I started my first bullet journal in the summer of 2018. It was a complete fail. Months later, my second attempt became the first journal I ever filled.

Bullet journaling is not just an Instagram-worthy hobby, but also an outlet for creativity, a chance to overcome perfectionist ideals, and a way to collaborate and meet other passionate journal-ists. But first, what is a bullet journal and how is it different from a regular journal? A bullet journal is a self-tailored planner that helps you keep track of your week, schedule, or habits, whereas a regular journal mostly documents your day in plain text on paper.

To start a bullet journal of your own, you need to give yourself room to make mistakes. The first step to creating a successful bullet journal is to try an array of journals and notebooks to find one that fits your preference. A bullet journal is your own to customize and decorate. Try out a few different journals to find what you prefer – hardcover or spiral-bound, big or small. Give yourself time to experiment with your first journal.

A completely blank pristine book may seem like a welcoming challenge to some, but a disaster waiting to happen for others. To get over your fear of ruining an empty journal, you need to understand that mistakes are bound to happen and that letting yourself make these mistakes is going to help you overcome them. When I first started my bullet journal, the blank pages were so daunting that the simplest of lines I drew were deemed unworthy. Slowly but surely, I gained more confidence in my journal and allowed the mishaps to breathe, sometimes even embracing random smears of ink.

Pro tip: Cover unwanted mistakes with scraps of paper and integrate them into the design! It brings more layers to the spread and fleshes out the page as well!

A bullet journal is part of your personal expression. Find washi tapes that you like, pens in the colors you prefer (not just black or blue!), and fill it with curly and bold handwriting as you wish. Use all the colors you want or challenge yourself by sticking to a few. Your journal can be filled to the brim with different spreads detailing your week and a complex log of your emotions, or it can have no rhyme or reason and simply burst with spontaneous color and ideas. Most importantly though, don’t feel intimidated by the impeccable journal spreads on Pinterest. Rather, use them as inspiration and motivation. Your journal is for you and you only, so adjust it to your liking!

I have bonded with many friends over bullet journaling, sharing stationery, and flipping through each other’s books. Which is to say, bullet journaling isn’t just about putting pen to paper, but also the social experience of shopping for journals and the requisite tools with friends (I recommend 南锣鼓巷 nánluógǔxiàng or any stationery store near you), letting go and journaling your thoughts, then sharing work that you’re proud of.

So go out and get yourself a journal, make it yours, and enjoy the process!

KEEP READING: DIY Camp Week 1: Cooking Up Life Skills

Images: Mina Yan

Do you have trouble finding people in your WeChat contact list? Do you know a bunch of people with the same first name? Can you not differentiate the Jessica from work from the Jessica from salsa class from the Jessica who’s a friend of a friend?  Do you forget who’s who once your contact changes their profile picture into motivational quotes, childhood photos, and pictures of cute animals? Can you not find your Chinese contact’s Chinese name no matter how many times you scroll through your contact list?

If you answered “yes” to even one of the above questions, you need to reorganize your contact list!  By categorizing your contacts, you’ll save time in looking for contacts and avoid sending messages to the wrong person (which I’ve done, regretfully).

So, how can we go about categorizing contacts? WeChat has given you quite a few built in tools:

Click on your contact’s information page, tap the three vertical dots on the top right corner, and select “Set Remarks and Tags”.

Once there, you’ll see the name of your contact, as your contact lists, under “alias”. What I do, is I rename the contact as I see fit, usually with the following formula:

Company name + Nickname/English first name + Chinese name/last name

e.g., London College of Fashion Josie Josephine Suotmaa 

With long company names, I’ll usually use an acronym:

LCF Josie – Josephine Suotmaa

Once you’ve changed your contact’s alias, you can add tags, the real “categorizer”.

The tag you assign a contact is more important for managing your WeChat privacy than for organizing your contacts since you likely only need one method of organizing (in this case, labeling using the alias).

The description tag is useful for work contacts and networking events. It’s at the bottom of the “remarks” page, so I don’t usually get to it, but when I do, I’ll add little details, such as:

• where they used to work
• the names of their partners/spouses/kids
• the projects their interested in
• why I added them in the first place

WeChat also allows you to “star” your favorite contacts at the top of your contact list to keep them “sticky on top”.

Here, you’ll see that I’ve added a mobile phone number (really useful if you change phones often, or if your phone ever dies and you need to find a contact number). I usually add work contact numbers to their wechat ID so that I can see their faces when I’m trying to find them in a crowd.

I’ve also added a description, “husband”, and a photo of him to remind me what he looks like (just in case I forget). This function is very useful if your contact doesn’t ever put their face in their profile picture.

You can also use the photo attachment feature to organize business cards. Just take a photo of it, and attach it to the wechat contact. Note: takes up memory.

How you categorize and organize your WeChat contacts depends entirely on your style and preference.  I use one WeChat account for everything from private, family conversations to work related things, preferring to keep it all in one place. As such, categorizing contacts is especially important for me.

I also like to keep all related contacts together on my contact list, so as to remind me who knows who from where. For example, a group of people might’ve all worked at one company, but now work elsewhere, but I might not change their company name because I prefer to remember that they all know each other very well.

With names, it’s just confusing when everyone has the same name, and I’ve never been good at remembering last names unless I’ve signed up coworkers for something. I have a popular name (Jessica), so I remember what it was like sitting in class and having a Jessica S., a Jessica R., a Jessica T., a Jessica Y…if I didn’t see them every day, I might not remember who each of them are!

That’s why adding the name of the organization or company is so important! All it takes is adding their company name in front of their name:

e.g., beijingkids Jessica

Sometimes, I might just delete their on screen name entirely and type in my own version of their name. The reason is that special characters (such as flags, flowers, palm trees…), Chinese characters (I’m illiterate), and cute emoticons at the front of their name will put them somewhere unpredictable in my contact list.  Chinese characters are the most random for me, and I don’t want to spend up to ten minutes scrolling through hundreds of contacts only to miss it because I’m not sure which set of Chinese characters is the one I’m looking for.  The special characters will send your contact to the bottom of your list, but then you have to remember who’s at the bottom rather than just select the alphabet corresponding to their name.

So again, the formula is:

[COMPANY NAME] [ENGLISH NAME] [CHINESE NAME IN PINYIN] [CHINESE CHARACTERS]

So, using my own name (if I had a legit Chinese name) as an example:

BJK Jessica Ruijia 蘇瑞家

Now, all I have to do is remember where everyone works at, and it’s easy to find coworkers and contacts. Next time someone asks “Do you know anyone at XYZ company?” You can easily check.

Hope that was helpful! How do you categorize your contact list? Share whats worked for you!

Photos: Pixelbay (Edwardpye), Jessica Suotmaa

Summer is such an exciting time that the last thing on students’ minds is the the college application. And who would blame them? There are academic programs they’re attending, internships or summer camps engaging them, not to mention friends and the freedom from the day-to-day school push. I too have stopped short on my own inspiration. Summer is fun!

But the reality is that because there is more time, summer can also be a great  time to maintain focus on the important aspects of the college/boarding school admission process. While it may be the last thing on students’ minds, it should plague their conscience. Spending time to research schools, collecting and organizing items for the resume, and putting words down to complete the essays are hard work, but so necessary.

The most important factor is time management and organization. For effective time management, make sure you schedule time each day to do something college/boarding school application related. Whether it’s researching schools, sending emails to admissions representatives, or jotting down ideas for the essays, do something. It’s not only about allocating time, it is about actually doing something. Using your calendar application on your computer to set 30 minutes to an hour each day will help immensely. Remember to be realistic though, if the summer program is time consuming, don’t over book yourself. The important thing not to do is say, “well, I will do this tomorrow.” There are a lot of tomorrows and the next thing you know, you have none left and summer is over. So, schedule time!

Organization is also obviously important. Make a plan about how you will use the time you have just scheduled. Maybe one day is allocated to researching schools, the next is working on your resume, and the next is essay brainstorming/writing and so on. As you attack each task, you will, one hopes, start gaining moment and you will be able to check off these items as done. One thing that is important to keep in mind as you move along is this: the idea is not to get then just done. You want to put quality work into what you are doing. It makes no sense just to do them to get them over with but to really dedicate time and focus to really get them done. Of course, you can come back later to review them and you should. But like anything worthy, you have to put in the time, energy, and focus.

I was speaking with a college representative yesterday on the plane to Chicago. I asked her about college essays and what she thought about them. Her first complaint was that it was obvious when a student had waited until the last minute. Her second complaint was that students spend too much time trying to write what they think admission officers want to hear rather than bringing individual, personal perspective to the essays. Next came the ubiquitous complaint about using “impressive” words rather than using genuine wording the student would normally use.

I know that I have covered these items before but they are worth repeating. It is impossible to try to figure out what an admission committee wants to hear. So here is a clue – they want to hear your personal perspective, in your tone and language. Hence, the name, personal statement. Write about you using factual experiences to drive your essays and your resume.

My final comment is this – have fun with your essay. Of course it is drudgery if you are trying to be someone else as you approach this task. Be true to yourself is a motto I completely appreciate and, in this case, fits the bill. If you are true to yourself and focus your energy on the tasks at hand, you are going to feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment. So, get scheduling, get writing, and get researching.

Hamilton Gregg is the founder of International Educational Consulting and has worked in education since 1985. He helps students and their families understand their personal and educational needs and find the right school to meet their requirements. If you are a student or parent who would like to ask Gregg a question on our blog, please email hsgregg45@gmail.com

Pixababy (Flickr)