Thread by @dasilvacontin

On June 1 I switched back to journaling on paper... and it's been amazing.

The flexibility, the portability, the focus. The fondness/love for the notebook, the satisfaction of looking all you've written, and the easiness of switching pages. Being able to tape mementos to pages.

It's also an "extra screen" that can always remain open next to your laptop, reminding you what to do and ready for frictionless todos addition. And which can remain open even if the laptop is closed, or if there's no laptop.

Even more importantly, its physical existence is a prompt to use it, making it easier to get your morning/evening routines going, or checking how you're doing.

It also helps with accountability: if you write a todo list for each day, you only need to flip pages to see what you accomplished and what you didn't. The system I used before, in Notion, didn't have any accountability – I used a unique page for the todos.

Then in mid June, I ran into and joined @BenjaminPHardy's Journal Mastery course. I believe I ran into it because of the momentum I had gained from journaling physically.

And I have to say, it fills me with awe, when I think about all the good it's brought to my life. Wow.

Of course, this is my experience. I know that we don't all work the same. Just sharing it in case you relate and it sounds like something you'd like to give a go. :)

Even though consuming the course's content itself is not something lengthy, it's taken me many and many hours to go through the practical exercises and reflection.

Big part of this course is figuring out your life: your deepest motivations, what your goals are, steps to accomplish them, designing your environment for success (forcing functions), reflecting on 5/2/1y ago to help you see that you're _are_ making progress, etc

It takes time.

I barely had goals before. I had some deadlines from uni, some deadlines from work. Which help getting some stuff done.

But personal ones? I had a backlog of tasks, which may have very well felt like the aliens from ToyStory1. And barely any process.

I'm very happy to share with you that I'll be passing the JLPT N4 this December 1!! 🥳🎉

I've been at it since June 28. I'm learning Kanji using the marvelous @WaniKaniApp (I'm at lvl3, last free level), know hiragana, finishing katakana, and I got my Minna no Nihongo books!! 🥰

Really looking forward to:
- being able to properly talk to the lovely local friends I made in Tokyo last December,
- help my partner and myself move around when we go there,
- read the Pokémon TCG jp promo decks I bought,
- the feeling of accomplishment + gained confidence! 😊

The lessons, learning, I find it a fun thing to do, so this is kind of my fun hobby for now! Doing WaniKani lessons during every meal (except dinner, therefore I do it later) and Minna every Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday morning, 7:15~8:45.

That's for now, it may change, ofc!

I've found this to be a great resource if you want to get started with Japanese, fyi! :) 💙@tofugu
tofugu.com/learn-japanese/

First time I can actually _read_ the h1 on my website 😆

Level 4!! Level 3 took a while to complete to do being busy both last weekends

I have to say that I'm not only learning JP through @WaniKaniApp, but also English vocab! 😆 Calf, canopy, moat, and more.