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New Year, New Journal: 4 Prompts To Help Get Your Bullet Journal Started

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at FSU chapter.

If you’re new to bullet journaling, welcome! Before the start of my junior year of college’s spring semester, I was just like you. I had never tried bullet journaling before, and I honestly didn’t know what it was. I had seen so many images of it all over my Pinterest, and I kept getting these cute videos of girls making page after page of beautifully aesthetic journal pages. It piqued my interest, but I never thought I’d have the time or energy to actually start one. 

That is until Tallahassee suffered a hurricane at the beginning of the fall semester and classes were canceled. With New Year’s resolutions on our minds and no other pressing obligations, my roommate and I decided on a whim to purchase bullet journals and try our hands at journaling. I was just looking for a distraction from the storm, and maybe a creative outlet to fill my time before classes started again. Instead, I found an engaging everyday activity that helps me focus on my well-being and stay motivated to keep up my healthy habits.

The new year is still fresh, and there’s plenty of time to get started journaling yourself! You don’t have to be an amazing artist to have fun with it, and there is so much inspiration online that you can make it as decorative or basic as you want. Here are some fun and easy journaling page prompts to inspire your creative pursuits. Happy journaling!

Habit Tracker

For this prompt, I create a new page each month with different healthy habits I want to keep up with. Some popular ones I’ve seen on Pinterest and used myself are drinking more water, working out, getting eight hours of sleep, and eating healthy meals. Under each habit is a tiny calendar, and you can highlight the days you accomplish your goals until you do them enough that they become habits! I’ve found this prompt especially motivating because of how satisfying it is to check off the habits every day, and I genuinely feel like I go to the gym and drink more water because of it!

Big Moments

The Big Moments page is a great tool for looking at your year in review. This page consists of 12 different boxes, one for each month of the year. In them are the most exciting, interesting, or important things that happened during that month. This can be anything that you think is relevant! Journaling is all about your own personal experience, and this page is a great way to showcase the things that made your year uniquely yours!

Entertainment Tracker

I’ve seen so many variations of movie, television show, book, and even concert consumption being tracked in different ways in bullet journals. I love having things to check off, especially when it’s things I enjoy! At the beginning of the year, I made a list of all the movies and shows I wanted to watch this year, and every time I watch one, I check it off in the journal. I also created a page with blank shelves, and every time I read a new book, I write its name along the spine of one of the blank books.

The extra incentive to try new things is so good for someone like me. I can sometimes get stuck in a rut of just watching and reading the same things over and over again. I’ve gotten to experience so much new content that I otherwise might not have tried, all because of my bullet journal!

Favorites Page

One of my favorite pages in my journal is my Favorites page. It’s just a running list of little things I love. Some entries include browsing in indie bookstores, making new playlists, reading on the beach, laughing really hard with friends, and the smell of cologne — just some little things that make life a little brighter! In a world with so much heartache and sadness, it can be so uplifting to just flip to a page and see a list of so many beautiful, small things that make my life so wonderful. 

You don’t need expensive pens or Van Gogh-level talent, just a bullet journal and some extra time to be creative. There are so many easy ways to make your journal yours, and this is your sign to give it a chance!

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Dara Cadzow is a Junior at Florida State University from St. Petersburg, Florida. This is her third semester writing for Her Campus!