Bullet Journaling 101

Last year, October-ish I got into bullet journaling which was obviously the next step for me after my Filofax broke down after 3+ years of good use and I was ready for something new. I am a HUGE fan or organizing and a paper and pen kind of girl so I really loved the bullet journal system because it combines everything I love, to-do lists, journaling and art into one compact nifty little organizer. 

When you first start looking into bullet journaling, it may sound kind of overwhelming and you may not know where to start. All you really need is a book and some basic stationary (pen, rules, marker) and if you want to be fancy and love to decorate, you can get some washi tape, stickers and stamps or art supplies like water colour. 

Basically, a bullet journal is where you can track the past, organize the present and plan for the future. You can customize it anyway you like (which sounds scary, I know but it gets easier once you actually start) and record anything you'd like.

First, I don't like the whole "key" and "index" part and find it unneceasry so I don't use it. I use flag stickers to mark pages I often use so have no use for an index (which is basically a table of contents for your journal so you can number the pages and write it down for easier reference) and the only thing I use is boxes for my to-do lists so I don't need a key (some people use different symbols for different things like events, to-do, reminders, etc). Always stick with what works for you, not what other people are doing because the whole bullet journal journey is FOR YOU by YOU. 

Here are some of the very common pages you see which might be helpful to you. 

1. Monthly Pages + Trackers. 

Monthly pages are where you plan your entire month. I like to have a calender so I can see the whole month, and a small area for monthly goals, and plans for this blog, as well as two trackers. Trackers are for things that you want to track of. Daily trackers are those that you want to do everyday. I use it to track my prayers, journalling, exercise, etc. The monthly tracker is actually for things I do once every week, like reading a book a week, etc. 

As you can see, I just print out free printable calendars on one page and have my daily tracker and monthly tracker as well as goals and blog schedule and I continue the same template every month because it's simple and easy for me and works. 

2. Weekly Pages

I like planning my week and seeing it on two pages so that's the format I use. I just write down the date and day and a task list of everything I have to do, including events and reminders. I also include a to-do list for the week and a column for "next week" for those things that I want to include next week, like events. For things happening later, I use a future log which is a place where you write down things that might be happening in future. Some people do daily pages which are great if you have a lot of tings to do everyday but I just like the weekly pages so I stick to these.

I have a couple layouts I really like, such as this boxed layout which I sometimes use because it looks really neat and visually pleasing. 

Sometimes I go all out on themes like this Harry Potter inspired page I did. Just include whatever you love in your journal, the whole process of decorating is actually very calming. I put on a podcast and just decorate away sometimes it takes 10 minutes, other times I spend about an hour once a week. 

I have been loving this non grid all over the place template for when I feel a bit lay but also want to decorate a bit but don't want to spend too much time. A lot of my weeks look like this. 

Sometimes I directly take inspiration from tumblr and recreate other people's bujo (bullet journal,haha) spreads. Tumblr and Pinterest are great places for inspiration. Whenever I find a nice spread I will pin it to my BUjo board on pinterest so when I'm out of ideas, I will look through and re-create spreads. 

3. Collections. 

These are some of my favourite things to include in my bullet journal. I have collections of things such as movies I watch, books I read, birthday wishes I want to remember, etc. You can basically write anything you want to include in here.

I always record the books I read and movies I watch, it's always great to see what I've watched and read, especially since I do blog about it as well. 

4. Gratitude Logs. 

These are things that make me grateful everyday. I have actually changes this to highlights because I started writing down the highlights of each day and love looking through these to find out the things that happened during a particular month. 

5. Timelog. 

You don't have to do this and neither do I but I love doing it because it helps me know how much time I spend on things and it's meticulous but it actually helps me to remove unproductive time and also to multi-task. I just colour in the times I do tasks and once the month is over, I go all the way and make a pie-chart to see what things I spend the most on. 

If you want to get into bullet journaling, do search on Tumblr, Pinterest and Buzzfeed, you'll find a lot of inspiration and how-to's. And ofcourse, YouTube. 

Happy Bulletjouraling