FutureFrank – A Frankenlog Future Log!

If you’re a fan of the Frankenlog system, take a gander at this Future Log spread created by Thalia Sawatzky, a fellow member of the Minimalist Bullet Journals group on Facebook. I’m so impressed with the way she took the system and ran with it. Here’s Thalia to tell you how she found Bullet Journaling and Frankenlog, and about her creation of this killer spread.

FutureFrank

Hi, I’m Thalia! I discovered bullet journaling while searching for a way to keep my life organized without wasting money on planners I never fully filled. At first, I found myself in the fairy-tale land of pretty BuJos full of color, doodles, washi tape and perfect handwriting . Then I found the minimalists who use only one pen (often not even the same pen) throughout their journals and have little to no structure in their spreads. Neither of these worked for me. Finally I found like-minded people who fell somewhere in-between these two extremes.

I discovered Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal method with a complete view of how to BuJo – it was liberating! No more wasted pages, and blank spaces for unused days were a thing of the past. Or so I thought. My monthly log was still inefficient. Because I am a stay-at-home mom with a job on the weekends, I would load up certain days with tasks and/or appointments because leaving the house with both my children is a lot work. This meant I would usually run out of room on the days when I had things to do while the other days stayed blank.

Enter Frankenlog. Honestly, I hesitated because I thought I wasn’t busy enough to use this method, but I found this wan’t the case. Soon, I had a system and I was tracking things! It was amazing. Then, I found my Future Log was also not ideal. I found Eddy Hope’s Calendex for more compact future logging, but I didn’t feel ready to dive in to it. With my Future Log, I thought I could use columns instead of the three sections per page recommended by the basic method. This would allow me to keep chronological order, but after some time I encountered the same issue as before; not enough space. I kept staring at Calendex wondering if I could learn to deal with the page flipping and then it hit me… FutureFrank!

I had my future log solution right in front of me for months before I actually saw it. I was already used to the lettering system from Frankenlog and I had trained my brain to easily scan for the day when something was happening and how to find it. Since I don’t need an entire year of future log, trial run FutureFrank was only seven months. The days of the month are listed down the left side of the page and the months go across the top. I decided three items per day to be a good amount and built my grid on the left spread. Then I split the right spread into two columns for the actual items. I normally write details for items in my daily, so, I only need a place to write something like “Wedding (pg 65)” or “Doc appt (pg 71).” When no extra details are needed, I could just write “Renew license” or “My birthday.” After drawing it out and filling in some items, I realized I needed to know where the weekends land, so I grayed them out.

As with anything, you can customize it and tailor it to your needs. If you want to visually segregate your personal items from work items or family items, you can use different letters (as in circled, underlined, squared, coloured) and assign them to different categories (similar to Frankenlite GTD). I should note that my BuJo is 26 squares wide and 38 squares tall, so I found that I could do rows instead of columns and fit an entire year instead of only 8 months.

If you prefer columns, you can fit in all 12 months by assigning only two squares per day but I found that three is a good amount to have.

Hope you give FutureFrank a try. Let me know if you have any questions or if you find any way to make it even better!

Adopting Futurefrank

I’m looking forward to my next journal since I definitely want to use Thalia’s FutureFrank for my next Future Log. Lately I’ve been trying to drawer fewer lines in my spreads, and I think I want to have a four-page future log. So here’s my first stab at my own FutureFrank…

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Thalia and I owe quite a bit to Edy Hope, creator of the Calendex system. His influence is obvious in both Frankenlog and FutureFrank. Thanks so much to Thalia for writing up a description of her terrific work. Stop by the Minimalist Bullet Journals group and let her know what you think about her contribution to the FrankenFam.

Until next time, my fellow BuJo Bandits… May your pens be full and your lines be straight!