If you haven't heard of bullet journaling, it's definitely something to look into. If you're addicted to your Kate Spade, Lilly Pulitzer, or Emily Ley planner, or even your iPhone, you're about to get addicted to the next level of planning: The Bullet Journal. A bullet journal is basically like a hybrid of all the organizational apps you have on your phone and your planner. I'm a newbie to this whole bullet journaling thing, but I can tell you I'm never going to stop. Here are just a few ways a bullet journal can help you organize your life.
1. Logging Health And Fitness
Laying out a training schedule and writing out your workouts in advance can help you accomplish all of your fitness goals. You can get as specific as you want, or you can just keep talley of how often you go to the gym or do cardio.
2. Logging Meals
If you're trying to make changes in your diet, lose weight, figure out what food has been making you feel sick, or just be more mindful of your caloric intake, logging your food and writing about how it made you feel can help you out a lot. Tracking your water intake can also help improve your health.
3. Start A Habit Tracker
If you have anything you've been meaning to start doing? Logging how often you do it can help you make it a habit. I was the worst at remembering to take vitamins until I started tracking it.
4. A List Of Books To Read
Everyone's got a list of books in their head that they've been meaning to get to, but I've noticed that I often forget what they are as soon as I'm ready to start a new book. A "library" in your bullet journal can help you keep track of all the books you want to read, and coloring them in once you've read them can help you keep track of your accomplishments.
5. Keeping track of chores and To-Do Lists
Like any regular planner, you can use your bullet journal to keep track of all your tasks and daily activities. The nice thing about a bullet journal is that you can design your own weekly layout and change it from week to week to fit your needs. I use my weekly spread to track my events/appointments, household chores, Odyssey, and my budget.
6. Logging your moods from day to day
One thing that I love to use my bullet journal for is tracking my moods. I like to reflect at the end of each day and give my day a color rating. My categories are extraordinary, good, average, sad, stressful, and infuriating, so I can see how each day is as a whole. This allows me to look back and see certain trends that develop over time and it allows me to adjust certain aspects of my life when I start to see a trend in a bad direction.
7. Writing down happy things every day
College and everyday life can get pretty stressful and overwhelming, so I think it's important to write down the happy things that happen in my life every day, even on my worst days. Some days are obviously better than others, but something good (no matter how small) always happens. This helps me find the good on my most stressful days.
8. Tracking your weight and measurements
Bullet journaling is beneficial when you're trying to tackle any goal. This picture, for example, tracks a weight loss goal. I use my bullet journal to log my measurements every week to make sure I'm not gaining weight or getting bigger in college.
9. Saving your money
If you're like me, saving money does not come easily. I am definitely not good at budgeting, but making savings goals and plans has really helped me keep track of my spending in my bullet journal. It can be really difficult to get yourself to invest in a Roth IRA if you're not constantly reminded that you need to in your bullet journal. Somehow, I've been pretty successful with my savings lately.
Obviously, using a bullet journal has some pretty great benefits. If you're interested in starting your own, check out Pinterest or Tumblr for some more great ideas. You can buy all sorts of different bullet journals, but some are as inexpensive as $8.96!
