I’ve been seeing a lot about bullet journals on Tumblr and I have been wanting to make one. At first, I was hesitant, because I didn’t want to have to go out and buy a specific kind of journal – I already have tons lying around the house. After looking at tons of pictures on Google, I found that a bullet journal can basically be made from any kind of journal. Here are the general guidelines for one, from what I’ve gleamed through Tumblr, Google, and Pinterest pictures:
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Can use any journal, lined or graph paper
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Used for lists and tracking anything you want, to track your productivity
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Get creative!
Essentially, it’s a personal planner that you can craft with any design you like. I absolutely love this idea, since it can be very difficult to find a planner that fits all your planning needs, if you’re anything like me.
This is the journal I chose to use – small and full of inspirational quotes. I love this journal, and have never known what to do with it! When I write creatively, I tend to prefer large journals so I have room for lots of words and lots of doodles. This one is a little on the smaller side, and so it was perfect for the planning and lists that constitute a bullet journal.
I started off with a small calendar of the next three months, and circled important dates. Off to the side, I wrote the dates and their significance. Clearly, it’s a little rough. I was mostly playing around, and seeing what I liked best, and used tons of ideas I saw online.
I began the weekly to-do list. I left room for each day, and made little boxes next to each listed task for me to check off once I complete them (it’s Thursday as I write this, so I’m still making it through the rest of my tasks!)
Here, I made a visual calendar of my week as well. I usually do this for my week, and it was great to have it all in one place. This helps me see where in my schedule I have free time, and helps with planning appointments, hangouts, and other last-minute scheduling.
This was probably my favorite part – being able to track my workout. I have always wanted a work-out journal where I can track what I do each day, but all the ones I can find online include food and calorie intake as well. While that works for some people, tracking my food stresses me out too much and can be triggering. I am definitely going to keep doing this, and probably play around with the set-up for tracking work-outs. I found myself trying to work-out more this week (I still have three days left, so we’ll see how that pans out) and keeping track of my work-outs motivated me to do more.
In addition to tracking work-outs, I also tracked my mood. This was very useful to me, as to help me see how my mood correlates to different aspects in my life – my anxiety medication, the weather, my period, and all the other mood-altering aspects of my life.
At the end of the week, I created a section for quotes I heard or saw from people that week that stuck with me. Keeping track of quotes and sayings made me feel overall more present and conscious of my interactions with people, music, and books in my life.
Overall, I’m still not sure how I feel about it! There were some aspects I really enjoyed, and some I didn’t. For the cons, I would say that it takes a REALLY long time to make and organize, and I felt like spending on time on making my bullet journal perfect was wasting time I could be getting things done. Also, I am the proud owner of an erin condren planner, and I usually keep my to-do lists for each day in there. I missed it a lot this week! I think in the future, I am going to keep my calendar and my to-do lists in my erin condren planner, but keep up the bullet journal for tracking work-outs, mood, and quotes.
Interested in creating a bullet journal? Give it a go! It was a fun project, and it’s all about being creative and finding what works best for you to keep you productive.