The joys of ••bullet•• journaling Creativity, organization, and fun – all in one place By Brandon LaChance
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f you’re from LaSalle, Peru, or the Illinois Valley and pay attention to athletics, you know the names Ashley Heagy and Rachel Hickey. Both were multiple-sport athletes and multiple award winners at La Salle-Peru High School. Some of their highlights include Heagy advancing to state in swimming and Hickey earning eight Illinois High School Association track and field medals (two gold) and two cross country medals. But believe it or not, the two runners for the Illinois State University cross country and track teams have interests and hobbies outside of sports – one of them being bullet journaling. Bullet journaling is a mindfulness practice that is growing in popularity. “Basically, you can buy bullet journals on Amazon or anywhere on the internet. It’s just a small, little notebook that has dot grids on each page, so it’s easy to format,” said Heagy, who began bullet journaling in May 2018 as an L-P sophomore. “It’s a blank notebook that you basically can draw in everything yourself. I use it as a planner. “I draw my weekly planning space. You can give each month a theme. It’s customizable for you to do whatever you want with it to fit you, basically. Most people use it for planning and organization throughout their weeks, but I also know people who use it for fun or like an arts and crafts kind of thing with pictures.” Heagy can’t remember exactly when she first saw the concept of bullet journaling, but she knows it was on YouTube when a recommendation for a bullet journaling video kept popping up on her thread. She decided to watch one and then a second one. She thought it was a cool idea, a useful thing to help her plan her weeks, stay organized, serve as a creative
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Ashley Heagy (left) and Rachel Hickey smile at an Illinois State University track meet. The two formed a friendship at La Salle-Peru High School and have deepened it through their ISU ties and bullet journaling.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Rachel Hickey made a creative and fun page for her cross country vision board. outlet, and have fun doing in her downtime. “It helps me stay organized, especially with assignments. I write down every assignment I have for the week so I can keep myself accountable to do them ahead of time rather than cramming the night before,” said Heagy, whose biggest inspiration has been YouTuber, Amanda Rach Lee. “In college with online schooling, it’s been really hard to
keep track of everything that you need to do. Writing it all down in one spot is really nice and makes it easy to see what you have to do. “I use it for running. I write down the miles I ran and how I felt during the run. I can look back on it and figure out if I need to change something in my training or take an easy day based on how I tracked it See JOURNAL page 8
A NewsTribune Publication | Illinois Valley Woman | February 2022 7
