My review for Melville in Love by Michael Shelden is submitted to Library Journal and now I can get back to my own reading. I don’t feel like I can write a review of the book here, but you should know it is really good. I have a whole new picture of Melville now that I am still boggled over.
Melville fathered two children during this long-term affair with Sarah Morewood but Morewood’s husband chose not to notice that they did not look like him as did Melville’s wife. You may have heard that Melville had major financial problems, well, that’s because he bought a farm that he could not afford in order to live next door to his lover. However, Shelden presents a good argument that Moby-Dick, Pierre and Billy Budd would not be what they are if it had not been for Morewood inspiring Melville to greatness. So, look for the book when it comes out in June. It’s a good one!
How’s that for a non-review?
I get email newsletters from my favorite fountain pen store, Goulet Pens, and in a recent newsletter there was some mention about bullet journaling. I did not bother to investigate further because I assumed it meant writing a journal/diary using bullet points and what was the point of that? But today Goulet Pens posted a link on their Facebook page to a Los Angeles Times newspaper article, Why is Everyone Crazy for #bujo?. I realized this is obviously a thing so I read the article and have now been enlightened.
Have you heard of bullet journaling? It has nothing to do with keeping a diary or journaling your thoughts and feelings. It turns out to be a time and project management technique that involves using a blank journal and a pen or pencil instead of an app or a calendar or elaborate Franklin Planner. The guy who invented it has a website with a video and other step-by-step explanations on how to do it.
At first it seemed like an elaborate system but the more I followed along, the more intrigued I became. It isn’t so very elaborate after all, and once you have the basic structure down you can customize it to your needs and do whatever you want with it. The customizable bit is the most interesting part. Because you are using a blank journal (of course you can buy a “bullet journal” that has already been set up for you if you want to) you can make it your own. And the website has photos and videos of how other people do bullet journaling. Some of it is quite elaborate and intimidating and artsy and made me wonder why would you waste time drawing and doing all kinds of other stuff in a calendar/project journal? But that, it turns out, is the neat part about it.
So I’ve been wondering if I should try it. It could potentially be an efficient way to keep track of current and future events, gardening things, bookish things, work things, blog post ideas, essay ideas, things I want to look into further, to do lists, and on and on all in one place. Have any of you tried it? And if so, what do you think? Just one more bandwagon sort of thing or something truly useful?
I’ve heard of bullet journaling and I’m intrigued, but I can’t really see myself taking the time to to learn a new task system. On the other hand, my current system is my memory, google calendar, a writing notebook, evernote, the notes app on my phone, and the giant post-it note pad that’s my mousepad . . . so maybe one journal would be much simpler . . .
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Carolyn, heh, your system sound much like mine! I’ve got pieces of paper with to do lists, my outlook calendar at work my iPhone calendar, a wall calendar, my memory, sticky notes. It’s all over the place. One reason I am curious about this is whether having everything in one place would be more efficient. Hmm…
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I use the daily task part as a to-do and event/meeting list. I really need to use the “collection” part more, because I have trouble organizing long-term projects and tracking things that need to be done in the future. The best part of it is an excuse to use the pens, inks and notebooks you order from Goulet. I love them so. 😉
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Liz, ah yes, I suppose you can use whatever pieces are most useful and not worry about the rest. Another plus, and yeah, I think part of the appeal for me is a chance to use my pens, inks and notebooks! 😀
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Thank you for explaining what bullet journaling is! I’ve been kind of wondering, too, whether it would be something useful to try. I can’t seem to adopt any unified planning system. If it’s on paper, I need to access it electronically, and vice versa!
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Laurie, you bet! I hear you on the digital and analog needs. I suppose one would have to take the notebook everywhere which is not entirely appealing but at the same time the ease of looking at a notebook and not having to worry about a dead battery is a big benefit!
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How are we not penpals? I love to write letters – with fountain pens! and yes, my handwriting is atrocious. “Approach with caution”
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Care, good question! I can deal with atrocious handwriting 🙂
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I’ve seen people talking about bullet journal on Twitter, and I’ve come to associate it with the elaborate planner craze that I’ve seen a lot of. And the elaborate planners stress me out. It looks like bullet journal is actually a lot simpler that I thought. I just started (sort of) using a new organizational system for work (Getting Things Done), and I like it. BuJo looks sort of similar in that it’s about capturing what you need to do. I’m finding that if I can do that, I’m a lot less stressed.
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Teresa, elaborate planners stress me to too. They always make me feel inadequate somehow and like I need to do more stuff in order to fill it up which is crazy! The bullet journal looks like it can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it which is a bonus. I’ve tried and failed miserably at the GTD approach. I wish you great success with it, I know it works for a lot of people!
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I’ve tried it, but not as elaborate as the ‘guy who invented it’. It’s like a scaled down version of a Franklin Planner. I mix the idea of bulleting the month days in the front, then part writing capturer, list maker, note taker, commonplace book, sketch book. I label with the month and fill it up, move on. I also have an electronic calendar that I keep appointments shared with the family in and a paper calendar that I keep homeschooling planning in. I did have a separate planner for myself and my own goals, but I find that my new Commonplace/Bullet/Monthly planner is much for flexible and works better for me {and, bonus, it’s thin and fits into my purse. I always take it with me and a couple of great pens!} 🙂 I don’t know if it keeps me more productive, but all my lists are in one place and I’m not constantly downloading and printing tons of copy paper calendars or trying new programs. Plus I can capture all the poetry I run across {online and IRL}, snippets of conversations – I guess it’s part scrapbook too! I should write a post with pictures – I definitely don’t find that many of the pre-printed planner have everything I want.
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That Melville biography sounds interesting – especially as it seems to have given new insights about his life and writing. I tend towards feeling a little guilty in reading literary biography because time spent reading those takes away from time to read the work.
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Ian, it was really interesting. At first I thought, yeah right, but Sheldon does an excellent job at using textual and archival evidence to support his arguments. The man definitely did his research and actually found documents no one had known about before. I find literary biography inspires me to read more of the work of the author being written about. I have never read Pierre or Billy Budd and have not been that interested in doing so, but now I plan on downloading both to my Kobo to have them at hand when the mood strikes. Same with the Brontes I am reading about now.
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bikurgurl, Franklin Planners have always been way too much for me and cause me more stress than they are worth. The scaled down quality of this system seems like I might be able to make it work. It sounds like you have created a really useful system for yourself. I’d be really interested in reading a post about it! *hint hint* 🙂
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I LOVE Franklin Planners, but I seriously don’t have the time for all the ins-and-outs. I don’t like to waste the paper if I don’t utilize everyday, but then I’m a slave to the planner {which really doesn’t make sense either!}. I really love PlannerPerfect.com — I received an e-book bundle {homeschoolilng mama thing} and her e-book was part of the deal. Long story short, just make your own and make it work for you. She’s since morphed to using Travelers Journals – I use the smaller version and morph what Natalie Goldberg has suggested with writing in filling a notebook a month with writing into a single journal. There are so many prompts in day-to-day to give many happy hours of writing – long or short. I’ll start the post this weekend 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement!
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Franklin Planners are appealing, they are so pretty and organized but yeah, people I know who use them become slaves to them and it is kind of scary! Looking forward to your post!
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Agreed and looking forward to getting it posted 🙂
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At first glance it seems to me to be more or less what I’ve done for years, and still do with my Filofax. I’ve never used any form of digital planner. Why should you need a special notebook for it?
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Sue, if you have a good system that works no need to change it! You don’t need a special notebook but if you don’t want to date or number pages or create headings then you can get a notebook already set up with and index, etc. For a first time user of the system I can see how it would be helpful but it would’t be that hard to use your own blank notebook.
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We have to use an electronic network calendar at the office, but being stuck in my ways I also faithfully use my Day-Timer – not the least reason being 20 years or so ago I paid extra for a cover that has my initials on it. I love its chunky-self. The bullet journal looks way too complicated. But whatever works…
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Grad, yup, whatever works! And if you like your nice Day-Timer and it works for you, well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it as the saying goes!
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Yes jump on the bujo bandwaggon! 🙂 I started one in December and love it so far, I’m not into washi tape and lots of stickers but I enjoy learning new fonts and then it’s super handy to get to make up my own layout since I need different amounts of space and monthly and weekly overviews sometimes but then not at other times. You should enjoy sitting down and creating the upcoming week and other than that you can go as minimalist or elaborate as you like. Okay crazy bujo user rant over 🙂 Kudos on your review btw!
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Bina, well that’s an endorsement! 🙂 I am going to work on setting one up today. Washi tape and stickers? I’m not sure I need anything that fancy. Maybe after I get the hang of it and discover whether or not it is going to work for me, then perhaps I might fancy it up a bit 🙂 It’s versatility is very appealing. We’ll see how it goes!
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Oh wow, the Melville biography sounds interesting. I wonder if it would convince me to try Moby Dick? We had to read Billy Budd at a stage in my life when I was not equipped to appreciate it, and I’ve never tried anything else by Melville. Perhaps I should acknowledge that current me might appreciate things that eluded high school me and give Moby Dick a try.
On the the organizer thing: in my professional alter ego (the one that I actually make money from) I have ended up writing and speaking quite a bit about productivity. I’ve also read a lot of studies and essays on it, and talked to a lot of people about what works for them… and my main conclusion is that nothing will make it “easy” to stay organized because that’s not how the world works. We tend towards chaos, and it takes effort to fight that. I happen to think that the return on that effort is worth it, but there will always be effort. (Here is a blog post about this written on my more professional blog: http://beyondmanaging.com/2016/02/things-dont-stay-organized-on-their-own/)
Of course, some systems require more effort than others. The key is to find the one that fits your needs at the moment. And once you find one that works for you, don’t change it until it stops working for you, because there is extra effort in switching, too. The grass is always greener over there, that other system always *looks* easier… but nothing will take the fundamental effort of staying organized away, so make sure you only pay the switching penalty for a good reason.
Anyway, that’s my opinion on it. I haven’t tried the bullet journal thing, but it sounds like a perfectly good system.
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Tungsten Hippo, I read Moby Dick in high school and liked it well enough. I reread it in my 30s and was blown away by it. One of these days I will read it again. I have not read Billy Budd or Pierre so those will have to come first.
Thanks for the post link! I liked it a lot. You are right, there is nothing especially easy about staying organized, it takes effort and I think we all hope for a magic effortless method! If only we could all have robot personal assistants to help us keep organized and tidy. 😉
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OK… Moby Dick is now officially added to my overflowing “things to read” list!
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Wow, I had no idea about Melville’s personal intrigue. I’ve never read much about him. That sounds kind of tragic and intense – or were their spouses kind of okay with the long-term affair? I’m interested! (How long is this biography? I may have to read it!)
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Laila, intense and tragic most definitely as he was just married to a woman he didn’t really love and who didn’t suit him about 6 months before he met Morewood. Their spouses were totally not cool with the affair. The biography is not long at all, about 260-ish pages and it reads fairly quickly, not one of those dry plodding sorts!
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Sold!
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Good Lord, Melville! That is an insane way to behave! Was he pals with the husband or did they just ignore each other’s existence?
I have never heard of bullet journaling before. Will investigate further.
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Jenny, his behavior was off the charts risky and insane. Not friends with the husband at all. Morewood’s husband wasn’t even around much because he was busy running his business in New York to make money to pay for his wife’s country mansion and parties. She was one of those women who was beautiful and charismatic and nearly everyone loved her because they couldn’t help themselves. And while Melville went to all of Morewood’s parties and outings, he left his poor wife at home!
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I have been hearing about bullet journaling for a while but I just haven’t gotten into it. I guess if I had a lot of projects due I think I would find it more useful? I don’t know. I do make lists all the time and maybe this would help. Anyway, you’ll have to let us know how it works for you!
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Iliana, I am going to give a try and see how it goes. I’ll report back in a few months after I’ve worked with it for a while 🙂
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Wow, I had no idea about Melville. All of a sudden he has become much more interesting to me….. Imagine him now in the age of the National Inquirer! Ha. I was a little skeptical about the bullet journaling, but I took a peek at their website and now I am a little intrigued–may have to check it out. If you do it, do tell how it goes and if you find it helpful. All of a sudden my imagination is filled with book lists (which might be a little scary really).
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Danielle, I know! I was so surprised! He would have been on the cover of the Enquirer for sure! I set up my bullet journal yesterday, we’ll see how it goes!
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I have been doing a bullet journal of some sort for 3 years now (before bujo was a thing) and I love it! I didn’t want to have different places to keep all my stuff (stuff for the kids, errand lists, menu plans, longterm plans, bits of writing, book titles to remember, post-it notes….) I don’t use it for work but that’s the only exception. Sometimes I use some washi tape but normally I don’t do any fancy stuff. A 6 month double page. A monthly page for appointments and important stuff and another one for my writing challenge. The rest is all blank to be filled with bits and bobs. Let us know what you decide! I won’t post any pictures online because of privacy concerns but if you want to see what mine looks like you can drop me a line.
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smithereens, keeping it all in one place is the most appealing thing for me instead of having iCal and paper lists and a wall calendar and my memory. I’ve started one and so far I am finding it pretty useful especially for keeping track of stuff that needs to get done but doesn’t have a scheduled date yet. I am glad to hear you find a bullet journal so useful! I’m hoping my good start bodes well for the entire process!
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The Melville bio sounds interesting. I’m always fascinated by the accommodations people make in relationships, like Morewood’s husband. As for BuJo, I’d never heard of it. It looks fascinating and workable if you stick to it BUT I am weaning myself off paper notebooks and trying to use my iPad for reminders, note taking etc. I do have notebook apps you can write in so could probably apply this system to my favourite digital notebook app. But, I don’t think my life is so in need of single-stop organisation that I need to spend time managing a system to manage myself.
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