I’m just 1 person who loves to bullet journal. Given the number of bogs, vlogs, Pinterest boards, Reddit threads, and Instagram accounts out there about bullet journaling, I’m far from alone. The core concept of a bullet journal (or bujo) is a journal in which they key items you want to accomplish in a day are displayed as a short, bulleted list.
Key Benefits of Bullet Journaling
- Organizing your life on paper (note: there are digital versions as well)
- Focusing your attention on tasks you can realistically achieve in a day
- Conglomerating all your notes, lists, plans, etc. into one tool
- Having a record of your daily accomplishments
- Tracking progress to build habits
- Constantly reflecting and reevaluating priorities
- Having an outlet for creativity
- Keeping events, deadlines, and long-term goals from getting away from you
- Customizing a planner so it can be exactly what you want it to be without wasting space/pages
There are hundreds of tutorials, but a good place to start is with this lesson about how rapid journaling works by the founder, Ryder Carroll. I have kept a bullet journal since 2018, and for the first three of those years, I didn’t use the rapid journaling method at all. Instead, my bulleted lists were the things I did in a day, rather than the things I needed to do. Now, my bullet journal contains both, along with all sorts of trackers, cover pages, collections, and more.
Typical Components of a Bullet Journal
Here’s a slideshow of the typical sorts of pages you’ll find in a bujo, with examples from some of my journals.
Index
a list of the pages in your bujo, so you can easily find what you’re looking for
Key
the symbols and colors you use in your bujo to indicate things like completed tasks, categories, months, etc.
Spreads
something that takes up more than one page of space
Cover Pages
a largely decorative page that divides one section or month from another
Future Logs/Year Logs
keep track of events, birthdays, long-term goals, anniversaries, etc. for an upcoming year
Month Logs
keep track of dates and anything else for an upcoming month
Week Logs
keep track of your daily tasks for an upcoming week
Trackers
keep track of your progress toward a practice you want to develop into a habit, such as taking meds, exercising, cleaning, etc.
Collections
groupings or lists for a certain topic such as books read, things you need to pack, a gratitude log, etc.
Practice
doodles, sketches, pen/marker tests, and other elements
Your bullet journal can have all of these components or just a few of them. What’s most important is to create a system that is useful to you. It doesn’t have to look as gorgeous as some of the pinnable spreads people share on the internet; it just has to work for you.
In the next post, I’ll be sharing some of my top tips and things I’ve learned throughout my years of keeping a bullet journal.
Do you bullet journal already? Do you use another sort of planner to keep yourself focused and organized?