My Bullet Journal

In November of 2015 I ran across something on Pinterest, it was called a Bullet Journal and I decided to try it out. I found an old notebook that only had about 20 pages left and tried it out. After filling that journal I moved on to a new notebook and filled that one too. I am now on my 4^th bullet journal in 2 ½ years and it has changed my life.

For those of you who don’t know what a bullet journal is, it is not a typical journal, it does not involve writing about your day or anything of the sort. It is more of a book of lists; to-do lists, packing lists, any list you want. You can search the internet and you will find ideas all over Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and blogs. People all over America, and I’m sure in other countries as well, are jumping on the bandwagon. Ryder Carroll first came up with the idea and shared his system with the world here which is the simplest system. Then there are many people who have along and added their own thing (like Boho Berry, and Pretty Prints & Paper), which is exactly what Carroll wanted, it is designed so you can change it to fit YOUR needs and YOUR notebook and YOUR schedule, there is no one size fits all system here.

You start with any notebook and any pen. You don’t have to have anything special. Many people have specific notebooks they like which are a bit expensive and colorful pens, markers, stickers and the like. And that is the beauty you can make it as simple or fancy as you want. When you find a notebook and pen you want to use you can get started. I would suggest starting with these links.

BulletJournal getting started 

Boho berry you tube how to 

Boho Berry BoJo 101 

Advice for beginner JoGoer's

I may have been doing this for a few years now but there is no way I can beat these how to pages.

So go look, I will wait……

So now that you know how to start and such, here are a few pages in my BoJo that I have come up with to a point. In the BoJo community everyone is always borrowing and mixing and combining ideas. Most of these ideas come from Boho Berry with a few teaks for me as a college student but some of them I don't even remember where I got the idea. I wish I could give all credit where credit is due, but I know I wont be able to find all of them. S o here are some pages I have that I want to show you and tell you what I use them for. Some of them are from my old notebook and some are from my current and some I will show both the old and current to see some of the changes.

First is my planning and daily routine spread. on one side I have my BoJo planning routine and on the other Daily weekly and monthly chores along with my morning and evening routines. this page is mostly for reference to make sure I did everything I want to get done each day.

 The next page I want to show you guys is my to read, to see spread. This a fancy list of books and movies for when I'm bored. if you guys have any ideas for books or movies I should read/see please let me know!

 

Hello 2017!  This was a page I made to separate 2016 and 2017 in the same notebook I wanted it to match the tape on the edge. Many people do something similar monthly but I don't.

 

At the beginning of the year I choose a word (or two) I want to focus on that year and improve in my life. This year's words are faith and trust.

 

In many BoJo's you might find some kind of future planning pages. I don't really need to use one of those a lot but as a college student I want to know when my breaks and tests are so when I saw a take on it for a semester calendar I tweaked it and used it myself.

 

 

When I moved into my new BoJo the semester was already partially over so I changed it a bit to fit my needs.

 

I also made a class schedule and class info spread at the beginning of the semester with my schedule and color code on one side and on the other all he important class info like room numbers, professor names and contact info (I wont be showing that page for hopefully obvious reasons).

 

I have been using the Level 10 life from the book The Miracle Morning since the beginning of the year so the spread for that in my new BoJo looks like this....

 

 I have a page simply entitled Inspiration which is a list of inspirational quotes in fun colors.

 

 

During the month I track my Moods and turn it into a Mood Mandala. I got this idea from Boho Berry (here) and loved it.

 

I also keep a list of blogs I read (I posted on this here) and you tube channels I watch on this fun spread. 

Now at the beginning I said that my Bullet Journal changed my life and I want to tell you a bit about that. Before starting my BoJo I had tried journaling and planners and anything involving notebooks (I have a bit of an obsession with notebooks) and none of them ever stuck. I would stay with it for maybe 2-3 months before dropping it because it didn’t fit me. Making a to-do list was a bit hard because I would always lose them, or would think about making one but not have a place to put it. I had papers with other lists, like movies and books to watch, or routines, or workouts, every sort of list you can imagine on a paper. However, now all my lists are in one book which I always have handy for new ones. I took notes from my latest Interpreting Workshop in it and also the last book I read (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up). I’ve never stuck with something for this long and I’ve gotten so much more done since starting my bullet journal.

 

I’m sorry for the extremely long post today and thanks for reading to the end. Do you use a Bullet Journal or some other type of journal? Are you thinking about starting a Bullet Journal?

Until next time, Love God, Love Each other and Love Disney

~Lacey