Tag: Bullet Journal

Last Week’s Links

The Bullet Journal, Minus the Hype, Is Actually a Really Good Planner

I keep finding articles on use of the bullet journal. This one contains good advice for how to create and adapt a bullet journal for your own needs. There are lots of links here to give you many variations to explore.

Every time I read about the bullet journal, I think of how inconvenient it must be to try to keep all this information in a bound notebook. If I were to try this system out, I’d want to use a disc notebook rather than a bound one. A disc notebook allows for easy removal and rearrangement of pages.

I’ve used Levenger’s Circa notebooks for several years now, and I love them (Disclaimer: I have no affiliate or other relationship with Levenger; I’m just a satisfied customer.) If you do an internet search for a term like discbound notebooks, you’ll find oodles of entries. Here are a few links to check out if you think a discbound notebook would be a good start for a bullet journal:

Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America

I first became aware of the lack of critical thinking skills of high school graduates back in 1971, my first year of teaching college composition. I began my first semester with the goal of teaching students how to structure and write convincing essays, but I soon discovered that I needed to take a giant step back and start with teaching students how to evaluate and choose source material for use in their essays. In the 45 years since then I’ve seen this trend grow alarmingly. In this article business leader Ray Williams discusses this :disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture”:

There has been a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in America, unlike most other Western countries. Richard Hofstadter, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his book, Anti-Intellectualism In American Life, describes how the vast underlying foundations of anti-elite, anti-reason and anti-science have been infused into America’s political and social fabric. Famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Memory: The Weirdest Ever Fact is Actually True, Study Reveals

Scientists have long known that recalling a particular memory strengthens it. But recent research suggests that “Recalling one memory actually leads to the forgetting of other competing memories.”

As Seattle grows up, views can go away — and take real value with them

Views give us a reference point and connect us to where we are, and to nature, and to each other. They inspire us to get up, get out, get involved. They make that tiny in-city studio, or whatever space we’re currently sharing with 10 similarly rent-challenged roommates, feel bigger, lighter, better.

Sandy Deneau Dunham looks at how the rise of nearby buildings that change our view can have unexpected impact on all aspects of life.

 

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown

Articles That Caught My Eye Last Week

The Black Dog: 6 Books to Understand Depression

Jennie Yabroff acknowledges that “‘Depression’ remains a catch-all phrase to describe a variety of conditions ranging from the occasional bad day to paralyzing inertia”:

To truly understand the disease, and not just the treatment, you need to look to writers with sensitivity and compassion about the real nature of the self in despair, be they novelists or doctors, contemporary writers or playwrights dead for hundreds of years.

bell-jarShe recommends these books for help in understanding depression, a state commonly known as the black dog:

  • Ordinarily Well by Peter Kramer
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • Darkness Visible by William Styron
  • Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  • The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
  • An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
These Instagrammers’ Bullet Journals are organizational masterpieces

The newest craze for keeping oneself organized is the Bullet Journal. Check out this article for examples of bullet journals as well as some links about how the system works.

Why Handwriting Is Still Essential in the Keyboard Age

Despite our current dependence on keyboards, there are some definite cognitive benefits to learning cursive writing.

‘Pronoia’ and other emotions you never knew you had

Here’s an article about Tiffany Watt Smith, a research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London:

[It’s] the subjective experience of emotions — that Smith explores in her charming new book, The Book of Human Emotions. It’s a roundup of 154 words from around the world that you could call an exploration of “emotional granularity,” as it provides language for some very specific emotions you likely never knew you had. “It’s a long-held idea that if you put a name to a feeling, it can help that feeling become less overwhelming,” she said. “All sorts of stuff that’s swirling around and feeling painful can start to feel a bit more manageable,” once you’ve pinned the feeling down and named it.

Doctors Say Your Word Choice Can Hugely Change Your Brain

Every word counts:

Be careful because the next word you say could determine how your day is, or the rest of your life might pan out. Doctors at Thomas Jefferson University explained that the choice of our words could actually have more impact on our lives than we actually think.

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown