Back to My Bullet Journal

Once again I must thank you for bringing Bullet Journal to my attention two (!!) years ago. I’ve been fairly consistent with mine (with a few month long breaks scattered here and there) and ultimately, it’s changed my organization habits for the better. Mine is totally basic like yours, although I did just buy a set of Staedler pens to add a little bit of color.

I love looking at the fun things people do with their journals, and sometimes I pick up a few hacks here and there but in the end I find simpler is better for me. I love using washi tape on the edges of pages I go back to frequently, and I just added a “bookshelf” page to track my reading for 2016.

Mine looks a lot like yours, although I do try to liven mine up a bit with doodles and washi tape. But my handwriting is terrible and my spreads are pretty basic. I love looking at the bujo porn on Instagram but I do wonder how much time some of these people spend making their bullet journals pretty instead of actually doing the stuff they write down in them.

Yay! so glad to hear it’s not just me that has messy, plain jane bullet journal. In fact I’m not sure my would be considered a ‘real’ bujo. But hey, it works for me and I get stuff done. I’m an extra large Moleskeine grid dot girl and after 6 months I think I have a system set up that works. Love me some washi tape to mark each month and all its weeks, projects and dreams. That’s all the color coding I do and it really helps to get me to the right page.

I’ve been a bullet journal convert since you first wrote about it two years ago (thanks!). I love the flexibility. I like looking at the beautiful versions online, but mine is messy all the way. I mix it up a bit with different colours, but still pretty basic. I think about doing pretty things, but I know that it would be a big distraction for me.

Much like other folks, you showed me the way to Bullet Journaling and it changed my work habits at the time! As a procrastinator who gets overwhelmed with too many tasks, I liked the Getting Things Done method, but couldn’t figure out a way that worked to track all these action items. I lapsed on the BuJo for about a year and am picking it back up again as of 2016 now that I work from home. I had no idea how much the world of fancy planners had exploded in the meantime and felt like I had fallen behind on what the concept was when I started following a couple of FB groups! When I started at my old job it was ONLY for work, so my idea of flair was using a skull and crossbones ribbon stapled in for a bookmark! After a week or two of feeling overwhelmed I realized i could take the good ideas and continue with what worked for me. I added a couple of pages I didn’t used to have – a few pages for Happy Thoughts so I can note a good thing each day, a budget tracker, and I’m trying a weekly tasklist in addition to the monthly and daily. I have some washi tape to add color, but also use it to make it easier to flip to months and frequently used pages. (And to cover up mistakes!) I bought a couple of stickers – a hydration tracker and some circles to draw a face on for mood tracking – and will see if I use those at all. But mostly it’s a plain old bulleted list of tasks with some collections at the back of the notebook. Even doing the bit of setup I do at the beginning of… Read more »

I’m closing in on the end of my second volume of bullet journaling (more or less) since first coming across it in your blog. A few thoughts: I do four week spreads instead of month spreads, and I do a whole whack of them at the beginning of the book. For each week on the four week spread I leave room for a subtotal. I use these spreads to track major occasions (travel, holidays, concert tickets) but also to track my work hours by week and medications that have a dose per week limit. On the right side of the spread, I put in goals in home, work and social categories. The goals are things that fit this: “If I don’t do/make progress on __________ during the next four weeks, I’ll feel sad.” At the end of the four weeks, I’ll check the goal off, or put an arrow next to it if I didn’t get it done indicating it has moved to the next 4 week spread or else leave myself a note about why the goal was abandoned. Here’s the funny thing: I don’t keep my daily/weekly to dos in my actual bullet journal – I keep them in Asana (an online task/project management site). For work stuff, I use a bullet journal like spread on a legal pad to summarize the major tasks whose details are in Asana. I find I need to keep that list front and center and visible at work at all times, and I also find the symbolism of LEAVING THE LIST AT THE OFFICE super helpful. My best hack for my work to do list is to start the week by counting up the hours during the week where I won’t be making progress on my to do list (meetings, mostly), and… Read more »

I love my bullet journal, and like you love to see what others do too. Have been doing it for about 3 months now and it goes everywhere with me.

[…] Back to My Bullet Journal […]

It is wo great to hear from others who are sticking with the simple bullet journal format. I love the looks but who has time for fancy decorations or tiny little spaces for to do lists. I also love knowing how people combine electronic organization with their journals. And I confess that I find the word bujo ugly and unappealing. Oh well!

THANK YOU. I went back to bullet journaling in June and I can’t even handle the cutesy stuff (also, how simple are these people’s lives that they can fit everything they need to do in a week on two pages of an A5 notebook. I do make my weekly spreads and my date headings pretty with flair pens and I think I’m going to steal the washi tape bookmark idea (right now I’m using paperclips on the week spread and the day page) but other than that… it’s a very functional mess.

Looking for ways to track in my passion planner, thanks for sharing your process!

I get really frustrated looking at people’s perfectly written and beautifully illustrated bullet journals. It’s not whatI want to spend my time on. I was a BuJo advocate for a while and fell out of the habit (mostly bc of the lack of the future planning, which I see lots of suggestions for these days). I want to get back into it, bc the parts that worked really worked. But every time I try to look for inspiration and guidance I find these ones that are so far from what I had done previously. I get the appeal, but just not for me. My life is too inconsistent and this is why the basic journaling system appeals more to me.

I LOVE THE INDEXING THOUGH! I use it for everything now. I made a separate notebooks for a few topics including one for a a long-term training course I’m in, and one for lectures, workshops, and worksheets for some personal goal and self-improvement work and I use the index so that I can come back to topics when the inspiration hits me, or after each class. I did something very similar (more of a table of contents) 10 years ago when I worked on my grad school thesis and I found it incredibly helpful then too.

I’m really feeling the need to do more personal reflection/journaling/morning pages style diary keeping and am thinking about adding that into this notebook as well so that I can write when I have the time instead of only when I’m home.

If you check the video by the inventor of the bullet journal pretty, pretty was not part of the system. So I would say you are doing the real thing!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfRf43JTqY4

I love my bujo! Mine is a Leuchtturm 1917 that I made into a weekly calendar. I have a chronodex stamp I use for everyday time management on the top portion of my pages and the bottom portion is where I keep my bullets. I also work my calendar from the front of the notebook and smashbook/sketchbook from the back, meeting in the middle. It sounds kinda weird, but I guess it works for me.