I recently fell down the bullet journal road and have been raving about it to my friends. We are in a honeymoon phase, my journal and I, which may or may not turn into a serious commitment. Isn’t that the mystery in any new relationship?
A friend asked me for my advice on how she could start hers (hi B!) since the internet is full of an overwhelming amount of information that can be hard to navigate. Being the opportunist I am (and since it has been a while since I posted), I decided to write a quick diddly on my initial thoughts.
I started with just a simple Shinola journal I had started using as a gratitude journal (a failed expedition) forever ago that had fallen into disuse.
I didn’t want to invest money into this thing until I knew it would be something I would use regularly. I just clipped off the section I had previously used and started fresh.
I used The Lazy Genius Collective‘s post as a guiding light after watching the tutorial on the bullet journal website.
My absolute best advice is to not try to do too much all at once. Start simple!
I set up my Index first then set up a six month Future Log.
In the future I think I am going to set up my future log with a calendar look because that feels more natural to me.
My next step was to setup the first month and the Daily Log.
I kept it incredibly simple and accepted it would not be perfect the first time, sort of a rough draft I could adjust in future months. On the left page, the month and a space for each day. On the right page, my list of things to accomplish. I didn’t have a Key at this point to delineate between tasks, events, etc. so it looks a little messy.
My Daily Log I intend to use as a basic journal. I suck at journalling, but I want to keep a log of events and big moments so that is my intention for this space. If that doesn’t interest you, you can utilize it differently or leave it out all together.
After using June for a while, I realized some of the downfalls to such a simple set up (and saw some fun things on Pinterest), and adjusted when I set up July. (PS can you tell I don’t own a ruler)
I needed space for my work schedule because it varies so I added a column on the left of the dates to write in my hours. On the right hand page I separated it into four categories for easier reference.
I also made a key for myself to keep track of different things on my monthly to do lists. There are a lot of cute symbols other people have use, but again, I kept mine simple. This is on the last page on my journal for easy reference.
The last thing I did was set up a few pages of things I wanted to keep track of.
These can literally be anything important to you and they can be added anywhere in the journal. Just add them to the Index at the beginning for easy navigation.
That is one thing I am realizing I left out! Number all your pages!! Each time you create a new page in your journal, add the page number and title to your Index so you can easily flip through to find it.
I think that is all for now. Please feel free to ask me any other questions you might have about my experience and have fun with your own if this is something that appeals to you!!
adventuresoftheprettyreckless 