Bullet Journaling Guide from a Beginner

 

Hello Everyone!

At the beginning of this year I started a Bullet Journal, and it is honestly amazing. I use it everyday and it has helped so much, I’m so much more organized and I love having everything in one place. The benefits of Bullet Journaling are huge, but I have to admit, when I first started looking into making one I was VERY overwhelmed. I was super confused as to what it exactly was supposed it be, as well as how you format it and such, I kept seeing all these beautiful, creative pages and feeling like I could never so this. Bullet Journaling is one of my favorite things now and I want to share a simple guide on how to get started. I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I thought as a beginner Bullet Journal user, I can give tips and tricks that I’ve learned.

What is your Bullet Journal?

A Bullet Journal can literally be whatever you want it to be! I know that’s super vague but it’s totally true. It can be a journal, scrapbook, sketchbook, planner, calendar, diary, the list is endless. I mainly use mine as a daily planner and journal and it works great for me!  Here are some sample pages from my journal showing my daily pages and a general idea of how I use it day to day.

Every day I write out my To- Do Lists and then the next day I’ll come back and write out the Highlights of that day, journaling a little and doing some fun doodles of the day. Usually I don’t use it over the weekends, but I will always come back and journal a little bit about the weekend.

 

How to Set Up Your Bullet Journal.

Setting up a Bullet Journal is beyond easy, and I know there are tons of good tutorials on how to do this, but I’m going to share my basic knowledge. Start with numbering your pages, I only did the first twenty or so, and just fill them in as I go along, it’s whatever for you!

Start with your front page for your key and index. Your Key will be helpful to show what different symbols mean ( check mark means finish, X means cancelled etc. )

Your Index is where you can mark where the pages you will want to continually refer to, for example in the middle of all my January to do lists and journal pages I wanted to make a page for  some of my 2017 goals, so I numbered the pages and recorded that my 2017 goals page was on page 20 in my index.

Here I also mark what colors mean what what, so, for example I know when I use the color orange it is a personal project, or when I use purple it is a music related project!

 

Besides daily To-Do Lists and Journal pages, I also include a monthly habit tracker, my blog schedule plan, and I have lots of pages for projects and goals.

 

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A Bullet Journal is essentially just a cute, creative outlet for you to organize all those thoughts that flit through your head. I used to always have a ton random sheets of paper and note books full of all my thoughts, plans and lists and now it’s so nice to have them all in one place!

Some more ideas:

• TBR Lists
• Monthly Habit Tracker
• Bucket List
• Blog Planner
• Monthly Calendar
• Inspiration Notebook (for poetry, sketching…)
• Weekly To-Do Lists
• School Notes

 

There is no “right way” to Bullet Journal, just get a cute notebook or moleskin and just start filling in your lists and you will start to figure out exactly how you want to use it!

Do you have an interest in Bullet Journaling?

Do you have any helpful Bullet Journaling Tips?