities for self-study. When I studied 21st century learners, I thought more about characteristics for future citizen. As 21st century learners, we should use these sources to enrich ourselves. Since there are too many resources, it becomes important to find what is the best for yourself. 21st century learners should be lifelong learners, and 21st century teachers should also stay curious about the world!

         学习子弹日记的过程，真是太愉快了！通过短短一个月的学习，我学到子弹日记的基本知识，3种tracker、读书笔记和艺术字。我通过四种途径来学习：YouTube Videos，Help Forum，Social Media，和Reddit。最开始我看了很多YouTube影片，博主们的子弹日记实在太好看了，我像进入了一家餐厅，每个菜都想尝尝，每个都想画在我的笔记本上，于是我的子弹日记成了“hotpot”，每一页单独看还不错，但放在一起就显得杂乱无章。并且我花了很多时间，每一页都要用至少半个小时来完成，这并不高效。Help Forum 和Reddit我只是偶尔浏览，由于信息太多并不能及时找到我需要的，就没有继续使用。而且我发现自己不知不觉地就开始翻看与子弹日记无关的内容，有一天晚上我看到一个搞笑视频就开始翻看其他的相关视频，就这样两个小时过去了！最终我选择了用Instagram、Pinterest、XiaoHongShu来学习子弹日记,这些以分享图片为主的社交媒体给我很多灵感。我可以直接搜索读书打卡页，习惯追踪页，或初学艺术字。这些搜索结果是非常有针对性的，但前提条件是我知道自己需要什么。在最开始，我还是会看很多YouTube Video或浏览Reddit来认识子弹日记。这是我学习过程的简单分享。

        学习子弹日记的过程，让我联想到了TPACK。在这里，technology是Pinterest等社交媒体，Pedagogy是通过临摹他人的子弹日记，来找到适合自己的页面，并不断尝试和调整，找到适用于自己的记录方法。Content就是各式各样的打卡页面。如果去使用它们来帮助自己完成相应目标是子弹日记最核心的内容。记得在阅读TPACK相关内容的时候，哪怕是在写TPACK作业的时候，我都觉得这只是个理论，顶多帮助老师去思考这三者如何有效结合。但是应用在子弹日记上，我才知道这样的结合有多难。比如我非常喜欢一个读书打卡页面，这是content。我怎样去使用它来帮助我养成读书的习惯，这是pedagogy。仅仅是如何让这两者就sweet spot就够难了！最常见的情况是，我兴高采烈地画好了读书tracker，然后我每天都要用彩笔记录下我的读书时长和简短的分享。如果我哪一天没有完成，还要回去补。最后的结果是没坚持记录还让阅读成为我的负担。这样的情况也发生在健身记录和灵修上。后来我调整了content，使用最简单的表格，上面是打卡内容比如健身读书等，左边是日期，一个月是一页纸。读了就涂格子，这样大大的减轻了我的负担，也让我知道不管读1小时还是10分钟，我都可以画格子，这让我很有动力阅读！我也不用每个月给不同的习惯做不同的打卡页面，非常适合我这种全职工作，还有陪孩子和上研究生的妈妈。合适的content，适用的technology和有趣的pedagogy，才能让学习事半功倍！我也会继续学习和尝试更多的子弹日记，为此我特地买了一本书正在努力学习

        通过这样的学习旅程，我有两个建议给成人初学者（不管学什么）。1.不管我们几岁，想学任何东西都不晚。虽然在这里我分享的是我学习子弹日记的过程，但是我从26岁开始学习拉丁舞，完全零基础，现在学了4年，我也可以在竞赛中取得好成绩。对于我们成人初学者，最难的部分是下定决心去学！2.信息资源共享给了我们很多自学的机会。我最近还在youtube上学习弹奏尤克里里！作为21世纪学习者，我们应当充分使用这些优质平台来充实自己。但也由于平台太多，找到适合自己的平台变得更加重要。当我在学习21世纪学习者相关内容的时候，我更多考虑的是学习者的品质和未来需要什么样的人才。但我现在觉得21世纪学习者应当是终身学习者，21世纪的老师也应当对世界保持好奇心！

References:

Mishra, P. (2018). Revised version of TPACK image [Image]. https://punyamishra.com/2018/09/10/the-tpack-diagram-gets-an-upgrade/

Xue, Luxin. (2022). Luxin Xue Bullet Journal NLP Resource Tracker.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kOvUi6vS1wZMv5TxoNY_ryrG_eyrQTY-9Gq7W_71dcg/edit?usp=sharing