Being in college to me means constantly being in a state of transition. At 19, I am in a transition from child to adult, from dependent to independent, from following what has been set out for me to forging my own path. A common thing I hear about adjusting to college is all the free time you will have since class structures are not nearly as rigid as the 6 hour day of being in school (and thank god for that, who the hell decided children should learn for 6 hours straight anyway?). Yet it seems that with all this free time, I can easily spend all day and night constantly working on tasks. Yes, during these days I’m busy, but am I necessarily productive? What am I filling my time with?
Another big thing about being in college is just how many things you need to remember. This past quarter, I have had to make sure I had all my assignment deadlines, but also administrative tasks (such as registering for next quarter’s classes), applying for my study abroad program, and doctor’s appointments. Oh, and unfortunately you can’t avoid the daily tasks keeping me alive and (somewhat) sane: food, water, rest, and talking to friends. I’ve tried using various planners and online calendars, but there’s always something about the system that doesn’t accommodate my needs. I can’t put a to-do list on Apple calendar, and I can’t put a timeline of my day in a planner without taking up all the space. And sure, there are apps that can do all these things, and admittedly a lot faster. However, having a bunch of apps either costs money has a ton of ads, or just doesn’t quite work for me the way a personalized spread does. Plus, I’m trying to quit phone notifications, so having apps remind me to log certain things just disrupts my day as opposed to making it a habit to glance at my journal at least once a day. I wanted something that had everything I needed, and all in one place, and the only way I saw that happening was if I made it myself. So I went out and bought a fancy Moleskin journal to start my very own bullet journal.
Ryder Carroll is known for being the creator of the bullet journal method. He has a fantastic website that outlines how to start your own bullet journal in less than five minutes and a book that goes into the philosophy of the bullet journal. There are five basic parts to a bullet journal: the Index, the Future Log, the Monthly Log, the Daily Log, and Custom Collections. Within each of these is a simple way to keep track of your life, but they’re guidelines, not strict rules. So for each of these, I’ve slightly altered my method of creating these logs to best fit me. So, maybe my journal isn’t considered a bullet journal by the strictest of terms, but that’s kind of the point of this system.
The Index is pretty simple, and only takes up the first one or two pages of your journal. Some notebooks come with their own index at the beginning (one of the many reasons the Leuchtturm1917 journals are so incredibly popular for bullet journaling), but all it takes is just writing down pages you return to frequently in the front of your book so you can find them easily. I have an index, but what I’ve found works for me is just using some paper tape to border pages that are my Custom Collections (more on that later), and using a bookmark for the page that I am currently on for planning.
As for the Future Log, this is pretty essential if you’re bullet journaling because you don’t have any future dates planned out in your journal, so you need a page that has everything you have scheduled that is beyond your monthly or daily logs. You can decide how many months you plan in advance, but most people stick between 3 to 6 months. Personally, since I am a college student, my future log is more of a quarter log, where I put all major events and due dates for my entire quarter I’m at school. So I write out each month in my journal and then write out major deadlines for my classes, as well as that dentist appointment I may have booked 3 months in advance.
Then comes the Monthly Log, which is essentially your monthly calendar. The biggest difference between a monthly calendar and the bullet journal is that your month is set up like a list in order to make pre-planning efficient and clear. To be honest, though, I don’t really use a monthly log, as a quarter log satisfies this for me and I prefer to only plan up to a week ahead of me in order to not overwhelm myself. Daily logs are also something that I save for weeks when I am incredibly busy, but my weekly log suffices for quieter weeks.
The final section of the bullet journal is the most expansive and customizable part of the bullet journal, and the main reason I love using this method. Collections are basically any sort of thing you want to track. I have collections for books I want to read, movies I want to watch, and even a tracker for my Marvel movie marathon I did before Infinity War came out (Ah, simpler times). Another popular collection is habit trackers, which can help you establish any habits you’ve been wanting to get started. I’ve tried them multiple times, but I don’t think I’ve ever finished a month of complete logging on these pages.
Which leads me into why I love this method so much. If something isn’t working for you, you can just stop doing it for the next month. Also, all this data of what you do (and do not do) really helps you see what you have an easy time doing and what you have trouble with. For example, I wrote in my daily and weekly logs for a couple of weeks to get up and workout in the morning, because I felt like that’s when I should work out, to have that oh-so-optimal daily routine. However, week after week this task was not being checked off my list. The truth is, I’m tired in the morning. And I can’t exactly go to bed earlier when I was up the night before finishing my homework. I’m never going to motivate myself to get out of my warm bed and go run in the cold. Seeing this reflected in my journal, I decided to get up in the morning and finish my homework and instead work out in the evening. Turns out, I got a pretty good routine going and I can actually stick to my schedule. Making little changes like this have really optimized my day, and my schedule works for me instead of me working for my schedule. This has been the most sustainable method for planning my life for this very reason, and I’m constantly learning more about myself and how I work best.
People bullet journal in many ways. Some people use theirs more as a diary about their days instead of planning them out, including pictures and their own art. There are tons of examples of incredibly artistic spreads that people use to express their creative energy and find it calming. Some people combine the artistry of these journals with their planning to create daily, weekly, monthly plans as well as their own logs. While this does take some preplanning (which to be honest, is my favorite Sunday activity to ward off the beginning of week anxiety), bullet journaling doesn’t have to be nearly as intricate as Pinterest makes it. Some of my spreads I put a little extra time into it, but many of mine are pretty messy and not super pleasing to the eye. But they are certainly organized. If I’m planning out my bullet journal beforehand (Sunday), then I might write titles in a pretty color and write subtitles in a different shade, and the simple monochrome keeps my journal looking put together. I have to say, the fact that my journal is so busy makes me cozy and familiar with it, because it is all mine, so I feel more accomplished than if I just checked something off of my reminders app, where it then disappears. In my journal, I not only see all I have to do, but I also see all that I have done.
If you want to start your very own journal, I would suggest investing in a nice journal. If you’re like my roommate and have a thousand journals for a thousand different things, maybe you can skip this step. But having a sturdy notebook matters when you take the thing everywhere and will (hopefully) be using it for a long time. I’ve had mine for 2 years, and I’m just about halfway through mine. I would also suggest getting grid dot lines, but squared or blank pages are preferred by others. I would recommend any of these over traditional notebook pages, as they don’t give you the same freedom for creating your own grids and tables. Other than that, I hope some of my own pages plus the basic breakdown of what a bullet journal is can help you decide if maybe your spring cleaning may need some extra organization. Nevertheless, I hope your method of organizing works for you and isn’t something that is boring or difficult, because planning should reflect the things you plan for: exciting and motivating for what’s to come. After all, this is a personal planner, and at the end of the day what matters is what works for you. As long as your journal is tailored to you, whether it falls all or none of these rules, it is your own bullet journal.