I aspire to be the type of person who takes a full course load, has a good GPA, volunteers in their community, joins clubs, calls their family regularly, gets a healthy amount of sleep, exercises regularly without crying, writes thank you letters to family friends who send birthday gifts, has time to go for Instagram-worthy brunch on the weekend with friends, and manages to look fabulous (or at least not on the edge of death) while doing it. Someone who really has their shit together.
It turns out, this isn’t an easy thing to try to do, but I love anything that makes it seem like I’m organized: agendas, weekly planners, to-do lists, etc. So when I heard about the bullet journalling trend, I knew I wanted to give it a try.
In case you haven’t heard about it, bullet journalling is described as a combination of a to-do list, agenda, and journal. Everything you need to organize your life creatively in one book. Creativity is key as, traditionally, you use a empty notebook and write in calendars, dates, lists, etc. Buzzfeed has a really great article explaining bullet journalling and how to get started, simply_kenna has an adorable YouTube video showing her take on a bullet journal, and bulletjournal.com has most of what you might want to know. Essentially, it’s a way to keep track of your life, however you want to do that.
What I used:
I used a blank journal I’d been given and had barely used. I would recommend using a bigger (length and width) journal than I used, somewhere between the size of a Vogue magazine and a Harry Potter book.
I also used the Artist’s Loft fine tip felt pens from Michael’s (I chose pink for February), a pink highlighter from a Japanese dollar store, the Micron 03 fineliner from the UVic bookstore, a LePen fineliner that I found in my room, and washi tape: one roll from Michael’s, and one from a friend in Japan. You can be pretty creative about what what supplies and materials you use—it doesn’t have to be fancy. Although, I would say a ruler is good to have: being a bit of a perfectionist, having crooked lines in my journal was a little stressful.
How I organized my journal:
I used my first page as a planner for the month, with a to-do list for things that didn’t have hard deadlines, and a list of goals.
Beside that, I had my monthly calendar, with important dates for school, holidays, and other things I wanted to remember (Great Grandma’s 103rd Birthday!).
Then I had my more detailed agenda for each day. I marked classes with a dot, club meetings, recreation classes or events with a dash, and to-dos with a circle. I also tried to write down one thing a day that made me happy, with a little sunshine beside it, and any other thoughts or comments about my day.
Did it help me get my shit together?
The short answer: no. But there are a lot of reasons why, and I still think it’s a great thing for people to try. First of all, I had looked at so many beautiful journals online that, when mine became less aesthetically pleasing in some sections, I felt less excited about it. I already use an agenda book that I always try to have with me, and have a weekly planner and to-do list on my desk, so it didn’t really help me get more organized; it just made me do it a different way. It also felt like a lot of effort. When you can go out and buy agendas with the dates and calendars in them already, doing it myself felt like it took up more time than I had. The monthly goals list was a cute idea, but in reality, I only looked at it once, so I kind of ended up forgetting about that page for the rest of the week. But did I like being creative, using colours and textures, and feeling like I was taking time for myself? Absolutely.
Pros:
-
If you don’t already have some sort of planner or agenda, it’s a fun way to get yourself organized.
-
It can be relatively cheap to make, since you can pretty much use stuff lying around your house.
-
There’s an awesome community around bullet journalling, with Facebook groups like Bullet Journal Junkies. People are always there to cheer you on.
-
If you are able to be neater than I was, it could make for some cute Instagram photos
-
You’ll feel more organized, and people will think you’re really organized.
-
If you have the time to do it, it can be really useful.
-
If you like buying stationery, it’s a perfect excuse.
-
Checking off things on a to-do list feels good.
-
If you’re able to realize that yours won’t be perfect, it won’t be too stressful.
Cons:
-
It can be pretty time consuming
-
It’s hard to feel like that time isn’t being wasted on making yourself feel productive when you could be doing homework, studying etc.
-
If you’re a perfectionist and mess up, it sucks.
-
If you don’t look at your pages for goals, ideas, to-dos, etc., they can easily be forgotten.
-
You can focus too much on how it looks, and forget about making sure you’re getting other stuff done.
-
If yours doesn’t look perfect, it can be a bit disappointing.
-
Unless you draw out your calendars for each month, or put all your dates in ahead of time, when something is over a month away, you may have no place set to write it down.
-
It is hard to get motivated to do it if you’re not in a creative mindset and feel stressed and busy already.
I still haven’t given up on bullet journalling. If you have a bit of time on your hands, and like being a little creative, I’d say give it a try! But I think I’ll wait until I have more free time to try to start up again. For now, my agenda will do just fine. Until then, I’ll still spend far too much time looking at #bulletjournal for inspiration on Instagram when I should be studying. But let’s just call it research.
Have you tried bullet journalling? Let us know in the comments!
Photo credits: 1