Bingo Update
It’s been a couple months since I started using Bingo! to organize my daily life. Let’s see how it’s going!
1. I’m still using it!
I’m on week 15 of my 30 weeks of bingo sheets I created using myfreebingocards.com. The first couple weeks I only managed to get a few bingos, but by the third week, I was already so caught up on everything that there was way less effort in checking things off. “Inbox zero” is a lot easier when you already zeroed it a few days ago.
2. I figured out how to use the stars.
I started by just making a star system to count how many bingos I was getting per week. The total possible is twelve (five horizontal, five vertical, two diagonals) and I decided to add 2 for a blackout, so every week has a potential for 14 stars. Then I had to figure out what to do with the stars.
I’ve been eyeing a really cool crochet sweater design that I want to do in a very expensive, hand-dyed silk-mohair blend yarn. That’s the perfect opportunity to have to save something up and earn it. So I’m adding a stars-for-yarn element. At the end of each week, I tally up the bingo stars I earned and convert them into dollars towards my sweater.
3. I still want to use my bullet journal
The weeks I’ve been using a printed-out bingo sheet to keep track of my chores and stuff, I haven’t used my bullet journal at all. But I still like the idea of a bullet journal. I’ll probably start trying to use it to organize my creative projects, instead of as an endless to-do list, but in the meantime there’s no reason I can’t put my weekly bingo game inside my bullet journal. I still like to have a mini weekly calendar showing me all my appointments (I keep these all in iCal, but that doesn’t make my brain as happy as seeing it on paper).
So I switched to making a 5x5 grid next to my weekly calendar, and copied the randomized bingo squares from my bingo pdf.
The side benefit to this is that I can change some of the boxes, instead of relying on what I first programmed into the bingo randomizer months ago. I don’t actually need to make two phone calls most weeks (thank god) so I can use that box for something else. On weeks when I’m traveling and can’t do things like water the plants, I can swap it out for something else. I mean, I COULD do that with the print-outs if I just crossed off whatever’s in the box that I want to change, but that would look messy.
Honestly, I’m kind of surprised I’ve kept up with it this long, but it really does provide a little extra incentive to do stuff I have to do anyway. Towards the end of the week, I start examining how close I am to bingos and start doing things based on how easily I can earn a star.
I think I’ve only had one blackout week so far. But at least now when things go undone, they generally don’t go undone for more than one week. So, there you go. Silly but effective!
