Bullet Journal

[mercifulTehlu]

I've just found out about this fab way of organising your life, thanks to a kind poster on the 'people who are efficient ' thread. I was wondering if any other MNers are Bullet Journalers? here is the website if anyone's interested.

It's only a couple of days since I started my journal, but I can already see that it's going to revolutionise my ability to be organised. I've tried loads of apps, lists etc in the past, but have never really hit on a system that worked for me. I have very high hopes of this one though (plus it involves pretty stationery )!

I've seen the website and like the idea.
The thing that's put me off giving it a go is that seems like you'd be doing a lot of writing and rewriting stuff if you don't actually do the things on your to do list
Maybe I've misunderstood how it works?

Did you find it faffy Tea? Lots of copying out stuff?

I don't think you necessarily have to do a lot of re-writing. I don't plan to 'migrate' my tasks forward each time if I don't do them on the day I wrote them in. I'll just look back and cross them off when I do them, unless I'm moving on to a new month.

What really appeals to me about it all is the index and the concept of having everything (from housework tasks, birthdays, to-do lists, book recommendations, lists of useful websites, Christmas present lists, holiday plans etc) all in the same notebook and all of it easy to find. Like an old Filofax I suppose, except that you design the layout yourself and have an all-encompassing index.

How does this work in a partnership? I don't want to do all the 'wife work', so how can this be shared within a couple?

I said over on the other thread that I'd start this thread to describe how I've set my journal up, so that anyone who was interested but thought it sounded a bit hard to get to grips with could have a look.

There are also loads of pages all over Pinterest (and probably Instagram) with pictures of beautiful examples of people's annoyingly artistic journal pages, complete with inspirational quotations and elegantly decorated titles!

Anyway, this is my set-up so far...

Index
P1-2 'Future Log' (i.e. 6 month overview)
P3 January calendar (events etc)
P4 January task list (no particular order )
P5-6 January daily log (i.e. diary)
P7-8 Ideas and Inspiration (useful websites, decor ideas, gift ideas etc)
P9-10 Info and websites for some research I'm doing for a friend
P11-12 'Mega list' (see below)
P13-14 Household Task List (divided into 'daily, weekly and monthly' tasks) to be used as a general checklist
P15-16 Meals (list of regular meals, packed lunch ideas and new recipes I plan to try)
P17-18 Walks (recently moved to the Lakes and it's useful to keep track of where we've been and where was good)
P19-20 Birthdays
P21-22 Wishlist (of potential purchases or gift suggestions if people ask me what I want!)

I don't plan to add many more lists because I want to keep it manageable, and because there needs to be room for the monthly calendar pages and the daily journal.

The Mega List was an idea from the other thread - a big list of all the fixes, little diy jobs, decluttering jobs etc that need doing around your house.

Sorry - epic post. But anyway that's my bullet journal so far!

Ive been posting about this for yonks. It is brilliant.

ftmsoon - atm I basically do all the wifework because dh works, I don't, and the dc are at school. But there's no reason you couldn't just use a bullet journal for your own stuff. I'm not sure how it would work as one journal to share though...

Ooh have you, Doreen? Will search for your threads/posts!

Thanks Louise I will have a look at those apps. I might have a go at this for myself at work.

I am sitting here right now waging Eric Clapton and compiling my Mega List 2 pages in. Have been looking at bullet journals all day, I don't know what is putting me off them but something is stopping me going for it! I'm maybe too attached to my Filofax.

Watching not waging! Ha!

Maybe it feels too weird to structure it your own way if you're used to a Filofax? Bendy (can't quite bring myself to abuse the lovely Benedict's name by using your whole username ).

Haha, sorry :)

Yes maybe. So do you have to sit down the end of each month and plan out your pages for the next month? I think I'd feel a bit stressed out having the remember stuff for the next month before I've finished my pages for the current month. Eg what if you have a dentist apt in Feb but it's only Jan so do you have to hold it in your head until then? Because what if you need to add another notes page for Jan, but you've already done the month plan thug for Feb so there's no room for the extra January page... I'm confused

Also things that are more than 6 months in the future??

For the Jan/Feb dentist question - no because you put any advance events etc in your 'Future Log ' (double page divided into 6 for the 6 months). You could do a year's Journal rather than 6 months if you wanted though. Though you might end up having to continue into a new notebook if you ran out of space!

I guess I mean what happens if you have an event in month 11 but you're only in month 3? Gig/holiday/due date/wedding etc. I guess you just write it in month 6 so you remember when setting out months 7-12.
Innnnnteresting, will definitely be spending some time on Pinterest tomorrow! Thing is I can never find beautiful stationery :(

I love it ! I even did the crowdfunding for the new bullet journal website.

The first 12 pages of mine after the index are one page month diaries.

Otherwise i would double book stuff.

You can print them from websites, and to the size you need them, stick them in and you are up and running.

Ah, so you do a whole year one then, DoreenLethal? I just started with 6 months because that was the example given on the website (and because I didn't know how much room I'd need).

The other thing I'm including on each monthly calendar page is a 'habit tracker'. I'm picking 3 things which I want to train myself to do regularly /daily (e.g. drink X amount of water a day, run 3 times a week, go to bed by a certain time etc) and tick each day I do it.

GrimDamnFanjo - cool! I didn't really know about crowdfunding and just googled it. Are you a long-time bullet journaler?

Ah that's a good solution Doreen. So a 12 month calendar thing then into your 6 month forecast thing.

Jump in as I want to re start the bullet jounaling. I was going well but changed notebooks and I got a but slack.