One Line A Day, for five years...

In late 2014, I was in Waterstones – shocker, I know, right? You know how you can calculate the proportion of your life that is spent peeing or travelling on a train? Well I swear for 87% of my life I am in Waterstones. I'd love to work that out, actually...

I was in the Greenwich branch, which just so happens to be my absolute favourite for the following reasons: 

• Their Young Adult section is adequate. There are so many stores that have a teeny tiny (and wrongly named 'Teen Fiction') section pushed towards the back like they're ashamed. Uncool. Greenwich understands the importance of this rad genre.
• Their in-store cafe is not a Costa franchise, it is a Cafe W. Their coffee may not be quite on point, but at least they're not that scummy chain. God, I hate Costa.
• The lovely Daniel J. Layton used to work there. I'd see him from time to time when I visited and have that whole 'where do I know him from?' feeling which drove me bonkers, and by the time I realised that the place I know him from is my YouTube subscriptions page, he'd moved to another store. C'est la vie.
• They have a photo of Caitlin straddling some horrendously lucky individual on the carpet no doubt at a signing event, at the top of their stairs to the second floor. I mean, wow.

Anyway, I decided to treat myself (as I always do when in a Waterstones, so really it's not a treat and more a mandatory activity)...I bought the One Line A Day book. The Chronicle Books edition – as, much like adult colouring books, this idea became a niche fad not long after I bought this. It was the only one on the shelf when I saw it, but since then many other editions have appeared! 

I was crazy excited to start this book. Basically, one has to keep it close to hand (I personally keep mine on my bedside table) and summarise each day in one line, every day for five years (that's how long my edition gives you, anyway). Each double spread page has two dates on with five years separated into boxes. You fill in the year and write your little line...I do try and keep it to one line, but I can't help cramming as many words as possible into all the available space...

I go through phases with this One Line A Day thing. I'll be on it for a few weeks, scribbling thoughts down each night before I go to bed – as I find that's the best time to do it, does anyone do it in the morning?! – and then I'll just...forget. For a while.

I'll then go back through my diary (the one in which I write important dates and deadlines) and fill in all the blanks that have accumulated. That's a little tedious, but I feel it's necessary. Despite my lack of follow-through with this book, how I don't prioritise it all that much when really it's not that big a commitment...I desperately need to have it to look back on someday.

In five years' time (cue that adorable pop song) I'll be excited to flip back through it, I reckon. I get excited even now, filling in dates just one year on from when I started and seeing the previous year's musings!

I really do wonder where I'll be in five years. Who I'll be with, what I'll be doing both for a living and for fun. How I'll be, within myself. Hopefully this book will accompany me there.