If you're new to Bullet Journaling or curious about them but don't quite know where to start, hopefully this post will give you everything you need to know about how to set up your very own!
What I love about the Bullet Journal method is how customisable it is. There's so much freedom with it that there is no limitation with what you write inside it! It can be as basic as having just a note book and pen, or as intricate as doodling and colouring on every page. It's totally up to you!
What is a Bullet Journal?
A Bullet Journal (or BuJo for short) is a diary/ journaling method that caters to you and your needs. Not only can you keep track of your day to day life and errands you have to run, but you can also keep track on variety of things! You can keep track of your savings, books you might want to read, track how much you've paid off a certain debt, weight loss, movies to watch, Birthdays. You can keep track of ANYTHING!
It's an amazing way to reflect and become more productive in your life because everything is in one place and in one book.
What do I need to start my own Bullet Journal?
Honestly, you only need a Pen and a Notebook. However it can take a while to set up your Journal for the first time, so try to start it when you have plenty of free time. There are hacks however which I will explain later on. There are quite a few people who are passionate about their Journals, that they make theirs so pretty and aesthetically pleasing, not to mention they have hundreds of different type of pens in their stationary stash. Don't feel intimidated by this, and that your Journal has to be the same. It really doesn't.
The favourite notebook within the Bullet Journal community is the Leuchttrum 1917, dotted notebook. You can get them in a variety of colours, choose between the pages being dotted or blank. A lot prefer the dotted notebook as it helps keep everything tidy and acts as a guide. Some YouTubers who post video's on their journal set ups will tell you the measurements of a certain section by the dots, which is always handy if you ever wanted to recreate the same spread!
The notebook itself has numbered pages, it has a few Index pages so it saves you time setting up your own index pages (or you don't have to use the index at all), and it has an envelope at the back of the book so you can store your own stickers or little notes!
If interested, you can find the Leuchttrum 1917 books on Amazon here.
How do I start my Journal?
So the way a Bullet Journal is set up is that you start with a Key/Legend followed by a "Year in a glimpse". A Key/ Legend is basically an index of symbols used in your journal when you're mapping out your schedule. i.e. you can have a circle which means a task or a triangle means an event and when said task/event is done you colour it in to show its complete, or if a date has changed, place an arrow through it to show its been migrated to another day.
Below is the Yearly calendar at the front of your Journal so you can always flip to it if you ever need to check a certain date! Some people may handwrite the whole calendar (like I did. Yes my hand hurt after). But a hack for this is to just print off the calendar and stick it onto the page. Be sure it fits the page though!
The next couple of Pages will then be your "Future log". This is where you can write down all the important dates in the month, that you need to remember such as birthdays or anniversaries, so when you set up your journal for a particular month, you can flip back and see all the dates you need to remember.
From here, What ever it is that you want to keep track on in general and through the year is known as your "Collections". This is where you dedicate a page or 2 on the things that you want to priorities in the year. In my collection, I've included a Savings Tracker where I aim to hit my target goals by the end of the year. I made it up as a bar chart so every time I've saved £50, I can colour in a block in my Finland Fund so I can see how much I've saved and how much is needed to reach my goal!
I've also dedicated a page titled as "Travel Tracker". One of my goals in the New year is to go out more and visit more places. In this page I can keep note of the date, place and what activity we did, whether its a walk, a day out or an event. I've also set up a couple of pages to keep note of what books I want to read and movies/TV shows I want to watch.
You can have as much or as little as you want in your collections, and with out trying to sound cliché, the options are endless!
Once you've done your Yearly collections, you can then move on to your monthly set up. It's advised to do this a month at a time as you don't know how many pages the January set up will take, or if there's anything you want to change for the next month you can. That's one of the great things about this method is you can change your set up style from month to month or even week to week until you find the perfect set up and what works for you! So say you're in the last week of January, you can then start your February set up ready for when the month begins.
I've seen many people start their months with a bigger version of the calendar month written out, so they can pencil in certain events and dates, but I personally find this repetitive as I already have my future log to look back on for those dates, so I left that part out and went straight in with my goals and then my monthly collections. These collections are what you'd want to focus on and keep track of through the month. For example I've made a page for the goals I want to achieve in January. If I manage to complete a goal, I will colour in the box next to it! I've also added a page to keep track on my bills so I can manage my money better.
Another popular feature in monthly collections by many people is keeping a Habit Tracker. This is great for the smaller things you want to keep consistent in everyday life. It's laid out as a graph with the number of days in the month horizontally, whilst the habits you want to keep track on are written vertically. If you manage to do a habit in the day e.g. read a book or go for a walk, you make a mark to show that you've done it, and that way you can see by the end of the month you can see what habit you've incorporated and which habits you might want to work on. I've also laid out 2 further trackers to keep count on how many hours I sleep and how many glasses of water I'm drinking a day.
This way I can hold myself accountable for what I might be slacking on.
When you're done with the monthly collections, you then start your weekly log. This is where the journal becomes more like a conventional diary where you jot down what you need to do everyday in the week. I've kept mine pretty simple and easy to follow with plenty of space to write things down without bombarding myself with too much everyday. I even added a 'Notes' section so I can keep note of what I might need to do the following week or changes in my schedule.
As you can tell, I'm not really the artsy type, so I've left my pages rather bare, minimilist and a few unfinished as I'm still deciding on a few things, but hopefully in time, it will become fuller and more colourful!
If you're creative then you can add doodles to your pages or make them more fun with maybe a book shelf with books with the name of a book you want to read, and once you've read it, you colour in the book!
There are so many videos on YouTube on Bullet Journaling, you can follow along and recreate some of the spreads the YouTubers create in your journal or simply create your own! Pintrest is another place to get amazing ideas and inspiration for spreads to try out.
I hope this has been helpful in some way and that I've explained things clearly enough. I'd love to hear from you if it has been helpful, if you have started your Journal or would like to start a Bullet journal of your own!