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!

Here's what mine looks like.

Thanks Eolian - looks good. Think I'll find that more user-friendly than page-a-day; I keep having to flip back and forth to migrate the many tasks I don'tcomplete!

I need to do more with my BuJo. My brain feels like a mess at the moment and I know it will help if I structure myself better and get some tasks done. Tat said I better get off MN.

But I'm checking in so I can catch up and read back later. Be back soon!

Place marking.

Hi MrsNutella and Babblehag .

I've had a bit of a faffing about morning and need to tick off some tasks. .

What do you do when you've filled up one BuJo? I'm nearly at the end of my first one and there are lots of lovely lists and things that I still need - it seems a bit of a pain to have to copy them all out for the next one... I'm beginning to see why Filofaxes were so popular!

I do like it though. I'm finding that I'm using it to jot down stuff that's happened too, important stuff, which is good for tracking when I've spoken to people/emailed/telephoned about important things.

Yes I find it useful for that too! Some lists you might want to copy into your new one, some which you use less frequently could maybe stay in your old one to refer back to. And I have a couple which I just continue on into my new one but might need to refer occasionally to the early bits of the list in ky old one iyswim.

My friend introduced me to bullet journaling for my birthday, I looked into it before then but it was quite faffy and I didn't quite get the concept either, and then she brought me a beautiful leather bound journal with nice paper in it. (which I haven't used because its so nice) so I invested in an arc journal from staples, its got a leather case, with different types of paper and a sticky note thing and dividers etc, the best bit is I can shift my notes around because the pages are not only removable but replaceable too, they sort of clip in. I still haven't got the concept of it which is why I'm here, but I think it deserves to be used properly.

I now have two! One for home and one for my role as school Governor.

I may even start a third as I am a Brownie unit helper.

Love them. So glad I started reading this thread

Babblehag - the best place to start is the bulletjournal.com website (or maybe my condensed explanation at the beginning of the first thread).

There is a huuuge amount of other stuff about bullet journaling on blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram etc, but it might be best to get your head around the basics before letting yourself loose on all the show-offy stuff and 'hacks'!

I just wanted to show you this "Books to read" page because in really happy with how it turned out. I got the idea from Pinterest and as I read a book, I colour it in.

I'm torn between what seems more logical and what makes me more productive. Up until now I've been using a monthly spread and daily pages- monthly containing dates, my rota etc and a monthly goals/to do this month sort of thing. Daily is just a daily to do list which at the end of the day is reviewed, tasks migrated to the next day as needed. A weekly spread would be better as I could see at a glance when dh and I are working, what childcare plans are in place and anything that's coming up in the week. I trailed a spread with mon-sun down one page and a to-do on the opposite side but I'm finding the massive list unmotivating as several jobs can't be completed until later in the week, and it feels like I'm adding jobs faster than I'm ticking them off.

My friend is just starting a bullet journal... maybe she's incognito on this thread!!! we both have the bookshelf page too :)

I have search and researched, I have seen pretty adaptations, and the basic bullet journal concept, it will help me organise my life... and condense my millions of notebooks, most of which I never really look through unless its something specific, my last one was a lined a4 notebook which had half a book empty except for page numbers and headers as I'd found recipes for alcoholic cupcakes, but didn't write the full recipe in, thinking I'll just be able to search online for it. In hindsight, I could have just wrote the URL down and saved a whole load of paper. I have my arc, which owing to the flexibility of it ill be prettying up, as and when and when I see something I like and try and copy/steal it. But will be using the one my friend got me for my bag as its smaller, and soft cased, I can always get new paper for it. And that will be very basic.

Wow Eolian - your journal is a work of art, beautiful handwriting! I have dipped in and out of this thread and had a quick look at the actual website but I am still a little apprehensive If I am honest. I am a world class procrastinator and I can't decide if BuJo ing is going to save my life or just be something that I spend ages setting up and then use it as an excuse to avoid action. I worry that I will spend ages writing in it and making it look gorgeous and just end up with more things to do. I know you can't really answer that but I am wondering if anyone else has become more organised and productive using this system. I only ask as I imagine you were all very together already and bu jo is just a lovely addition to that. Thanks

Thank you! I am not very artistic and my BuJo started off very plain and unembellished. As I went on, I started to do slightly fancier titles and the occasional bit of embellishment, but I still like my pages to look uncluttered and I don't want to start spending much time on prettifying.

The two types of writing I do for my titles are 'faux calligraphy' (which looks pretty much like you've done it with a proper calligraphy pen but is really easy to do and uses any old normal pen. And block capitals but with wide, coloured in down-strokes. Not at all time-consuming but quite striking.

Anyone else have more than one? I now have four. Should I condense them to one big one when they are all full?

I think if you have four you would never have the right one to hand.
I do have a work and a home one, but I think that's enough!

No only have one. For me, a large part of the attraction of the system is having everything in one place. If I were teaching full time in a school (rather than doing odd bits of part time), I wouldn't be able to fit all my work planning in my BuJo, but that would go in a normal teacher's planner and I'd have my BuJo as a home one.

Mmm. Maybe I should combine them. Still, I had four notebooks to fill up, so I can justify a posh one when this are done!

*these, not this

I saw a video on "Minimalist Bullet Journals" Facebook group (I love this group, I'm not very arty but like things neat) and had a brainwave- for each month I'm going to do a month overview dps (calender on one page, monthly goals/tasks on other page) then do 4 weekly layouts one after the other, so I've essentially got a big standard week to view diary for the month. Currently I'm doing a dps with the week on one side and my task list on the other. That way, I can plan my month a bit better and any extra lists/pages can just go after my last week of the month, so in time the journal will be October, weeks 1-4, random lists, November, weeks 1-4, random lists... Etc. A bit more organised keeping the weeklys together.

I like the sound of that anantha - have juststarted my first dps for the week rather than a page a day. Seems more sensible for me.
I nearly asked what a dps was ut then realised as I started typing it out in the first sentence .

That's exactly what I do annatha , and it works really well for me. I used to do an ongoing run of daily journal entries, just drawing a line under each day wherever it finished and starting the next one. But I soon realised that a double page spreaf was actually a good fit for a week's daily entries and it allows you to set it up in advance.

Glad to hear it works! I've got a couple of things that can't be done until next week but then need doing asap so I was a bit stressed about sticking them on my vague October monthly spread and forgetting about them until it's too late, whereas in a standard diary I would just write them in the week they needed to be done. Plus I got a bit overexcited and did my October dps about 18 pages ago so it'll be nice having a whole month together.