I’ve been journaling for most of my life since I started writing. I started bullet journaling a couple years ago. For me, a bullet journal is just a place to keep track of anything I want.
Whenever I think of something I want to keep track of, I start a new tab where I start journaling about it. Right now I have tabs for bills, gratitudes, cleaning stuff, wins, positive ideas, worries, daily inspiration notes, projects, feel good things, etc.
What I like about bullet journaling is that I can add or delete a tab any time I want. If I get tired of tracking something, I just stop doing it. I can also add anything I want to track at any time.
But really, anything can be put in a bullet journal. Some people keep track of the books they read, the movies they watch, the special days in their life, their sleep, health, chores. . . etc. Many people use it like a planning calendar. Just about anything can be tracked in a bullet journal.
Some people like to use colors to make their bullet journal more eye-catching. Other people use only text. (I use a combination.) Some people even use digital bullet journals. There’s a whole subReddit on digital bullet journals that I’ve been exploring. I’ve been tracking my mood and my sleep and some other health stuff in a separate app so I don’t track those in my bullet journal.
Here are some ideas that others have for their bullet journal.
I found it useful last year when my husband died , there was so many to notify , and how far i got with the Coroner , organising the Funeral , writing it down was clearing my head at the end of each day , It was about 8 months later when my last entry went in ,
Ive not read it back and was thinking of burning it cause of the memories.
I’ve never heard of a bullet journal. Is that an English expression?
I just keep a diary, but forget to write in that half the time.
Th only other thing i do is jot down on a bit of paper things i need to see to the next day.
I think it comes from the term ‘bullet points’ because people use bullet points in lists. It’s basically like your lists of things to do written mostly in one place.
Ah, thought so, it started in America. Just looked it up.
Apparently it was started by an American called Ryder Carroll in 2013.
"
Bullet journaling – the analogue method for the digital age – was created by New York-based digital product designer and author, Ryder Carroll, and introduced to the world via a small personal website in 2013. Unbeknownst to Carroll, his innovative journaling system was about to irreversibly rock the world."
It reminds me a bit of being back at school and taking exams and making complicated revision timetables that we never stuck to
Some of them are very creative but I think I’m better off using my spare time to get my jobs done and on creative projects rather than making a journal planning getting my jobs done and being creative!
I don’t know if you had them in the US but I like old fashioned school exercise books. They used to lined paper with a margin and matt card covers
I order them in bulk and use a different one for each thing. I’ve got a shopping and menu planner one, a fridge/freezer/food cupboard audit one, an ideas one, a gardening one, a decorating one, a writing one, a work one, at Christmas I have a Christmas planner one, you get the picture!
I don’t think they need to be. If someone is going to make a shopping list anyway, they can make it in one place. If they’re going to create a to do list anyway, it’s easier if they can find the list. For me, it’s just simple stuff like that.
However I do use Google Keep on my phone for a shopping list and recording odd things that I need to remember but I have enough junk without cluttering the place up with notebooks and journals.
I’m going to start something like a bullet journal. I want eevrything in one place, rather than different notebooks for things. I like the tabs, and index ideas too!
Ironically, I recently started going the other way, creating project books outside my bullet journal. I started one on money issues 6 months ago. I wrote in it every day. I can now look back and see how things have changed.
I liked how that worked so much that I started another one on connections and people.
I could have used tabs for these but it was easier to grab a book and that reminded me to do it every day. I’ve been thinking about getting more composition books, but there is probably a limit to how many of them can be going simultaneously until it gets distracting.
Yes, this was my thinking too…to have different notebooks for different things, and it worked for a while until I had about 13 books on the go for all my different projects and household things. It just gets a bit much, because I write a lot in them. So, I thought if I had a “one-book-fits-all” approach, it would help me write just the bare facts, rather than expansive notes all leading to different things. (mind mapping style), it would be something I could carry with me all the time (travelers journal idea where you can add and remove pages whenever you like)
Haha. Yes, this is what’s happening to my bullet journal. It’s getting so heavy that I’m less inclined to even move it to jot something really small in it. And I’m even less inclined to journal anything in depth in it. I know that having piles of paper everywhere isn’t the way to go. I tried that (unintentionally) two years ago.
I’m still experimenting which is what I like about the bullet journal. It’s versatile.
I like the mind mapping idea. I’ve tried software for that in the past.
Please share how your adventures go with this. I’m always looking for new ideas on how to organize stuff.
It is too time consuming for me. I used to have a diary yearly, but instead of it being a comfort, it was a chore at the end of the day.
A quick jot on my daily calendar is enough for me.
That’s how I felt about gratitude journaling. They say that if you write 3 things you’re grateful for a day, it will make you happier. It made me miserable. Now I write things I’m grateful for because I feel like it. That works better for me. Everyone has their own unique style.
books, but there is probably a limit to how many of them can be going simultaneously until it gets distracting.
