Seasonal Journaling & Planning 101
Seasonal Journaling & Planning 101
Part 1: The Elements of The Seasonal Life Binder
Happy Wednesday dear ones!
So in today’s post, I’ll share with you …
✍️ The elements I’ve included in my journaling & planning system, aka The Seasonal Life Binder
📖 Seasonal Journaling & Planning
I’ve been journaling since I was eight years old and actually, since the end of last year, I finally found a way of journaling that makes sense to me and meets my needs.
To start with, journaling just a way to vent or write how my day went, didn’t work for me. It was too messy, and every time I read back my journals I felt kind of depressed and down. I used to write to complain or depict something/or someone that made me sad and this, in the end, didn’t invite me to journal as I wanted to - too dry and plain using just words - and there was no system to track anything.
Secondly, ‘regular’ planners - which works linear - didn’t work for me. Following someone else’s system didn’t work for me either.
And so after many years of journaling and using planners on and off, I left with many unfinished journals and planners unsatisfied and having no clue how to set nor keep my intentions and goals, tracking myself and journaling in a way that made me feel good.
In this post, I want to share what the Seasonal Life Binders are and what elements I’ve incorporated into them.
🌟Meet my Seasonal Life Binders🌟
⚡️Combining (intentional) journaling and planning in one space
As I mentioned before, no regular planner - or the spiritual/manifestation planners - helped me or kept me motivated and it took me a while to discover the reason for this.
First of all, all planners - that I know of - work linear manner using the year, the months, and the weeks, which in the long run bores me and my motivation goes down the drain.
You see, planners based on a linear system, ask of you to continuously be on the go, to be doing, to be productive, to be repetitive, and to have a monotone way of planning and thus living, and thus to prioritize the hustle culture. This system does not take into consideration our inner nature. We are not a line, and we aren’t constantly the same, feeling the same way and having the same amount of energy all the time.
If we pay attention to nature and its cycles, we automatically pay attention to ourselves and discover we have to have inner cycles too.
So in my seasonal life binders, I have created several pages for creative outlet, dreaming, self-discovery, and actual action steps while stepping out of the linear system. By having all of these in one place you can actually see how you, your life, and your dreams are unfolding.
More on this further down below.
⚡️Working with the cycles of nature
As I mentioned above working with the cycles of nature instead of the linear system is key. Nature, and you as well, have many cycles in it, and to make it as simple as possible I have taken two cycles into major consideration:
The Seasonal Cycles
The Moon Cycles
The Seasonal Cycle lets you explore what you desire, your dreams, your intentions, and your creative and visual side. The Moon cycle, asks you to explore these themes further and deeper while attuning to its energy and your own energy by tracking and journaling every single day.
As you track yourself with the moon cycle, you’ll notice how you feel at all levels throughout the moon cycle which with time will show you what your best and not-so-best days are. This is powerful information, especially when planning.
Read more on tracking 👇
⚡️Ditching the months and weeks and using moon cycles (moonths) and phases instead
This section of the Seasonal Life Binder was the most challenging one to create as ditching the Gregorian Calendar would complicate things way too much. Life is complicated enough, so I didn’t want to endeavor in this one. Still, I didn’t want the Gregorian Calendar to stay in the driver’s seat, so I pushed to the passenger’s seat. Meaning it’s still present, but it doesn’t play the leading role anymore.
Instead of starting the new year on January 1st of whatever year, I start with a season. This gives me the chance to jump into journaling/planning at least 4 times a year instead of one. Also, it creates four opportunities instead of having just one a year.
Then, I switched the months for the moon cycles which are around 29 to 30 days* - when paired with the Gregorian Calendar - and can be divided into the eight phases.
* Moon (and seasons) cycles rarely start on the first of each month, so using a (online) astrology calendar is a must!
Each cycle has four main phases, and thus checkpoints to plan, pause, and reflect. The other four phases of the moon replace the weeks for the moon phases and it’s when the actual work gets done.
I wrote two posts explaining this 👇
⚡️Flowing seasonally
How often have you set goals or New Year's resolutions at the beginning of the year and found yourself six months later having achieved nothing and kind of forgotten about goals?
Personally, I’ve found that setting yearly goals is often too big to achieve in a year. We set ourselves way too many action steps that kind of deflate our motivation a few months into the new year.
By having a clear vision of what you want to achieve and your projects, but without a deadline, and setting your goals seasonally you have a much better sense of time for your actions steps, and tasks.
You also have more room to evaluate, change, and shift if necessary. Moreover, life happens sometimes - I know all about that! - and when this happens it doesn't take your plans and goals into consideration. By planning seasonally you are prompt to feel less frustrated when life happens and can pause & adapt accordingly.
When creating my own system this was my main motivation: having a space that allowed me to feel, change, and adapt if necessary while giving me the sense of a new opportunity each season.
I also wanted to see how I felt, where I felt drawn each season, and thus I wanted a space where I could have a more of visual and artistic outlet.
⚡️Visually pleasing + plenty of space
When it comes to journaling, tracking, and planning, I need to have plenty of room to write and let my creative side loose. For that reason, I create and use my Seasonal Life Binder in A4 format. This size is mostly used in Europe and the UK and it can be compared to US Letter size.
Because I want to stay motivated I add elements that ignite my inner spark and make my inner child happy. These elements are mostly illustrations and images related to the seasons and the moon and I do tend to decorate the binder even further once I start actually using it.
Even more, I always pause during the New & Full Moon to feel and see what coming up, and from that not only do I journal about it, but I also create collages that depict my inner landscapes at that specific moment. An example is the video down below from this past New Moon Solar Eclipse in Libra.
⚡️Creating other spaces for everything else
These Seasonal Life Binders are quite large and include many pages, mostly journaling prompts and half a page to journal about your day. I intentionally keep it this way because I want to create space to journal & plan smartly and with intention without getting lost in pages and pages of never-ending venting/ramblings, drafts, or brain dumps/brainstorming sessions. These types of activities go in a separate space and I recommend you too, to do the same otherwise, if you’re like me, you’ll end up with a major encyclopedia in your hands.
You can create one or a few separate journals/notesbooks where you can write freely about specific events, or when you want to release your emotions, or simply want to connect your ideas = sets the dots together.
A while back I wrote a post about having more than just one journal/planner. You can read it here 👇
This post needs an update because since then, I’ve changed things around!
One thing that never changes - meaning I don’t replace it - is working with my Seasonal Life Binders.
But to give you an idea of my current journals, here is a short explanation of my current notebooks/journals besides my Seasonal LIfe Binders:
An A4 draft notebook: this is my most messy journal where I write the raw stuff in. Ideas, brain dumps, brainstorming, to-do lists, things to remember, etc. These are not attached to tracking, seasons, or moon cycles.
The Playbook (A4): if and when I want to explore or work on something written in the draft notebook, I transfer everything in here. I’m a visual person, so I need to make these pages visually pleasing while maintaining the “goal” in sight. Once I decide to connect these with a season and moon cycle, I’ll add this information to my seasonal binder in a short/simple way, and always directing it to The Playbook.
Voice recording: All the venting, rambling, and night dreams go in here. I’ll always make a note in my daily pages in my Seasonal Life Binder on a specific recording, so I’ll always can go back and listen to them once I start reviewing each moon cycle.
Stay tuned for part 2, where I explain how you can set up your own Seasonal Life Binder.
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I’d love to hear your stories and opinions related to journaling and planning, so please leave a comment down below 👇
🌬️ Sending you magic & healing your way,
-Vane