Having stalked photos of beautiful bullet journals on Instagram and Pinterest for quite some time, I have now finally gotten around to starting my own. Being filled with equal parts joy and nerves, I posted how excited I was to be starting with an accompanying picture of my shiny new journal, and the most common response I got was….”what’s a bullet journal?” To which I replied…”Um, it’s like a planner and a journal and an adult coloring book rolled into one?”

I realize that although bullet journals are having quite a moment right now, there are still tons of people for whom bullet journals appear nowhere on their radar. Unless you are interested in starting your own or are an active part of the bullet journaling community, there isn’t a lot of discussion about them. In fact, I’ve never seen one in real life (besides my own). I don’t even personally know anyone who is an active bullet journaler, at least not anyone who lives near me. Why would I take up a somewhat obscure hobby? (Well, to be honest, that’s one of my favorite past-times.) But really, there seems to be a lack of simple explanation when it comes to bullet journaling. I’ll try my best to rectify that here. 

So, in short, a bullet journal is basically part to-do list, part planner, part journal. The best part: it’s a blank slate, so you can design a planner that fits you perfectly: how your brain works, how you organize your days, what things you give priority, it will fit you 100%. It’s “create as you go”, so you can always adapt it to fit your changing schedule and life.

A bullet journal breakdown:

It’s good for people who:

• make a lot of lists
• are into goal-setting, habit tracking, and journaling
• like coloring or being creative
• really love and depend on planners
• love organization and may even be a bit OCD (me, for sure)

The key components are:

Well, this is difficult, because your bullet journal is totally customizable. Every single one I’ve looked at is different, but it seems like MOST of them contain:

• an Index -which is basically a running list of what you put on each page
• a Year-At-A-Glance -so you have all of the dates easily accessible and can quickly jot notes or dates down
• a Year-long Goal Setting Page -a perfect visual reminder right at the front so you are constantly reminded of what you are working towards
• a “Future Log” -which sounds strange but is basically just a list of the months with places to jot more notes so you can plan out your months more carefully as they come along
• Month/Week Sections-depending on how you break yours down, you can do a monthly overview and goals, a monthly habit tracker, a monthly gratitude journal, and/or sections for each week as well.
• You can add in any other pages you want! I have different pages for:
  • Books I’ve Read
  • Books To Read
  • Blog Ideas
  • Affirmations/Quotes
  • Miracle Morning Routine/Reminders

You can use any journal, but it seems easiest to use a basic grid journal, which allows you to really customize each page while still giving you somewhat of a template to follow.

If you search bullet journals on the web, or especially on Instagram, you will be treated to some gorgeous pictures of flawless layouts, professional-looking calligraphy, and painstakingly-pretty, hand-drawn illustrations. I’m not quite at that level yet, so I’ve fully embraced stencils. Yalis makes a fantastic set for relatively cheap that I got HERE. You can also keep it super basic and just stick to a list format. Bullet journal junkies, as they are known, tend to spend a lot of time making their journals look fabulous, and I love a good creative outlet, so I’m leaning that way as well, but it can be as simple or as fancy as you want it to be.

Again, there don’t seem to be a lot of solid “rules” for bullet journaling. The basic premise is that it is a journal and the foundation of it is bulleted lists. It is supposed to save you time while still serving as documentation of your life–no need to go on and on in journal entries, just use short bulleted points. Some people also use a system of symbols or a key to mark their points to shorten their entries even further. I have trouble committing to a set of symbols, so I haven’t tackled this particular point yet.

Why are bullet journals having this big moment when we are all so into technology?

Well, besides the fact that they are fun and can be made to fit each person, there’s been a lot of talk and research about the ease of remembering things that are written down. For me, I used to keep all my lists on my phone, which lead to a whole lot of me picking up my phone to check my list for just a second and putting my phone down after forty-five minutes of scrolling through apps without ever having gotten to my list. Seriously, a paper list really minimizes those distractions. 🙂

I hope this answers some of your questions about bullet journaling! I finally feel like I have a solid understanding of just what it is I’m doing when I pick up my colored pens, pretty journal, and washi tape!

If you are a bullet journaler, let me know what your favorite pages or add-ons have been! What would you recommend that every new bullet journaler adds?

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