My bullet journal is my little book of everything. If you know me in real life, chances are you’ve heard me going on about this little book at one point or another. For those of you who don’t know what it is, a bullet journal is essentially a diary/to-do-list/organiser that is completely customisable to you. Many people, me included, have found it to be an absolute lifesaver.
Whether you’re a busy mother, a chaotic student, a global traveller, or simply someone who wants their life to be a bit more organised, the bullet journal will help to get things in order and keep you on track.
The most exciting thing about the bullet journal is that you
can use it however you want. Some people like to cover their pages in beautiful
colours and decorations while others prefer to keep their pages clean, filling
their pages with tidy lists and no-fuss to-dos. Personally, I like to get
creative with mine but that normally just means drawing a nice looking layout
and adding a bit of colour.
I have found that the bullet journal works for me because it
makes me want to keep using it. The freedom and creativity it allows me
prevents me from getting bored or forgetting about it. I love creating the
pages and writing about whatever I want. I love giving myself patterns to
follow and not follow within my layouts. It's every organised and non-organised
person's dream.I’ll do my best to explain the system from the start but I recommend you take a look at the official bullet journal website if you want to get a better idea of the concept.
The Key
I started my bullet journal with a key which I use to help
categorise and check off my to-do lists. As you can see in the picture, a
square is a task to complete, a circle is an appointment to go to, a triangle
is a university-related to-do, a star is social media related and a heart is
friends and family related. If I complete the to-do, I put a cross in the
shape. If I decide not to do it anymore, I put a line through it, and if I
decide to do it on another day, I’ll put an arrow to indicate that I’ve
forwarded it. A bullet point is for any notes I might want to jot down during
the day.
It's up to you how you choose to customise your key, if you
want to use one at all. I highly recommend you do because it really helps to
keep you focused and organised.
Contents
One of the standout things about the bullet journal system
is that you number the pages as you go and then log the pages on your
contents/index page so that you can easily find it again in the future if you
need to. When you start, you’ll want to leave a few blank pages to fill in
later. I left five pages for my contents and I’m halfway through the fifth now
so you might want to leave a few more. It’s just another simple method that
adds to a more organised life.
Year Overview
After you’ve written out your key and left a few blank pages
for your contents, it’s a good idea to create an overview of the year.
This way, you can easily note down any future plans that you can then refer
back to when you create that month’s spread.
Back in April when I started bullet journaling, I created a
map of my goals for the year ahead. I decided to split my goals up into
categories and it’s only been a few months but I’ve already accomplished most
of them. Just the act of writing them down settled them in my mind and I’ve
made a conscious effort ever since to do work towards them. Looking
back now and seeing just how many of them I’ve done is so rewarding.
Month Overview
After your yearly
overview, you might want to create monthly overviews. This is where you can map
out your upcoming month in more detail. In April, my sister was due her baby
girl so I decorated my April spread accordingly. I wrote the days down the left
side then split each day into morning, afternoon and evening tasks. I also
wrote a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish by the end of the month.
Week Overview
The weekly overview goes into even more detail than the
monthly overview. I like to make little lists of my goals for the week,
projects that I’m working on, a few to-dos that I need to complete, and sleep
trackers. On the next page, I map out my week and all of the tasks and
appointments I have planned.
I’ve tried a lot of weekly spreads over the months, but when
summer started and I didn’t have university to take over my life anymore, I
found that I could ditch the daily spread all together and instead I migrated
my daily to-dos into this weekly plan. When I go back to uni and have more to
do again, I’ll go back to dailies but for now, this weekly spread is enough for
me.
Dailies
When I was at uni, my bullet journal was an absolute
lifesaver, mainly because of these daily spreads. I would draw my next day out
every night before I went to bed, although as you can see here, I would
sometimes accidentally skip a couple of days.
The timeline at the top of each day was a plan of how I
wanted my day to go, then I would list everything I planned to do that day. I
also drew a little box in which I wrote what I planned to make for dinner.
When you’ve got a lot to do or a lot on your mind, it’s so
helpful to sit down and invest a little time in getting it down on paper. When
it’s laid out in front of you, it will all look so much easier to accomplish.
It will help you to set realistic goals for your day and your future, and more
often than not, you will also find yourself achieving much more than you
originally thought you could.
Other Pages
This page is my habit tracker for the month. As you can see, I’ve
not been the most attentive with my good habits. I even missed out almost an
entire week, but it gives me something to aim for, and I can see when I’m
slacking and what I’m slacking in, and pick up from there.
I’ve tried doing weekly habit trackers on my weekly spread
before, but I’ve found that I prefer the monthly version because there’s much
more room to add to it if I want to start tracking something new. For example,
this month, I’ve started working on the miracle morning routine (more on this
in a future blog post), so I added that to my tracker.
The possibilities of the bullet journal are endless. You can
use it however you want, for whatever you want. Everything is entirely
customisable to you. If you find something isn't working, change it. If you
find yourself needing something new, add it.
These are only a few of the pages in my journal. There’s so
much more in there but the thing about bullet journals is that they’re immensely
personal. I scribble my entire life into mine. However, there are so many
sources of inspiration for the bullet journal all over the internet. I’m part
of the Bullet Journal Junkies group of Facebook, which is a constant source of
inspiration where hundreds of very talented and organised people share their
thoughts and pictures of bullet journals every day. Also one of my favourite
ways to spend free time is to scroll through Instagram and Pinterest, where so
many photos of beautiful bullet journal pages are posted. There are lots of
YouTube videos about them, too. One of my favourite bullet journalists on the
internet – and an inspirer to hundreds of other dedicated bullet journalists –
is Kara from Boho Berry. I highly recommend that you take a look at her blog if
you want to know more about them.
Some lovely, talented bullet journalists have allowed me to
share with you some photos of their own bullet journal spreads. If you want
to see more of their stuff, follow the links to their pages. I hope this blog
post has inspired you in some way. Would you like to start a bullet journal? Or
if you already have one, how do you customise it to suit you? Let me know in
the comments; I’d love to have a chat about it.
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| Photo by @annaslettering on Instagram. |
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| Photo by @nittany_bujo on Instagram. |
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| Photo by @painted_illustrated on Instagram. |
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| Photo by @thepinktravellerblog on Instagram. |
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