Jericho’s Journal #1: revamping and fine-tuning

The first review I ever got on my Etsy store was for my Cat Care Binder printable.

June 8, 2021, “Thorough binder. Lots of options within the pages.” 5 stars – woo!

Since then, my Cat Care Binder has been through many editions. I’ve changed the style, page layouts, and formats.

I played around with different cat graphics and color palettes.

I added a digital planner version in July 2023.

And a few months later I added a few Notion planners. Simpler and less broad. But still an innovation.

But here’s the problem.

I never used any of them.

Until I created one for myself.

Jericho’s first journal

I started this project in May 2022.

Side note- I discovered and fell in love with Notion after this. But I still prefer to journal and track things in a physical notebook.

I attempted to merge a few pages from my Cat Care Binder into one. With a few additional pages to help plan things.

Jericho’s original journal is 8.5”x11” with 422 pages total. Talk about a thick journal!

And of course, after using it I discovered that I don’t need all of the pages I included.

It has a year-at-a-glance page, habit tracker, monthly planner, weekly planner, and daily planner.

After a while, I was only using the daily planner pages.

I stopped using the time slots to time things. And I started using it as a free-form journal instead.

I still use it. And it’s helped me fine-tune what I need and don’t need.

Because the other issue is that I’m trying to create a journal for someone else.

Rather than creating a journal for me. A journal that I will like and actually use.

Ultimately, if I create a journal that I like and actually use (all of the pages), others will like it and use it too.

Now my Cat Care Binder is amazing and super helpful for people who like printables and digital planners.

But I’m more of a physical journal type of cat mom.

So I started fine-tuning Jericho’s journal in September 2024.

Jericho’s new journal in the making

I decided I wanted a smaller book – 6”x9” this time. And I knew I wanted the bulk of the journal to be a daily tracker.

No more monthly or weekly planning. I don’t need that.

I also knew that I wanted a free-form journaling section.

I started journaling in a tiny little notebook back in June this year after my dad passed away.

It’s very therapeutic. And it’s been helpful for me to do first thing in the morning.

I enjoy that the pages are small. And I only journal one page a day. It’s a very small amount of work for a big impact.

So I wanted to incorporate that into Jericho’s journal.

I need to track Jericho’s meals and his litter box habits. This comes in handy if something goes wrong.

I can go back through his meals to see what’s different. And those differences usually point to the cause of the issue.

I also wanted to implement something fun for me.

I’ve been watching interior design videos recently, and it’s so fascinating to me. I really enjoy it and want to start designing my apartment.

You might be thinking what does this have to do with cat happiness, but hang with me.

Jericho is super itchy. And I’ve been trying to fix this for a while.

We did a gut test and found that things were off.

Now there are a lot of things that affect the gut. But what pertains to us the most is dirt and stress.

My apartment has chipping paint, the neighbors smoke, and it gets dusty (dirt).

And my apartment is full of hand-me-downs and random stuff put together. So it doesn’t really feel like a home to me (stress).

So how do I pull this all together? Tracking litter box and meals, free-form journaling, and fun projects for me.

I start the journal with journal prompts. These are really fun because they help me discover goals and also remind me of how special Jericho is.

Then I created a goal brainstorm and rating sheet to narrow down what goals I’m most excited about.

There is a goal planner page where I break down three categories of goals because I like to do things in threes.

For example, I have three main things I always need to work on in my business. Content, products, and learning.

There’s no fun acronym for my business. But I did come up with a fun acronym for Jericho’s journal.

FUR – Fun, Upgrade, Routine.

This is how I sneak in my interior design venture. That’s my Fun goal!

Everything I do for and with Jericho is fun.

But interior design is a no-responsibility goal. Just pure fun.

Speaking of design… let’s talk about the cover.

I had soooo much fun with this!

I really love seamless patterns and always wanted to incorporate them into my business.

So I started creating them with some cat and flower graphics I bought a while back.

I created one for Jericho, an orange cat, Siamese, and a grey cat. I’m working on creating more for different breeds.

And I created new color palettes for each cat cover. They all look so cute!

I had a lot of fun with this.

So I’m excited that I found a way to incorporate interior design as one of my goals.

Just another way I’m creating this journal for myself!

I ordered a copy of Jericho’s journal for myself so I can test it and use it before I start listing it for sale. I’ll chat about that in the next post!