Bullet journaling was something I found through Tumblr and has since seemed to take over the stationary world. This trend of journaling is a personalized adventure that is customizable to your needs and tastes. It seems like an intimidating thing to start especially for those who don't know much about journaling or lack creativity, but it can be simple- if you make it simple. Here are 5 simple reasons why you should start this for the 2019 year:
1. You can use it for goal setting and tracking habits
GiphyBullet journals are a great tool with tracking your habits, writing down goals, and keeping yourself accountable. Most of us make goals for the new year, but lose track of those goals within the first few weeks of the year. Using a bullet journal to track your progress makes you acknowledge if you're not following through with your personal goals and gives you a place to reflect on later in the year. Wouldn't it be great to look back on your progress and see that you've actually grown from where you started? Some common habits and goals I've seen tracked are: weight lose/gain, working out, spending less than X hours on your phone, etc.
2. It helps your get organized especially for school!
Zoe SmithBullet journaling has been a god send for college. It's helped me stay organized in all the time commitments I have between classes, organizations, volunteering, and research. Using a bullet journal allows you to customize your schedule by color coordinating between different events, adding stickers for important events, and allowing you to anticipate future events. Bullet journaling has come in handy for planning future events and keeping track of other individual's schedules because it gives you a place to write it all down in the most convenient way possible for you. Good spreads to include in your bullet jorunals are: monthly/weekly/daily schedules, yearly events, academic schedules, work schedules, etc.
3. It helps you filter out your busy mind
My bullet journal doubles as a sketch book for me. I use the empty pages and fill them with drawings, random thoughts, or as a brain dump when I have several ideas hit me at once. There doesn't have to be a rhyme or riddle to your bullet journal- you make it what you want. I find it comforting to fill pages with drawings between important/serious ones to relax my anxiety. Other ways to filter out your mind is to include pages unrelated to work or school like a bucket list, movie rating/reviews, doodles, etc.
4. It allows your creativity to flow in new ways
Pages of bullet journals are usually based on spreads or recognizable pages that have a specific theme. These spreads can have a variety of looks or themes depending on the individual. Spreads give the individual a chance to be as creative as possible when tackling how you want your bullet journal to look. For me, my bullet journals were all titled using large cursive markers and usually decorated with whatever season it was for the month I was drawing the spread for. An example of this can be seen in the gif above. The bullet journaling chose to do her pages in theme with winter, having each page either have snowflakes, a snowman, or something ice related. Themes you could use for your spreads are: holidays, colors, animals, seasons, mood, etc.
5. It's something that's entirely your design
There is no right way to bullet journal or a wrong way to do it: you make it whatever you want. It can be as complicated and decorated as you want it to be or as simple and plain as you want. It's completely dependent on the person who is bullet journaling and what they're comfortable.
What if you aren't really creative and want to decorate your journal more? Lucky for you, many bullet journals are posted online with tutorials for those who want to learn specific spreads, fonts, or decorations. Some resources are:
https://bulletjournal.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm15cmYU0IM
https://littlecoffeefox.com/ultimate-bullet-journa...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/how-to-start-a-bullet-journal
Or, just google it! Youtube has great resources for people who want to get started or want to learn more about bullet journaling in general.
Some may see this as too complicated. In all honesty, it's a lot of work. You have to be willing to spend a lot of time on your spreads, keeping up with your pages, and spending money on materials. It may be easier to buy a pre-constructed journal from Amazon or a bookstore, but there's some satisfaction to be gained from bullet journaling. You get to make something beautiful that's completely of your design and work, so why not try it out if you're up for it.
