intro to bullet journaling
- Missy
- May 17, 2020
- 3 min read
During the lockdown, it’s easy to either have too many projects to do, or nothing at all. Regardless of where you stand on that, if you’re in anyway artistic or like lists you’re going to love bullet journalling. The premise of bullet journalling is to organise your hobbies and life into easy-to-digest lists, and track your thoughts. It can be a lot easier to keep on top of what you need to do and accomplish when it’s written there in front of you.
I feel that in this day and age, with the constant pressure to be productive and successful, it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by everything that you need to get done. I bought my bullet journal a year ago, and it has really helped me set concrete goals, prioritise my tasks and think big. When I set a huge goal, be that starting a blog, learning to drive, whatever, it’s so much easier to break it down piece by piece and just focus on the next step.
It’s super easy to get started; get yourself a bullet journal and some pens, turn on your favourite Netflix show and get creative!
Here are some bullet journals to get you started;
(it’s important to note that it’s not absolutely required to have a bullet journal- any kind of notebook or copy will do. The dots help to organise your page and make it easy to create little drawing, graphs or frames, but it’s not essential!)
track habits & goals
There are so many ways to use your bullet journal; as a scrapbook, as a monthly/weekly/daily agenda, or for lists. Creating your own agenda is a great way of staying on top of daily life while being able to customise your layout for what you really need. I like to use mine to track my habits; how often I work on my blog, go for a jog, etc. If you have a goal in mind, for example jogging three times a week, creating a tracker is a quick and efficient way to see where you stand. Start by deciding on a key; define what a task looks like, what a completed task looks like, etc.
top tips!
If you’re drawing or want to play around with the layer of your page, I find it’s always a good idea to sketch or draw first before you use a pen. A 4B pencil is nice and dark but, if used lightly, is easy to erase after the pen ink has dried. A standard H pencil is a bit too sharp and won’t erase completely.
If you don’t have Pinterest, now is the time to get one! I like to think that mine is a visual extension of my bullet journal (and my blog too, you can follow me here), where I can organise images that inspire me. It’s also a great place to keep all of your bullet journal and artistic inspiration! I have a folder full of frame ideas, list ideas, drawing ideas,- you name it! (and you can find it here!)create your lists!
Who else loves a good list? I feel like I live by them. Having a good think and writing a list is in itself very therapeutic, and ticking things off one by one is just glorious. You can list anything; CDs you need to add to your collection (am I the only one who still buys them?), Netflix shows you fancy watching- or even new seasons that you haven’t quite managed to watch yet!
track projects
Because bullet journalling is so flexible, it’s easy to dedicate a whole project to a page. My blog, for example, is an ongoing project that has many moving parts that I need to keep track of. Whether that’s my content schedule, the photos I need to take for specific posts, etc.
decorate!
The beauty of your bullet journal is that you can be as minimalist or as decorative as you like. Whether you just want to use your pen to simply list, or you like playing with colours and backgrounds to create little masterpieces on every page, the decision is up to you. Again, I get a lot of inspiration from Pinterest. You can draw little images, pretty frames, or use a range of other creative add-ons;
Washi tape
Magazine cuttings
Embelishments
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