Last week, I was surfing the internet on my lunch break, trying to find advice for starting a travel journal. It's harder than you'd expect. Everyone seems to have their own, sometimes contrary opinions on what makes a good journal, whether it's occasional heartfelt entries or day-to-day stories added with strict regularity. Add bus tickets! Add £20 notes! Add everything up to and including your eternal happiness!

Even as an occasionally crafty person, I began to get dismayed about how much time and effort people put into their beautiful journals. And then I stumbled across something that required even more time and effort: the bullet journal.

If you haven't already seen it on Pinterest, the bullet journal is a relatively new creation by someone who presumably had both too much time on their hands and an incredible number of important tasks to keep track of. It's a system by which you can make a kind of catch-all journal: it's a planner, a calendar, a place to put your thoughts. You can also add meal plans, grocery lists, ideas for stories, and pretty much anything else that catches your eye.

So, kind of like my journals are all the time anyway.

But the organization intrigued me. The idea is that you add entries randomly, when you need them, instead of blocking out space beforehand. Then you add your new entries to the index, the list at the front of your journal that acts as a table of contents. Then, you can find anything you need to just by flipping to the first page.

So I got the basic supplies-- a journal, a pen and some colored markers-- and started off. Right away I ran into some fundamental issues, most of which are a result of my many years spent in art class refusing to draw perspective lines and cutting corners with my shading. I do visual art spontaneously. In contrast to almost everything else in my life, I don't like to plan it out too much, or I get caught up in my own head. But it's hard to sustain this kind of creative flow when you're making, you know, a planner. Seeing other peoples' beautiful calligraphy that they'd spent days practicing made me feel bad about my own mediocre cursive. And I couldn't be bothered to buy colorful washi tape or exciting kinds of glitter to decorate, so most of my pages ended up flat and kind of boring.

Also: G2 Pilot pens, my favorite brand for writing, bleed like no other when combined with markers. Smudges are rapidly becoming my pet peeve.

But I think my biggest problem with it was simply the amount of time it required. I am fairly busy, at least during the school year, and I don't have the energy to sit down and create a gorgeous new spread every week to chronicle the things I need to do. The bullet journal is supposed to be an exercise in doing "more with less", but I can't help feeling like it's just doing more without a lot of payoff.

I'm hoping that both my calligraphy and my time management skills will improve. We'll see how it goes.