We had a snow day on Monday.  A snow day.  In April.  Oh Nature, I know we’re in New England, but I worry about this.  I know you’re all gangsta, so you do April Fool’s jokes whenever you want, but really?  A snow day in April?  Crazy.  I was a junior in college the last time that happened.

It was exciting, more than I expected, as I hadn’t brought my work laptop – or very much to grade – home with  me.  Happily, that meant I got to start a new organizational process on Monday and dive into … drum roll please … #BulletJournals.

Bullet Journals are a tangled web over which one can quickly become obsessed/insane.  They’re so free form, and yet so helpful because however your organizational-brain works, you can set it up that way.  Seriously.  Yes, the Bullet Journal system begins here, but quickly branches out in a million ways.  Want to write a million lists?  Do it.  Think in mind maps? No problem.  All of this works within this system.  It’s heavenly.

The downside, for those of us who have crafting-hoarder issues (like me), is that this can be a new reason to buy new pens, new paper, new fun tools, wheeeeeee!  PURCHASE ALL THE STUFF NOW!  Seriously.  ALL THE STUFF.  Let me be clear, you do not need all the stuff to bullet journal.  That’s the beauty of it.  But, skip onto Instagram or YouTube and WHOOSH down the rabbit hole you go.

“But Monday, what does this have to do with teaching?” you (whomever you may be) may be asking.  And I answer with what I wrote two paragraphs prior.  It’s the free range planning that lets us teachers have lists of possible Essential Questions, next to an April Daily section that reminds us to grade those ^*%^) essays we’ve been denying need to be graded.  It’s a list of cool tech tools, or cool new activators/bell-ringers on one page, and a nearly complete lesson or even unit plan, all at your fingertips.  And, more importantly, all carefully indexed so you can find them!  As an aside, by using the nifty little circles/squares/triangles of the system and filling them in or migrating them, it’s been easier for me to see what I’m putting off, or what I haven’t finished.  This is incredible for me.

I only just dipped my toes into the #BuJo waters, but so far it’s warm and welcoming.  I’d love to hear from other teachers who are using this system.