According to a Myers Briggs test, I’m an ISTJ. I took the test years ago. I’m not talking about the one I took heading into college (‘cuz I was something else), but years after that, and backward from today…
Sigh…you get the in-between data about it, (and…yes, I just dug through more old papers and found results I’d saved from multiple decades) I was (am) an ISTJ since about 10-15 years ago.
Anyhoo…
ISTJ’s love precise data (saved data at that). What can I say? Summed up those letters describe me and other fun role models like:
Consistently over the years, data multiplying before my eyes has been known to cause me to freeze.
My love of data should make my life easy, especially when I’ve got tons to work with.
I just wish I didn’t worry so much about making things perfect before I dig in to get started.
I love to learn new things, gather data, test it out, etc. My love of learning helps me –
- Stay determined,
- Stay relatively focused on tasks at hand.
- Freak out when it doesn’t make sense. I’m the one that goes white like a ghost.
BuJo is not freaking me out too much, it’s kind of fun. I love the organized feel of it. What’s freaking me out is I know how much data I keep track of on a daily basis. If I’m to analog all of it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep it to one tiny page.
After a full day of listing tasks, I’m even more convinced that my big college-ruled notebook is the better choice for me.
My task list literally multiplied as the day went on. Job security right?
I’m sorry, I don’t want to bore you by talking about my bullet journal every day, but dang…it’s only the start of day 3, and I’ve got lots of thoughts running through my head about BuJo (short for the Bullet Journal Method for keeping track of the stuff you have to remember to do and goal setting).
It’s leaving me wondering…
Can an ISTJ use a bullet journal without freaking out??
As an ISTJ, when it comes to keeping track of tasks and goal setting, I:
- Reflect – think it over internally, and prefer a written draft that means what it says
- Need simple and attainable steps that are specific and concrete
- Focus on the outcome, getting there has to be logical
- Structure, schedule, and like anything orderly – carved in stone
The I’m not so sure I understand the BuJo method thoughts are coming at me in bunches of 3’s.
I hope I don’t wither before I discover how well it will work for my ISTJ brain. The author of the Bullet Journal Method has ADHD. Looking at my list of tasks, I think my life is full of ADD tasks. Maybe we do have that in common, and it will work for me after all?
I’ll keep trying. I can’t quit at the start of day 3!
Ah, yes, it’s Day 3. How was Day 2 anyhow? As I grabbed my cup of coffee and my BuJo notebook this morning, I looked at my overachiever task list left from yesterday.
Yay, me, there were 12 items I didn’t complete at work that I have to transfer to today’s to-do list or rescheduled to the future. At least I know what I’ll be working on.
For those of you unfamiliar with BuJo, if you want to move a task to the future log, you use a backward arrow. And if you want to move the task to the next day you use a forward arrow. Makes sense right?
< one to the future log
11 to today >
Post Inspiration – Day 3 of Learning BuJo and Frank’s TPC (Tuesday Photo Challenge – Trio).
PS – Happy Tuesday – may you feel productive, organized, and ready to tackle your to-do lists! Are you an ISTJ too?
I have never taken a personality test – have no clue what I am. Do they have one in clown?? Lol. I spent so much time organizing and data collecting when I was working that I taking a year off of being organized. While it has been fun, I do get bored so I am looking forward to spring to revamp my organization tasks. Take care and have a great week.
LOL – You’re the perfect clown in a good way! While you rest and recover you can ponder organization for the spring. Sounds like fun to me :-)! Take care, continue healing, and I hope your week is going well too!
Wow, the brain of this INTJ (at least that’s what I was in college!) is tired just thinking about bujo-ing. Good luck. You can do it (but only if you really want to).
LOL – My husband is an INTJ and he said similar things to me last night! He said, “You think about it too much!” I’ve set my mind to it, so far! 😉
Love your bluebird. I can not seem to draw one to the feeder but and seeing some beautiful wood peckers.
Thank you, Anita – the bluebirds are favorites of mine too.
I’m an INTJ personality type but preferred behaviour and style shouldn’t be confused with displayed behaviour and style. For example how many great actors have been closet introverts? As a rampant introvert myself I had to overcome this to be able to “perform” as a psychologist in front of groups of CEOs for years. Performance over I would have to go and lie down in a dark room for an hour ….. they had no idea I was so introverted. So the answer to your question is ….. yes. Just depends on how bad you want to do it.
I knew I liked you for a reason – Mr. is an INTJ too, and he challenges my sensing and thinking all the time. I’m just like you when it comes to performing in front of an audience, I can do it, enjoy it, but am EXHAUSTED afterward!
Very nice photos – I love the three birds of the fence!
Thank you, Tatiana!
Seems to me BuJo is flexible enought that, if you need more than one page for a day, you can go with it. Just add the page numbers to the index. And if you want to use a college-rule notebook, have at it. That’s probably what I’d do. Remember, it’s your Bullet Journal: whatever works for you.
I’m almost the exact opposite, an INFP.
LOL – you’re right, the flexibility in it allows me to do what works for me – your opposite from my perspective is appreciated :-)!
I’m an INFJ, something I didn’t know until a few years ago but which makes total sense to me now. I think I’d get confused with the backward and forward arrows.
Thanks for sharing. From what I read on your blog, I can see the INFJ being YOU 🙂 Yeah…those arrows can be confusing!
I keep learning something new with you everyday.
Never had the chance to take a personality test.
It sounds like fun.
Aw, thanks, I’m glad to hear you’ve learned something new!
Shelley, so funny! I am an ENFP. My hubby is an ISTJ too! It must be true what they say about opposites…! 🙂
Wow, you two are opposites, that’s awesome! What well rounded family dynamics and discussions you must have?! 😉
We are very much alike in a lot of areas that really matter – sense of humor, family stuff, ideas about money, etc.
Sounds like a match made in heaven :-)!
When we first moved here, I had a list on the back of the back door. When moving to a bush block – just trees and nothing else, there is a lot of work to do. After years of this list, only a few had been crossed off but what wasn’t done was add on all the other things that had been achieved, raising three babies, helping neighbours with their “list”, changing minds over certain jobs, being social and living life. Don’t forget to add the regular stuff you do so you can have lots of ticks that will make what you do look good and mentally satisfying. 🙂
Excellent advice, Brian, thank you for sharing and for your encouragement to do what matters most in life!
Any time Shelley 🙂
You are way more organized than me Shelley. I was more organized when I was younger and I could lay my hands on any possession of mine within a minute. I was almost too organized … but now I think I need a list to find things. I’m trying to remember where I put the Christmas cards. I refuse to buy any this year because for years I made small donations to World Wildlife, National Wildlife, Guiding Eyes (for the Blind) and other organizations – many types of cards, and they always sent Christmas cards. They are in a square Tupperware cookie box. In a small house, surely they cannot be that hard to find. Forward arrow for me will be to find things at the snap of my fingers … now, if I could only stay on task!
LOL – my dream job (at one point in time…when I read every organizing book available to mankind…) was to be a professional organizer. The problem was, it’s not about the containers, it’s about having less stuff that makes organizing easy. I have one box now of cards like you’re describing. I love those freebies too, hope you find them! Squirrels sometimes look like they aren’t on task, but they always find the peanut eventually, right? 😉
I just read today that squirrels will make multiple holes to bury their cache of peanuts and they usually find them by sniffing them out. I wouldn’t have thought the “sniff test” would work in the middle of Winter with multiple inches of snow. That surprised me. A professional organizer would always be in high demand and the cardinal rule would be what I’ve often read about keeping/discarding clothing – if you haven’t worn it in “X” amount of years, it should go. I have items not worn since I stopped working on site in 2009. I can’t bear to part with them!
Ah, the sniff test – Copper has that too! If the clothing organizer is in demand, I might not be the best – I hang on to stuff too, just in case. Now that I work from home, I wear maybe 5-10% of my clothes. I could sell dust though… 😉
Ha ha – I sure could sell dust too! I am only inspired to get rid of it when the weather is bad and I can’t walk outside … then I pout and clean. My mother said “when I’ gone, I can just imagine how this house will look” – she didn’t imagine just how much the dust would settle though … she mopped and dusted every single day.
My mom wasn’t a cleaner, I became OCD about it until I had kids, and now an empty nest – there’s more to life than cleaning – cleaning is job security for rainy days!
I like your thinking Shelley – only very late in her life could I convince my mom to leave an unwashed cup or a plate from a sandwich in the sink overnight. She loved doing the big Spring cleaning and I said it was too much with handling yard work come Spring, so it became our “Fall thing” and I told her we’d do it but all that cleaning messed up any enjoyment of Fall as we were washing/moving/polishing every *&^% weekend. I, however, have gone too much the other way me thinks! 🙂
Good thinking – there will always be enough dust to go around, why bother with it more often than needed? 😉
That works for me just fine – I hate housework with a passion and I’m not doing so great with the yardwork anymore since I started the walking regimen and the blogging – it seems half the time I am flying by the seat of my pants to get the necessary things done. 🙂
But you’re getting the things done that make your heart and the birds and the squirrels sing! That’s important in my book!
You are right about that Shelley – I always tell myself the tasks and chores can wait but I am tending to get behind … what was that expression “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get” … that is my motto these days. But you are right – these are the important things … the things that make your heart sing and I will keep that thought first and foremost in my mind. (Sorry Mom.) 🙂
If I were your mom, looking down on you from heaven, I’d be smiling and very proud of you :-)!
Thank you Shelley – I know I see her in my mind’s eye folding her arms, clucking her tongue and saying “didn’t I tell you once I was gone, you’d never keep a tidy house?” 🙂
LOL – I sense a little bit of a rebellious Linda…? 😉 (Wink, wink)!
Bucking the trend … who’d have thunk it? I am a little long in the tooth, but might as well get rebellious now before I get too much older Shelley!
Wow, Shelley, I’m also ISTJ (taken multiple times, but as I’ve gotten older my I morphed almost into an E). I totally get Dana Scully, but there is just enough F in me to believe in the spiritual realm. I cannot journal to save my life, and you’d think with our love for details, chronological order and linear thinking, it would be easy. Best wishes on your journaling journey (ha!)
Yay – love hearing perspectives from fellow ISTJ’s – a long time ago I had more E in me…maybe I should find that part of me again someday? Thanks for the support and encouragement – on day 4 and haven’t given up yet! 😉