The most effective way of learning to recognise your own individual pattern of fertility and infertility according to the mucus signals is to record your observations daily on a chart.  The aim is to identify on any day whether intercourse could or could not result in pregnancy.  You will be ready to use the guidelines after abstaining from intercourse for two to four weeks.  After this learning stage the mucus patterns can be identified and recorded as infertile or possibly fertile. 

Keeping a record of your mucus becomes second nature.  It merely requires that you write a few words on your chart at the end of each day to record the sensation produced by the mucus outside the vagina, and its appearance, throughout the normal course of your day.  You are not required to do anything other than pay attention.   You then use the appropriate coloured stamps or write the symbol, which your Billings Ovulation Method™ tutor will explain, to represent what has happened, for easy recognition of your pattern.

Billings Ovulation Method™ code for charting using stamps or symbols

Red or • for days of bleeding or spotting.

Green or l for days when no mucus is observed and there is a sensation of dryness.

White or O for days of mucus. Indicates possible fertility. Also used for the day after intercourse in the pre-ovulatory phase.

Yellow or = for infertility. These may be days of either: unchanging discharge in the pre-ovulatory phase, or, discharge after the end of the fertile phase.

The chart below is of a typical cycle.  The woman would make her recording using EITHER the coloured stamps or the symbols (not both).