I am a disorganized person. Nothing has a home, I have a million sticky notes all over the place and I don’t think I’ve seen my left tennis shoe for about three weeks. I’m constantly losing to-do lists and I forget ideas as soon as they pop into my head. This frustrates a lot of my friends and family because I give them a blank stare when they try to talk about me about things I should know about. I had resigned myself to a life of—what I call—“organized chaos” (which is really just a mess) until I happened to stumble across a concept called the bullet journal.
The bullet journal system defines itself as the “analog system for the digital age” and the entire website is devoted to educating visitors about the bullet journal system. The system seems to build upon the idea of minimalism; it markets itself as a one-stop shop for all your planning needs. It's a sketchbook, a diary, a notebook, a planner, a to-do list or any combination of the above. People have devoted entire Pinterest boards to detailing their bullet journal dreams and the creativity really inspired me.
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The basic system involves a few elements, the most important of which is rapid logging. The brain is like a computer; you input data (sights, sounds, visual stimuli) and receive an output (motions, words, thoughts). What you choose to do with this output is where the bullet journal system comes in. In your day-to-day life you run across multiple "good ideas;" however, when you attempt to talk about these ideas with someone or recall what you had thought of, you find you can't remember because you've been so inundated with stimuli. The inputs have crowded the outputs. The bullet journal system hopes to eliminate that.
With your first step, we're taking it back to grade school. Date, number and title your page before you begin. It's easier to get into the habit of having everything labeled before you start if you make a point to do it every time. Once you've titled your page, you can begin with your bullet points. Every article I read seemed to have slightly different versions of the same basic format. Do a bullet for every idea or task. When you act on that task, make a specialized mark. I've inserted a reference picture below.
As you can see, the dot denotes a task. There are a few more symbols to understand: x is for a completed task, the greater-than symbol marks a task that has migrated, the less-than symbol is for a task scheduled, events can be marked by an O and notes are represented with a dash. From there, you can give signifiers to mark important events, ideas to look further into and more. The key is to remember what each symbol stands for.
So, with a vague plan in mind, I went to my local store to find some materials. I knew, based on the system I would need a journal (obviously), some fun pens and some sticky dividers to create my modules. The original system has only four modules: Index, Future Log, Monthly Log and Daily Log. I knew I needed more modules than just four.
My journal has tabs for index, monthly logs, daily logs, savings, Kiwanis notes, meal planning, weekly cleaning schedule, ideas for the Odyssey, an "I Want" list, expense list, habit tracker and a tab for school related things. I wear a lot of different hats in my life and I wanted a place where I could put everything in one simple flip.
I picked out a simple journal, brown with some gold-foil dots on the cover. The pages were made of a heavy material that felt similar to butcher paper. This would allow my heavy-handed writing to stay on the page I was writing on and not bleed through.
I find myself flipping to my daily log section the most; I enjoy adding colors and designs to break up the ho-hum feeling of daily tasking. I enjoy taking those five minutes a day to add in a new drawing from my brain.
There are a few main things to keep in mind. Make sure you pick an appropriate sized journal. I picked one that I could throw into my backpack, purse or just carry around with me. If you're not going to carry it, you're not going to use it. The second things is to not shy away from colors and design, yet don't compare your journal to another journal. Your journal is a representation of the way you think and it is there to suit your needs-- no one else's. You can mimic all the beautiful designs but if it doesn't work for you, you won't use it. Don't be afraid of evolving the platform. Everything in life is transient and your journaling system is, too.
If you're interested in the bullet journal system, I highly recommend starting here, at the official website. It has a great step-by-step how-to with pictures that is very easy to follow.
