Any bujo wankers still around ?

[Howlongtillbedtime]

I have bought the beautiful notebook.
I have fineliners
I have searched Pinterest.

I have many ideas for things I want to track etc but

I am scared to start.

I am not artistic.
It is the most expensive notebook I have ever bought and I really don't want to spoil it

Isn't it just a notebook with a fancy name?

Not really. The 'fancy name' is the name of a system, not a notebook. And yes, it's perfectly possible to use a notebook without calling it a Bullet Journal, but afaik most people who use a notebook don't use it the way a bujo works. I've had many notebooks in my life, but I wasn't organised until I used the bujo system.

I use colouring pencils but just for writing the month/date & for drawing lines. My BuJo isn't particularly pretty, just colour coded. I've never had a problem with transfer onto other pages.

Why the dotted pages? What do they let you do?

I do something a bit similar in an ordinary lined notebook (always a new beautiful one gif every school year) - didn't know it was a thing!

Dotted pages allow you to do portrait or landscape while still giving you guidelines for straight writing. They are also less 'intrusive' than lines if you are wanting to draw a picture or something.

Ah thank you, makes sense. Think they'd irritate me but I can see how it could work!

@Knittink, I read the threads you started! You say you have a simpler system, what have you settled on?

@Rkay2 I found the leuchturm wasn't great and most pens bled through a teeny bit. I use scribbles that matter now as it's thicker quality paper. You could try using a really fine pen - less nib=less ink to bleed through maybe? I like the staedler 0.1mm fine liner.

YorkshireWelsh and anyone else wanting a cheap journal, the Pukka Pad A5 Jotta Squared Notebook is worth a look. You can get a 3-pack on Amazon for £6.29 at the moment and they've got 200 pages. It's a grid, not dots, but I find that quite helpful for writing in a straight line.

Lumpy - it's the same system really, I just ditched most of the tracking type stuff because I found I didn't use it. I only do stuff in my bujo that is genuinely useful, and avoid things that just look pretty or seem like a worthy aim but don't actually help me (e.g. book tracker - nice, attractive, admirable, but doesn't actually do anything for me personally).

So essentially I do index, future log, monthly overview and week-per-view daily journalling. Plus a few other collections: weekly schedule, master shopping list, wish list, gift buying list, work stuff, diy/home improvement jobs to do list. That's about it.

As far as notebooks go, I've so far used a random lined Harry Potter one, two Leuchtturms and a Rhodia Goalbook (all dotted). I love the Leuchtturms and the Rhodia but wished they had white rather than cream paper. The Rhodia paper is thicker. My Hobonichi is gorgeous but truly offensively expensive, and I'm not at all sure I'm going to get on well with it! But at least I will be able to use the cover for other A5 notebooks.

TKMaxx often has nice notebooks.

Here’s a couple of pics of mine. I’m using the derwent bullet journal set and enjoy how the elastic holds everything together in my bag. I’m trying to set it up so that I can just do the arty bits as I want to but still use it as a practical planner.

Love that week to view page, inkspellme

I've ordered a cheapo Rhodia from Amazon for a few quid to see how I get on. Also bought new sketchbooks and pencils today from Hobbycraft... I've deleted my SM apps from my phone and am hoping to spend more time being creative and reading rather than scrolling through my IG feed 😏

Me too @HexagonalBattenburg !!

I was just going to post asking if there were any other digital bujo wankers around

My daughters is very arty - this is one of her December weeks -
She chooses a different theme each month.

This thread is inspirational. I tried it years ago but gave up as it seemed like such a time consuming faff just to jot down To Do lists. But now I get it and feel inspired.

@KTyoupigeon - thats lovely - really lovely.

Thanks Knittink!

Anyone wanting inspiration without wanting to embrace the full-on, time-consuming, artsy approach - search for minimalist bujo on Instagram. There are lots of people who use a plain, clear (still beautiful and immaculate!) style without lots of embellishment.

That really is gorgeous KT. I'll need a lot of practise before I can do anything a fraction as good!

I've got the book coming today written by the chap who started it. I am finding my one is keeping me on track, dd has started one which is very arty.

I’d normally keep a sketch book on the go anyhow so putting some bits of art/doodles in the journal would be normal for me. It’s what I didn’t like about other planners I used. However, I do think a lot of the Pinterest stuff when you look at would really put you off rather than inspire you. It just seems like an awful lot of effort and somehow what a teenager would do. But when I realized that it can be as full of doodles or as little of them as possible and still work that I became keener on it.

I agree about Pinterest putting people off.

As long as you realise that none of the prettifying is necessary and you can just let the look of your personal journal to involve, it's far more appealing I think.

I have some colour coding and use fun little post it notes to liven it up.

I want to start doing this. My dad handmade me a leather notebook for Christmas, but it has plain pages, would that work? How many pages should a notebook have to make it workable.

Do I need to read the book?

Mine has plain pages