A Guide to Bullet Journaling

To journal or not to journal? That is the question. From its to-do lists, beautiful decorations, habit trackers, and other collections, bullet journals can be both functional and aesthetic. But what exactly are bullet journals and how can they be best used?

The origins of my current favourite planning method lie with its creator Ryder Carroll, who created the system in order to be more focused and productive. This organisational method is used for time management and reflection.

With just a physical notebook, a pen and decorative items if you desire, you can create and organise your bullet journal system. This journal is like a customisable planner or spread where you can track, list, and organise different aspects of your life.

How to use it

The bullet journal is a blank notebook that you fill in with goals, reminders, tasks, and events. A lot of them start off with an index or table of contents and then the spread for that month. Many persons draw a monthly calendar with the events for that month, and some have separately drawn calendars or tables for habits they are tracking so that they can improve in how often they do certain tasks like exercise or chores.

Persons also have to-do lists and reminders in their journals for day-to-day activities, and lists can also be made of movies watched, books read, music listened to, meals cooked or items baked for that month.

There are also different symbols that can be used in the daily log, habit tracking, and other sections. For instance, a checkbox can be used in the daily log and then ticked when the task is complete. There are other symbols you can use, such as bullet points for notes, striking through tasks no longer being executed, and anything else that works for you. Your symbols don’t need to look the same as those of others, just make sure it makes sense to you.

How I use it

I use it to track the books I’ve read that month, the recipes I’ve cooked and baked, and the school tasks I plan on doing on a day-to-day basis. I use minimal designs, some months adding more decoration than others based on the mood I’m in.

Decorating your bullet journal can be fun and there are a lot of Instagram pages of people showing their monthly bullet journal spreads with wonderfully creative designs. That said, the purpose of the bullet journal is not solely aesthetic, so have your cute designs but make sure the method is something that is working for you and that the decorations are not something that adds stress to your life or takes away from the usefulness of the method.

One of the benefits I have found in bullet journaling is how it draws attention to the things I care about, the hobbies I enjoy and the habits I want to improve on. It’s helped me maintain a study routine, and the act of writing in it is something relaxing to me.

If you’re like me and don’t want all your eggs in one basket, you can use your bullet journal for some things and digital systems for other things. For instance, I don’t always use the monthly log in bullet journalling, at least not in a super structured way.

Instead, any meetings or events I have, are put in my google calendar. Also, I still use a to-do list app for any non-school or work tasks that I want to get done. So instead of putting “wash hair” in my bullet journal, it goes in todoist, the digital to-do list app that I use. This works for me as I like the separation of using different tools for different tasks.

If you’re new to bullet journaling, here are some helpful tips to guide you.

Firstly, this planning method is a customisable system, so you can structure it in whichever way it suits you, adding things and leaving out others depending on your needs.

So, what are the basic bullet journaling categories?

There are four core collections in the bullet journal, these are:

• The monthly log, which gives the overview of events for that time period,
• the daily log, which has the day to day tasks and activities in it,
• the future log for activities that will occur beyond that current month,
• and the index which is the table of contents at the start of your bullet journal (Carroll, 2018).

Different Sections That Can Be Used

Index

The below image from my bullet journal is just an example of how your index can look. Your index is simply the page number and title of that collection.

Monthly Log

My monthly log normally consists of my goals for the month and other relevant activities I would like to get done.

Generally, the monthly log consists of a drawn calendar with events, meetings, and other activities placed on the dates they fall on. The calendar can be constantly referenced throughout the month and can inform how the daily log is used. A meeting on the 14th can be prepared for the week before based on tasks completed using the daily log. The monthly log gives a good overview of what will be happening for that month and when the month is over, it shows what that period of time was like and how this may influence how the next month goes.

Daily Log

The below shows my daily log with the tasks to be completed. The level of specificity in the to do list depends on the type of task, where newer tasks have more precise instructions and regular, routine tasks are sometimes more vague.

The daily log is like a to-do list, with the main items you want to complete for that day. Tasks can be listed in order of priority, with more important tasks listed in red ink for instance. When tasks are completed, they are checked off and any tasks not completed can be carried onwards to the next day.

As bullet journalling is a daily activity, when checking off the activities completed at the end of the day, you can reassess how important certain tasks are and what things can be done differently.

It’s important to note that the daily log tasks should be specific without turning into a paragraph-long explanation. So instead of ‘water fight’, you can write, ‘buy balloons for water fight to defeat my enemies’. Writing your entire strategic plan to win the water fight in the daily log section is also not necessary (you could probably put this in the goals section though).

Future Log

I don’t always do future logs as I don’t often have to plan things too far in advance. When I do use one, it usually consists of my favourite people's birthdays, as seen in the image below.

For events or projects outside that current month, the future log is a reminder of what comes next and those future activities you will need to focus on. Therefore, it is important that the entries listed here are easy to understand and access so that future you adding events in October 2022, knows what past you in June 2022 meant by ‘movie party’ for example. A more specific entry might be ‘Lord of the Rings party by Janice’s house’.

Daily Reflection

I call this my memories or gratitude section. It’s a reminder of joyful moments but also difficult times and how I got through them. The bullet journal can be used for reflection on memories or moments of that month, good ones, challenging ones and anything impactful that you think may be beneficial for future you.

It is a sort of snapshot of that moment in time. It’s especially great when you look back at past refection pages and think, “wow, this is where I was at a few months ago,” or “these are the things I most enjoy doing”. This journaling can provide perspective on things and help with future decision-making.

Habit Tracking

The below image shows how I use the habit tracker, though yours could be more detailed than this. Your habit tracker can also be a more largely drawn-up calendar with different symbols used for the different habits tracked for that month.

Habit tracking simply involves taking note of the days you do certain habits you are trying to build. Thus, if trying to exercise more, you’d track that. After tracking for a while, you may see the days you exercise the most frequently and this can help you evaluate how to further build this habit and establish it in your current routine.

To build habits, you can try a technique called habit stacking. Author of Atomic Habits, James Clear, describes it as, identifying a current habit you already do routinely, and then stacking your new behaviour on top. You thus tie already established habits with the new habits that you will like to build. For instance, if you regularly bullet journal first thing in the morning, you can exercise as a habit to do right after that (clearly I have been trying to exercise more). This can help in incorporating the habit into your routine.

Lists

Lists can be made of music listened to for that month, favourite podcasts, movies, meals cooked, or anything of the sort. Below I’ve described my favourite list to bullet journal, the books that I read for that month.

An Example of How Lists Work- ‘Books Read List’

As I love reading, I wanted to track the books I was reading each month. Bullet journaling has helped me read more, and figure out the sort of books I like. In the journal, I write the book title read, with a short summary of what I liked about the book.

Lists are for whatever interests you that you would like documented. So, here’s an example of what my list of books read would look like, using some of the books I read this month, including The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll (a very on theme example!) and another book called The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey.

1. The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll

This was an informative non-fiction on the benefits of bullet journaling. The writer gives a thorough explanation of how it works and how each person can use it differently to suit their own needs. My favourite quotes are: “the trick is to be consistent”; “we need to research, but we also need to make progress”; “you can’t plan your way out of failure, but you can greatly increase the odds of success” and “your pen is not a wand, it’s just a tool. It’s you who brings the magic to the page”.

2. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey.

A non-fiction memoir about an illness that leaves the author bedridden, and the woodland snail she observes and learns a lot from. This book shows the beauty of moving at your own pace, even if that movement is a lot slower than it use to be. My favourite quotes are: “Watching another creature go about its life…somehow gave me, the watcher, purpose too. If life mattered to the snail and the snail mattered to me, it meant something in my life mattered, so I kept on”.

Bullet journaling is great because it:

• helps you get through tasks
• tracks and keeps note of happy memories or events
• helps you get away from your phone for a bit and use an analogue system
• is a flexible method
• is a creative, customisable system
• has multipurpose use and is great for persons who may want all or most of their organisational methods in one place.
• is an adaptable system, so if your spread for January doesn’t work, you can learn from that and change the spread in February.
• is a popular system, so many people use it, and you can find many bullet journal spreads on Instagram and youtube especially, which can give you a good idea of how to set up your own journal.
• keeps our minds sharp as “studies suggest that the act of writing keeps our minds sharper for longer.” (Carroll, 2018)
• brings attention to the things important to us and makes us more intentional on what we focus on

Bullet journalling might not be for you if:

• you prefer flexibility and less structure
• you feel there are too many rules or systems to follow
• you dislike spending time setting up the organisation system that you are going to use
• you prefer digital methods
• you worry that it can be a waste of paper and notebooks, especially if you end up not liking the method and not needing the journal anymore

Ways to account for these disadvantages:

Use notebooks you already have rather than automatically buying a new one. You don’t need the fanciest, most expensive journal in order to start bullet journaling. Remember, your bullet journal doesn’t need to look like the hottest thing out, it can simply be a plain notebook or an old notebook that you only used a few pages in.

Keep it simple and remove any sections that aren’t useful to you. Also, if all the Instagram bullet journal spreads are scaring you rather than inspiring you, simply skip them.

Use other people's bullet journal spreads to guide how you create your own. On Instagram especially, but other social media sites as well, you can find pictures of bullet journaling methods and design your journal based on what looks best for you.

Remember…

Don’t try to make bullet journaling a thing of beauty that has no purpose. It can look nice but stress you out, which is the opposite of what you want. So even if you make lots of designs, make sure the journal is still working for you.

Use it to suit your needs and preferences. Reevaluate how well it’s working for you every month in order to see what can be taken out or adjusted.

Generally, it works best if you use it every day or at least consistently and routinely. So whether it’s at the start of the day, end of the day, or throughout the day, make sure it’s being used.

Places to Learn More About Bullet Journaling

• The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll
• Study with Me: Effective Bullet Journaling Techniques, Habits, and Hacks to Be Successful, Productive, and Organized by Jasmine Shao, Alyssa Jagan
• Amanda Rach Lee — https://www.youtube.com/c/amandarachlee/videos

Other time management and organisational tools you can use:

• Calendar blocking (see article here where I discuss this- Jael Daniel -Calendar Blocking )
• Digital planners
• Physical planners
• Time blocking, time batching and timeboxing methods and apps
• To-do lists and Kanban boards

I hope this was helpful to you in some way. Next time, I’ll be writing on time blocking and time batching, so stay tuned!

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

-Arthur Ashe