According to TIME, Instagram is the worst social media for our mental health. (Source) It is associated with high levels of anxiety, depression, bullying, and FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.”
I think this can easily be avoided by just not following people who make you feel inadequate or unhappy. (That may not solve the FOMO, though.) Most of the accounts I follow on Instagram are cats and golden retrievers, and I’m doing great! Although I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder, I do my best to make sure things like this don’t trigger it.
Here is the truth: you don’t need more than a notebook and a pen to keep a bullet journal. You really don’t. However, some tools can still be really useful for making your bullet journal more personal and most importantly, to boost your productivity — the whole goal of keeping a bullet journal in the first place.
When the inside of my bullet journal is just a sea of black text on white paper, I get lost. I’m a visual thinker, which means I process things more quickly if they’re made visual. I color-code so I can see at a glance what area of my life a task or event relates to, and I use colored markers to fill in habit trackers and highlight important information.
I’m always up for a good scare! I grew up reading Goosebumps, spooky things are a special interest of mine, and I’ve been watching horror movies since I became a teenager. I never quite got into horror books, though. Most of the scary books I’ve read have been Young Adult fiction, but I’ve recently been branching out and picking up more adult fiction and non-fiction. True crime seems interesting too.
For now, here are seven creepy books to read while hiding under your blanket:
Like many of us, Ryder Carroll tried everything to get organized — countless apps, systems, planners, you name it. Nothing really worked. Then he invented his own simple system that required only pen and paper, which he found both effective and calming. He shared his method with a few friends, and before long he had a worldwide viral movement. Hundreds of thousands of Bullet Journal fans now spread the word and read Ryder’s blog and newsletter.
The system combines elements of a wishlist, a to-do list, and a diary. It makes it easy to get thoughts out of your head (an unreliable witness) and onto paper, to see them clearly and decide what to do about them. It helps you identify what matters, and set goals accordingly. By breaking long-term goals into small actionable steps, users map out an approachable path towards continual improvement, allowing them to stay focused despite the crush of incoming demands.
But this is much more than a time management book. It’s also a manifesto for what Ryder calls “intentional living”: making sure that your beliefs and actions align. Even if you already use a Bullet Journal®, this book gives you new exercises to become more calm and focused, new insights on how to prioritize well, and a new awareness of the power of analog tools in a digital world.
With Halloween coming up, I thought it’d be fun to share a list of some of my favorite horror movies. I started watching horror when I was around twelve years old, and it quickly became one of my favorite genres.
My taste in a nutshell
I prefer more recent releases, as the older ones seem too fake to me and have never scared me much. (I have no time for movie snobs, so if you’re here to tell me I’m not a ‘real horror fan’, get out.) I like when a movie does something different, which is why there are a few movies on this lists that have that unique aspect to them. Gore is not my thing at all, but I can tolerate it in some movies. I prefer psychological & supernatural over slashers & sci-fi, and jump scares are fine with me as long as they don’t happen too often and the movie doesn’t completely rely on them.
Some horror flicks that are still on my watchlist: It Follows (2014), Ringu (1998), Creep (2014), and Unsane (2018).
Just a short update in case you haven’t seen it yet: my future service dog’s mom gave birth to 10 beautiful pups! 6 females and 4 males, which gives me a good chance of getting a suitable female.
I really feel like this is the start of something really, really good.
It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped.
Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments — even the physical violence — she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother.
But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her — they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds — and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.
The Bullet Journal Method
A Very Large Expanse of Sea
