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The Theme System Journal


2m read
·Nov 7, 2024

Hello internet! If you didn't already know, I'm a big fan of the yearly theme: a broad rainbow above your goals to help direct you on part of your journey through this life. And yes, I know exactly how that sounds. But if you're intrigued and/or wondering why Gray would recommend such a thing and looking for a way to give it a try, well, I've got something for you: the theme system journal!

Ooh lovely! The theme system journal is a beautifully designed notebook. Inside is a welcome page with guidance on how to pick a theme, for the theme page that follows pages. Actually, sometimes your theme will need to change, so no pressure to get it perfect the first time.

Then pages for qualitative daily journaling and a section for quantitative tracking of progress. You may notice this is pretty open-ended. There aren't explicit "you must do this here" labels on the boxes, and it's because it's important to me that the design of the journal not force my exact process on you.

But if you want to know what I generally do when I'm journaling, I use the top line for where I am at the time. What am I personally and professionally grateful for? Yes, I know how that sounds, and past me would have rolled his eyes so hard at that. But it's frustratingly effective—maybe a story for another time.

Anyway, the big box is the place to get out what is on my mind when I wake up in the morning, and the bottom box is for the one most important thing to get done today. Such that if only this gets done, it still counts as a good day. That's what I do, and if you're looking for a place to start, that's what I would recommend.

Then shape the theme system journal to be what works best for you and your theme over the season. If you've listened to the theme discussions on the Cortex podcast, where the little logo comes from, you will already know this journal has been 18 months in the making.

18 months of perfect paper picking, debossing, debugging, pen penetration prevention, cover considerations, and beta batches, canvassing critiques. And all of that is fully finished! The final forms are finally for sale. If you want to give themes a try as a way to guide your goals and decisions, there is no better, more lovingly made notebook to use.

So click here to buy one to begin down your theme path today!

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