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I have found my love for the bullet journal in the past two weeks, and I’ll be honest, I am completely addicted. Here is an introduction to what the bullet journal actually is and things I have done in my personal BUJO to organise every aspect of my life.

What is a Bullet Journal?

I came across the bullet journalling community on Pinterest and fell in love with the idea of having a place for all of the lists I could ever imagine, and all in an aesthetically pleasing way that is particular to my own personal style. I have taken inspiration from so many pinterest boards and youtube videos, and planned out what fits my lifestyle perfectly. I have always been a huge fan of writing down to do lists and having my plans physically written down on paper, so the entire bullet journal fits straight into that and combines aspects of a planner and a to do list into one beautiful life organiser. What I am loving about the bullet journal is that there is no restrictions as to what you put in your book, unlike pre-printed planner pages, you can have the freedom to do whatever you want, wherever you want. The journal that I am using is a Leuchttrum 1917 A5 dotted notebook, which is absolutely amazing, the dotting of the pages makes displaying neat designs simple, I would definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to create a bullet journal.

Collections

When I was setting up my journal, I planned out all of the collections that I thought I would get the most use out of and would serve a purpose in making me more productive and organised. I wanted these collections to be easily accessible at the beginning of my notebook as these would be the pages that I would be continually returning to and filling in over a longer period of time.

I have started off with a future log, showing a calendar style overview of the remaining months of the year as well as a place to input any events in the following year. This is a great place to keep dates of important events, then can be looked back on when planning more detailed monthly and daily spreads.

Other spreads that I have found very handy so far have been my savings log, birthday tracker, online order tracker and wishlist/gift list. These are lists that before my bullet journal I would find myself making over and over again, where as now I have all the information I could possibly need together in one place (plus it looks super pretty). I created a reusable meal planning and shopping list spread so that I can organise my meals and write a shopping list simultaneously, this way reducing the chance of me forgetting anything. For me I am saving reams of paper by making the spread reusable by incorporating the use of post-it notes which can be swapped in and out when needed, without needing to rewrite headers on a new page every week.

I am mostly using my bullet journal for time saving, productive list making, however I am a sucker for all things Disney so when I saw a bullet journal Disney film tracker on Pinterest I had to recreate it for myself. It is a really fun spread and I will be sure to watch every single film on the list.

Monthly & Daily Planning

For my monthly pages so far I like to keep things quite simple with a month title page, a month overview, a spread for memories throughout the month and a habits tracker. These are pretty standard bullet journalling pages and so far they are really working for me. Similar to the future log, the month overview spread is set up in a calendar style and is a place that I can plan future events and activities for the month ahead. The habit tracker is somewhere that you can write a list of tasks that you complete on a regular/daily basis (make bed, no spending, laundry etc) and can tick off daily throughout the month. This spread saves a lot of writing repeat tasks every single day in the daily task sections.

Many bullet journalists also include weekly spreads after their monthly plans, however so far I am content with my combination of monthly and daily pages, it is working well for me and saves my time rather than writing a lot of things down, meaning I can remain just as organised but also have time to spend on my University work. Currently my daily pages are extremely simple, this way I find it easy to keep on top of, I write a header of the date/day and then a quick list of tasks I need to complete that day. I do this every evening for the following day, meaning I wake up to a prepared list of easy tasks to get on with. I can add any tasks throughout the day because I have unlimited space before I start another day. There is something so satisfying about crossing off a task when it’s completed that really makes the bullet journal motivate me to be productive throughout the day.

I have been loving getting creative with my spread designs and I am really getting into trying out different types of fonts and styles to really make my bullet journal my own. Hopefully I will keep it up start to feel huge benefits and increases in my productivity from now on. If you are a list maker looking for a creative way to organise and plan your life then bullet journalling is definitely for you!