I thought I had today’s And Other Things journal page all figured out.
It was filled with all the things you’d expect, including colourful prompts about things that go together and afternoon treats, and a playful twist in the word search list.
Little did I know that one sneaky prompt held a triple surprise. I can’t wait to tell you all about it — and in a brand new way!
But first, if you’d like to download this page for yourself, you’ll find it right here.*
Okay. Now that you have your page, let’s chat about that sneaky prompt!
I recorded my first ever voice memo on that very subject and sent it out with my newsletter, where I first shared this page.
It's unscripted and off the cuff – a peek at the joy and inspiration that can emerge while discovering new things in your journal.
Click below to listen!
P.S. If you have any difficulty playing the audio file or would prefer to read my message, I've included a transcript of the voice memo below.
P.P.S. If you missed the first three pages in my And Other Things series and would like to try them, you'll find them here, here, and here!
* The pdf file includes two versions of this journal page (colourful and greyscale) and two page sizes (letter and A4). For instructions on printing one or more pages, visit my shop welcome page and scroll to the bottom.
Voice Memo Transcript
Hi there, it's Christie.
Welcome to my first ever Newsletter Voice Memo!
Today I'm sharing a few thoughts about the newest page in my And Other Things printable journal page series where I'm taking a playful approach to the serious reflective work we do in our journals.
I hope when you see this page for the first time the playful part will jump right out at you. It's super colourful and filled with hand-lettered prompts that explore lots of different ways we can reflect on our days and get to know ourselves better in our journals.
If you'd like to download a copy of this page for yourself, you can! It's available right here in the newsletter. You just need to click the link above the image.
I wanted to chat with you today about one of the prompts on this journal page that really surprised me. And, of course, it wasn't the one that I thought was going to surprise me.
There were two prompts I was super excited about sharing. The first is at the top of the page. It's a new prompt called things that go together and I was excited to share it with you because it's one I haven't used before. I haven't used anything like it before in my other journal pages, so I was really excited to share it in this page.
There's also a word search. There are other word searches in this series, but this one has a bit of a twist. I've mixed up some of the words in the word list, so you'll have to put them back together before you can find the words in the puzzle.
But neither of those two prompts is the one that surprised me!
For a little bit of background: in each of the pages in this series, I've tried to include at least one prompt that reminds us how strong and capable we are, how much we do every day, what our strengths are. I try to do it in a way that's super specific because I think it can be really difficult – for example, if someone asks you, “hey, what are you good at?” – it's hard, on the spot, to come up with an answer. But if someone asks you something very specific about one of your skills, sometimes it's a little bit easier to reflect on the question.
The prompt that surprised me in this page is: When your day is super busy, one thing you're good at.
The prompt looks for you to imagine one of those super busy days where there are a million things happening at once and you're running in all sorts of different directions. And on those days, you know, what are the parts you're really good at?
When I answered this prompt, I came up with two answers. One was calming myself down when I get a little bit flustered during a busy day and the other one was finding perspective, finding perspective in terms of, what are my priorities for the day? What do I really need to get done? And making sure that at least those things get done even if the rest of the day is very difficult to navigate.
I wrote those two answers down in the prompt and finished the rest of the page. Then I sat back to kind of reflect on the page, review it, and think about what my takeaways might be. And when I looked back on this one prompt, it dawned on me that, yes, these are the things that I think that I'm pretty good at in the middle of a busy busy day, but they're also the things I need in the in the middle of a busy day.
When it's super busy, I need to find ways to calm myself down, I need to be calm in order to navigate it well. And I need to know what my priorities are. I need to have a good perspective on what I want to accomplish on that day. That was part of the surprise of this prompt. It turned out that it wasn't just a prompt about what I'm good at. It turned out to be a prompt about what I need as well.
And then when I took another look at it, I realized there's a third aspect to this prompt. It's kind of a how-to. I've kind of given myself, with those two answers, a little bit of a how-to on a busy day – how to make the most, how to get the most out of a busy day. One is to make sure that I'm calm, that I go into that day calmly and continue calmly through it as much as I can and the other is to make sure I have a good perspective on what I want to accomplish.
So, you know, when I started answering this prompt, it was super simple. It was just trying to reflect on the things that I'm good at. But when I saw it on the page, when I sat back and really looked at it, I saw there was so much more to it.
It reminded me what I need so that I can remember that on busy days and it gave me a little bit of a an action list of things that I can do when I'm in the middle of a busy day and find myself flustered or overwhelmed.
I wanted to share that with you. I'd love for you to journal this page for yourself and see which prompts surprise you. I hope you'll love journaling this page, and I hope you'll let me know how it goes for you!