New Years is a great time to start over or try something new. This year I decided that I wanted to try writing things down in a journal. In the past I’ve tried to keep a journal, but I’ve never been able to stay focused enough to continue writing for more than a few days. I tried buying new journals that were fun to write in, or even ones with prompts to write about and I was never able to do it. I had seen people using bullet journals on my Instagram feed and it looked like a change from what I had been doing.

I looked on Amazon, Target, Walmart, and other stores for a reasonably priced bullet journal that was the size I wanted. I ended up finding a bullet journal and bullet journal guide package at The Paper Source. It costed around twenty dollars and met my expectations for a basic bullet journal. I also purchased many packages of pens and fine tip markers from Target. Overall I spent about thirty eight dollars for the pens and journal.

When I started bullet journaling I used some basic spreads (ways to organize your page). I had two pages dedicated to a monthly calendar for keeping track of assignments, practices, and other things I had to do regularly. I also had two pages for a weekly spread so that I could write down things about my day, keep track of how much I exercised, or what I ate that day. It was a good way to stay organized and remember things that I had to do. In addition to my monthly and weekly spreads I had one page spreads for moods, what books I wanted to read, and a tracker for money I spend. This made me feel very organized and helped me stay on track with things I had to get done.

On thing I really liked about bullet journaling was that you have the freedom to do it however you want. There are no guidelines to follow or rules you have to obey, you can just do whatever. I liked to use lots of colors and different pens for every page. However after about a month I started to forget to write things down. I began not opening my journal for weeks at a time. It didn’t have anything to do with not liking journaling or anything like that, I just never did it. I really liked the bullet journal experience and I still try to use it every once in a while, but for me it was simply a noble experiment.