Bullet Journal thread 3: organise your life!

[Eolian]

For newbies... Bullet Journal is a special method of setting up and using a notebook as a calendar/planner/journal/habit tracker/bunch of lists/record of your achievements/diet log/exercise plan/doodle pad/anything you fancy all in one!

It is all over Pinterest and Instagram, so there's a whole world of inspiration out there. Much of what you'll see there is full of intimidatingly beautiful calligraphy and embellishment but yours doesn't have to be!

Explanation of the set-up to follow. Or you can jump right in by checking out the instructions and video on the Bullet Journal website .

The system can seem a bit strange and complicated at first, but we're here to help. And once you've got the hang of the basics, you can customise the system any way you like.

Oh and if you love beautiful stationery, this is the perfect excuse to indulge!

Somewhere on threats threads someone talked about a handwriting course/book. I think the course was online. Has anyone come across such a thing? My handwriting is awful!

My handwriting is awful too!

I haven't managed to get started as have had MIL here since Sunday. However I bought some lovely fine Staedler (sp?) pens in different colors and a lovely new turquoise notebook. It's bigger than A5 but not quite A4. I'm nt planning on taking it out so that's ok.

Looking forward to getting started.

I started one a few days ago and going forward next month I think I'll keep a separate, smaller one for the daily/monthly planner and tasks stuff and the bigger one I'm using now as my more private personal one. Kind of defeats the purpose but I don't want to leave around one that has kids present ideas and gratitude diary left out for the dc to see.

So far I have a habit tracker tied in with a mood tracker, more to see if keeping up with good habits can influence my mood. Spending tracker, gratitude diary (which I hate and will probably dump off it), meal planner and kids present ideas as I have their birthdays on top of Christmas approaching.

I haven't been on MN in months then just dropped into Active Convos when I should be working and saw this. So excited. Hello bullet journal people!

I've been doing mine since June and I love it so much. Mine is a Leuchturm 1917 in aqua with dots

Things I like best -
monthly Memories pages - where I do some little sketches to remind me of things that happened that month
my TBR books page - I drew a pile of books and wrote in the names of all the books I want to read this year. I colour in the spine of each book as I read it. I think I found the idea on Pinterest.
quotes in fancy lettering - so relaxing. I love finding a quotation that I love and then designing it and drawing it in my bujo.
Packing lists - I have generic packing lists for trips that I do regularly for work in my bujo
Sticky tabs so that I can quickly flip to the pages I need - labelled 'This month' (on my calendex) 'This week' (for weekly spread) 'Tasks'
Time trackers - where I colour in to show how I spent my time each day.

...and of course the task pages and weekly spreads which keep me so much more organised than I have ever been in my life...

But I don't do the monthly spreads any more. I have a month-per-spread calendex at the front of my bujo which I drew out to run for 12 months and I find that more helpful because I need to do a lot of forward planning for my work.
I also barely use my habit trackers - they always start out great at the beginning of the month and then peter off. I'm trying to figure out a better way of doing them.

But that's what I love - that I can keep adapting it as I go along.

I started my bujo when I was feeling really low. It has been the best therapy for me. I sit down in the evening with my coloured pencils, washi tape and 'bits' while watching TV with DH. Funny because I hated art at school and was notoriously bad at it... Honestly, I still am pretty cackhanded - my bujo isn't beautiful like the ones on Pinterest. But I find decorating it and filling it so soothing.

Excuse the mega-post. I'm just excited to find my people

Yay, welcome running! Dotted aqua Leuchtturm is the ultimate dream I need to hurry up and finish this BuJo!

I might do the books to read page, I definitely want to read more. What does TBR stand for?

I love my time tracker and I'm certainly using my habit tracker more now I've moved it weekly.

Friends, I need a better way to 'future plan' - I currently divide one page into 3 for the next 3 months, and write dates and events in there. However I'm pretty lax with it, and for example I have a couple of appts next week which I'm carrying in my head (which is completely against BuJo ethics) as it seems not far enough away to write in the future log 🙈 How silly! I'm thinking maybe I'll set out a couple of weeks at a time so I can write in next week's events as they come up, and always have the next week's layout ready........ I dunno, any ideas? Have I explained myself ok?

I know, right? I love my aqua dotted Leuchtturm. There are people out there who own Ferraris and superyachts who don't feel as happy as I do about my bujo. Thank you for your envy - no-one I know irl is remotely envious but... they just don't get it, do they?

TBR stands for 'To Be Read' - sorry! I drew it from this pinterest page uk.pinterest.com/pin/491385009325048664/
and then I wrote a list of all the books already on my bookshelf that I haven't got around to reading yet and put those on there first. I left a few spines blank so that when I hear about a book I want to read I can write it on there. And I colour in the spines when I've read the book. Love it so much.

I had the same issue with future planning - I book a lot of appointments for my work 6 months in advance, and there are lots of conferences etc. which can clash with school holiday dates so I needed something more than the 3 month section in the classic bullet journal.

I devoted twelve spreads at the front of my bujo to a month-to-view calendar that I've drawn out page by page. I've left a bit of space around the calendar so that if it's just a general reminder for that month I can write it at the side. It does mean that when I fill this bujo I'm going to need to redraw a few of those months as I'll finish the current one before I run out of calendar iyswim. But it's a small price to pay for having everything in one place so that it doesn't get forgotten.

I just had a bit of a splurge on Etsy. Washi tape, stickers and cute Japanese paper. So I'll be checking the post three times a day for the next week or so...

Ah yes, 12 spreads at the front seems a good idea! Simple, but never thought of that. Duh!

Definitely going to do the book thing, I'm massively trying to unplug my life and more reading should be a part of that! I tried to work out TBR, thought it would be something along those lines but I only thought of Books To Read

I'm definitely going to get myself a Leuchtturm for Christmas and if I haven't finished current BuJo by then I will abandon it and start Leuchtturm in the new year regardless. I have had this BuJo since Feb and it's only a bit more than 1/2 full!!

My monthly spreads at the front make me a bujo rebel . The systems for logging tasks and weekly spreads work really well for me - I use a similar layout to Boho Berry for those.

I'm going to get another Leuchtturm for Christmas too - mine is exactly half full and I think I'll finish it around then. I'm already hoarding supplies to use when I set up the new one

Glad you found us, Runningoverthefields! You sound like a true enthusiast!

I've just found another way in which the BuJo is a life-saver. I have to fill in a tax return for the first time ever and it's seriously freaking me out as I am financially clueless and disorganised. But the fact that I have all the dates of my private tutoring and classes in my BuJo is really helpful for checking up on payments etc. I'm still freaking out about it though.

Thank you for the lovely welcome on this thread - I feel very at home here already.

Eolian I'm right there with you freaking out about tax returns - I have to do one this year too. I haven't earned much outside of PAYE but obviously I have to declare it. My blood runs cold just thinking about numbers/maths/money - all that stuff! Glad your bujo has come to the rescue. Mine doesn't have anything useful in it this time. I should work that in for next year....

Glad it's not just me! Now I know I put those payslips somewhere... The stupid thing is it's very unlikely I'll have to pay any additional tax as I too have not earned much outside of PAYE. But I'm terrified of getting it all wrong!

My bookmark post its have been annoying me so I've just gone through and washi-ed the side of each important page :) yay!

Welcome back TeaPleaseLouise - hope you find it!
Liking the washi Bendy (still can't bring myself to type your full username ) - I definitely couldn't be doing with flappy post-its.

I've just had an idea of what to do instead of a habit tracker. Instead of a tracker on my weekly spread, I'm going to have a little 'focuses for the week' box. It will be for the same kinds of things I'd put in a habit tracker but without the disheartening, guilt-inducing and all-too-often unticked tick boxes . Just a few little reminders - "Drink more water!", "Check kids' school bags!" "Go for a run!". I'm just not self-disciplined enough for a tracker.

Eolian that's funny as I was just about to post asking what people had in their habit trackers.
I'd like to read more books so could put that in?

I know I could google suggestions but it might make me feel slobby and inadequate and I really like the BuJo in real life vibe here

Other things I've tried to track have been alcohol consumption, diet-related aims, musical instrument practice, knitting (which I love, but rarely seem to get around to) and meditation (again, great thing to include in my day, but often doesn't happen).

My habit tracker (first time, started this week) has a mixture of personal and household habits - I'm a halfhearted follower of the Flylady household management system and am using the BuJo to implement some of her stuff.

So, personal - no alcohol, walk 10k steps, 5 a day, pelvic floor exercises.

Household - run vac round downstairs, mop kitchen floor (we're in and out to the garden all the time so it needs it), clear floors before bedtime, wipe down bathroom and Flylady's Daily Mission (a more detailed cleaning task published daily on the Flylady website, I write these down for the week in the Bujo weekly pages.).

Oh it's good to hear about all of your habit trackers as I'm wrestling with this one...

The habits I'm tracking (or "failing to track consistently" if I'm honest) are:-

Wrote 1000 words of my book
Pelvic floor exercises
5-a-day fruit & veg
Exercise
Prayer & Meditation
Outfit (i.e. did I wear something that looked nice, properly ironed etc.)
Current Challenge (ie did I take action on whatever my current challenge is - eg in November it would be Nanowrimo)

I don't feel that I've got a handle on my habit tracker at all. It feels like a stick that I beat myself with rather than a useful habit changing tool.

And then I also have a time tracker where I shade in how I plan to spend my time each day and then shade in next to it how I actually spent my time.

I have colour codes for:
Paid work
Writing
Learning
Self care
Leisure/Family
Tasks/Family
Internet/procrastinating

I think that this works a bit better for me - and I'm wondering if I could combine the two somehow so that I schedule time for my habits and then track how I actually spent the time if I didn't do them. But I'm not sure there are enough colours in the rainbow for that

Sounds like you and I are very similar with our habit tracker habits, Runningoverthefields! I'm supposedly writing a book too, but it has been very much on the back burner for a while.

The time tracker has never quite appealed to me though - can't quite get my head around it somehow. I'm going to try doing my 'focuses for the week ' thing and see if that's any use. It's not a very controlled or systematic way of doing it, but the controlled ways don't seem to work for me. A stick to beat myself, as you say!

Hi all, I'm a long time lurker on these threads, and I'm jumping in on the tracker talk as I'm also not getting along with mine. It currently sits in a corner of weekly plan and I use it to track a few personal things (water, pelvic floor, exercise) and more for my DCs things (listening to reading, spellings, music practise). Very few are things I want to do every day, it's more a reminder of things I want to do 3 or 4 times a week and when I last did them.

But the layout of 7 boxes to tick leaves me feeling inadequate if I only do 3, even if that is actually my target, and some most weeks I don't even set it up. I think re-naming it will be a start in making me feel better - any suggestions please? I've only come up with 'record' so far, which is dull as dishwater. Is anyone doing anything target related, rather than tracking, that has a layout which is more motivating?

Thanks all - reached the end of my bus journey now, but will check in later with a bit more about me and my journal, so I introduce myself properly instead of just leaping in and demanding answers!

I made a cleaning tracker the other day and have only done a few half arsed attempts at completing it, definitely won't include that for October. Looking forward to starting my October spreads because I've already got a few things I want to change.

Still unsure about writing a daily or weekly page, might just try it out and see how I get on. My month on one page is very unexpectedly filling up and I'm running out of space.

I'm another one pondering habit tackers.

I've been mooching around on Pinterest and have decided to go for a monthly habit tracker. Plan is to split it into sections (family, me, house...) and have a box per habit to colour, but at the end I plan to write down how many days I'm aiming to do each habit. So for example, I want to do more obedience practice with my dogs, so I think I'll give them a row each with a goal or 12 days this month to see how it goes. I'm hoping it will be less pressure than aiming for every day and will avoid that feeling of missing one day and feeling like I've failed!

Following your idea Bella, I've redrawn my habit tracker for this week just with the number of boxes I want to fill, rather than daily ones. I've filled them with the letter of the day of the week so I can see when I did what. Eg DC1 practises music daily and alternates between piano and guitar, but as all the days merge into one I struggle to remember which turn it is, so logging the day will help and there are 3 boxes for each instrument. I will report back on its success