"All you need is a notepad & a pen.."
What is it?
When people ask me what a bullet journal is, I simple answer with "it's what ever you want it to be". Despite this being incredibly useless to someone who has no idea what one is, the statement is extremely accurate. No-ones bullet journal is the same & you can honestly make it become whatever you want it to be; a diary, work schedule or habit tracker. It's a dotted notepad, with no rules. You create the pages & content & make it as complex or as simple as you like.
What do I need to start a bullet journal?
Literally, a pen & a notepad & you can start creating your journal. You can buy any blank notepad from Amazon, or invest in a
'proper' journal, which is slightly more expensive.
Extras?
Once you're ready to get a bit more creative, you can invest in some
stencils for your journal. I've found these are invaluable when it comes to designing the pages. I've used 'bunting' as headers for some pages, but I've found even the simple square box & circular stencils have been incredibly useful. I also invested in some
colouring pencils &
pens. If you're going to buy the coloured pens, try to chose ones with fin nibs, just for precision purposes. I've found these work better to get more definitive lines. I'd also recommend investing in some
highlighters. I couldn't resist picking up these
pastel ones from Amazon! & finally, as simple as it sounds, never under-estimate a pencil, a ruler & a rubber. I draw everything in pencil before going over the lines in pen or colouring them in.
Anything else I need to know before I start?
The most helpful tip I learnt before starting my journal was to do research. I watched hundreds of YouTube videos on Bullet Journaling & researched ideas on Pinterest. I've made a
board of my favourite pages, which I've taken inspiration from to make my own journal. There is so much to initially think about, so just take your time & plan out your pages; the order, layout & colour scheme before jumping right in.
Ok, so onto
My Bullet Journal.
I knew from the very beginning I wanted it to be simple, but pretty. I decided to start with an
Index Table, which will be incredibly useful once my journal fills up throughout the year. I also went through & numbered all the pages so I could flick through the bottom of the book & find the page I was looking for quickly.
The next double page was an
Introduction Into 2018. I'm hoping to have at least 2 years in this one journal, so I wanted an opening page for the start of the year. I then drew out all the months for 2018, so I have a calendar for reference through the year. This double page took up so much time as I was determined to make it look neat, with the same amount of dotes between each month & all the dates! You obviously don't have to be as picky as me & I'm hoping as the journal goes on, I'll become less obsessed with making it look immaculate haha!
Next I wanted to include a
Goals & Quote Page. Goals I'm actually going to fill up throughout the year & the quotes page is literally for whatever fills my mind at the time.
Next we have 1 of my favourite pages, the
Holiday Countdown Page! There's nothing more important than having something to look forward to & this double page spread keeps me on track for our 2 summer holidays we have planned this year. I decided to have a sun & suitcase as my main 'holiday pictures' & then added the sun's rays & items to pack & will colour each one in every month.
Another 1 of my favourite double pages is my
'Movie's I've Watched' & 'Books I've Read'. One of my goals this year as you would have seen if you read my review of
The Fifth Letter, is to read more books. I have quite a few on my list to get through this year & I'm already on my 3rd book so far!
& finally for the 'yearly section' of my journal, I wanted to include a
Bills & Savings Page. The bills page I'm leaving blank for now until James & I move to our new house in April, so I can do an accurate account of our where our money is going & my 'savings jar' is just to track how much I'm adding to our savings account each month. My goal is to put in at least £100, but anymore than that is a bonus!
& now we move onto my monthly logs.
Firstly, we have another intro page. As I got my bullet journal as a gift for my birthday (16th Jan) that month is looking a little bit bare & instead of rushing myself, I decided to start properly with February. These are the pages I'm adding to each month;
Firstly an intro page to the month. This includes a theme for the month; February; Valentines, March; Blossoming flowers for example. My first page I wanted after the intro for the month was my
Birthday List, with space for present ideas. The balloons symbolise people I'm buying cards for, alongside their birthdays. Once I'd designed that page, I wanted to create a
Sleep Diary to record exactly how many hours I'm getting a night. Oh & there's an additional column for naps! Extremely important!
The next page is my
Habit Tracker. I absolutely love filling this in every day. It gives me the chance to see exactly how many hours I'm working, if I've spent time with friends or family & I've even created sections for food items, alcohol, watching tv & reading, just so I can see if I've managed to eat tick off certain tasks during the day. As you can see.. I worked alot in February.. & watched alot of Netflix, but I did manage to read almost every day!
My next page is an
Emotions Chart. I'm going to do a different drawing each month, starting with this rose design for February to keep with the Valentine's theme & I've drawn a bunny rabbit for March! This actually turned into one of my favourite pages from February.
This double page spread is for
Blog Post Ideas. A blogging ideas page was definitely something I needed in my journal. I always come up with ideas & forget to write them down or put them on an odd piece of paper & lose it! You can see I've divided this page up & separated it into columns, to help remind me what I need to still do for each post. I'm going to change this up for March & have a double page spread for just ideas, then have the chart on the next page as I ran out of room just doing it on one side!
& my final double page spread for each month is a
Memories & Spending Page. Memories are so important to me, I love looking back on the past month to see what fun things I've been doing. The spending page I initially thought would be a brilliant idea, but I haven't once gone to fill it in, so I think I'll be leaving that out for the foreseeable future. I knew initially a few pages of the journal would change throughout the year, so as long as I'm keeping the pages I find useful, I don't mind leaving a few blank.
So that's it for now! I'm going to do an update post at the end of the year to show my development with my journal. It's all about experimenting with different ideas & seeing what works for you as an individual, so I'm hoping to see some developments by the time we get to the end of the year!
Have you started a bullet journal? I'd love to see your journals & what works for you!
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