Bullet Journal Design

What is a bullet journal?

Bullet Journal (also affectionately known as BuJo) stands for a journal (diary) and bullet (the bullet character), which are used here in different forms.

To better understand the usefulness of bullet journals, their history is not entirely unimportant. The American Ryder Carroll suffered from ADD (attention deficit disorder). He was looking for a method to help him get a better handle on his learning problems. He used ideas from the self-management field but also mindfulness and self-reflection and developed the Bullet Journaling method.

Bullet Journals can be many things

• They help to structure one's life better, in the sense of an agenda.
• They are used in the sense of a journal to record one's life and to better emotionally process what has been experienced.
• Bullet journals can be referred to as art journals. Various designs and beautiful lettering are used to add design to the bujo.

What makes a bullet journal?

Actually, bullet journals are characterized by three points:

1. the fast recording of thoughts, to-dos - also called rapid logging
2. the collection of information - this information is structured thematically
3. Migration - with the help of Bullet Journal Keys (see next section) open tasks can be quickly recorded and then moved to the next page, the next period.

Everything is done on a white page, which can capture different amounts of information depending on your needs. Thanks to an index at the top of the bujo, the relevant information can be found again at any time.

Thus, the system adapts to the needs of the user. This makes it a unique and popular system.

Your Bullet Journal as a calendar

As mentioned in the beginning, bullet journals help to bring structure into the many activities and to-dos. Bullet Journal calendars are an important part of the journal. Mostly the bullet journal starts with a yearly overview, which then changes into a monthly overview. At the end, all actions and to-dos are entered in weekly overviews (a so-called Bullet Journal Weekly). Possibly even daily overviews are created. But this is rather an exception.

All overviews are distributed on a double page. However, these are entered gradually, which is an important difference to a purchased calendar. The distribution of the overviews thus adapts to the amount of information that is currently being managed.

The different trackers

A bullet journal tracker is used to keep track of your various goals and habits. Tracking means "to follow" in English. Thus, a bullet journal tracker is a goal tracker. A wide variety of aspects are recorded.

Habits - that is, habits - can be tracked. Habit trackers mostly cover health aspects. For example, you record how much you drank, whether you exercise or eat healthy. Habit trackers are a great tool to better track set goals. They can be positive reinforcers. However, at the same time, they create a lot of pressure if the goals are not met.

Reading, movie, music lists can also be understood as a special case of habit trackers. Here the various books, concerts, movies are listed, which are enjoyed during the year. A nice reminder at the end of the year, which also represents how much you really read!

Another important tracker is the Bullet Journal Mood Tracker. Mood stands for mood, and accordingly it tracks how your mood changes over time. Of course, "good mood" can be a personal goal, but here the focus is clearly on self-care and analyzing what you are experiencing and your personal state of mind. Mood tracking is thus also an important tool in classic journaling.

Actually there are 1001 ideas for which your bullet journal can be used. The picture shows a classic brain dump. This one helps you not to forget an idea? A brain dump is ideal for that. You take a fresh page in your journal and write down all the important points. With this you can work with it at a later time. And this feels very liberating!

If your goal in the bullet journal is to structure your life, then other ideas will work for you. For example, you can create classic shopping lists, record your monthly budget, or write down your travel plans.

Top 10 lists are also an exciting idea. Questions are answered like:

1. Books - which books do you want to read?
2. Bucket List: list of experiences you have planned for your life
3. List of people with whom I would like to have dinner one day

Of course, this represents only a limited selection of top ten ideas for your bullet journal.

If you want to use your bullet journal more for self-discovery, pages with goals and wishes are a must. Gratitude rituals also find a good place in your bullet journal. Here the border to the journal is fluid.

The design of your bullet journal

You may still be wondering why bullet journals have become so popular. One important reason is the creative freedom that the method gives. And therefore it is also worth talking about the beautiful bullet journals. Because these quickly develop into small works of art.

As already mentioned, the method is very flexible. To start, you can write on a blank journal. And then you're ready to go. But there are a variety of exciting implementations:

• Minimal version - you write as you like. If the double page is full, open points are transferred to the next free page. Everything is written with any pen
• Lettering - The focus is on the writing. Here everything is very precisely pre-planned and decorated with beautiful fonts with hand lettering. Perfect pens are a must here.
• Scrapbook - The bullet journal is supplemented with pictures and almost follows a journaling idea. Life is documented in this way.
• Artistic - Colorful, creative, life is also recorded in this bullet journal type, but this form is a sketchbook, art journal and planner at the same time. Colors are used liberally.

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Products for Bullet Journaling

The number of materials depends on the form of your bullet journaling:

• Minimal version - you take a notebook (A5 size) at hand, and use the pens you have at hand at the moment.
• Lettering - a dotted notebook in A5, a pigment pen in 0.8 and 0.1, brushpens (pens with a brush tip) in your favorite colors (e.g. Zig Clean Color Real Brush, Tombow Dual Brushpen), you're ready to go. Caution. It comes quickly to bleeding. Test your pens before you use them in your bullet journal. Other pens that work well for hand lettering in the BuJo are the Brush Sign Pen from Pentel and Gel Pens in different colors.
• Scrapbook - again, a blank or dotted notebook with stiff paper in A5 or A4, pens (see Lettering), stickers, washi tape, stencils, Uhu Stick and optionally a small photo printer is all you need to paste in pictures at any time.
• Artistically - material-wise you are very close to scrapbooking here. But since you will probably work more with color, the paper should have a grammage of at least 180g/m2 and be blank.

Which bullet journal should it be?

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the choice of material depends on the preferred bullet journaling style. Mostly we use a mixture of minimalist and lettering in the German speaking countries. Thus, we will deal with classic notebooks. For more artistic options, I recommend the post on Art Journals.

A classic bullet journal has an A5 size, is dotted and can be closed with an elastic band. The most popular notebooks for bullet journaling are from Leuchturm 1917, which is actually surprising since they are relatively thin and translucent. This makes the use of colored markers visible on the back. Alternatively, notebooks like Moleskine, Midori, and Archer & Olive are worth mentioning.

Before it comes to buying your bullet journal, you should pay attention to the following details:

• How thin is the paper? Important if you want to write more than just with a simple pen.
• Are the pages numbered to adequately keep your index?
• Is there a tab on the cover to always have your favorite pen with the notebook? And does your pen fit inside without falling out?
• Are the pages perforated so you can easily tear them out (if you don't like them anymore)?
• Does the journal have a bookmark or even two? That way you can always find your current entries.
• How visible are the dots? Do their color bother me?
• Is there a pocket in the cover to collect photos, mementos and the like? Important for scrapbookers
  How many pre-printed pages are there? Do I need them? Am I missing any?

Of interest to you might also be my blog on "which journal".

Alternatives

Maybe you don't want to think about the structure of your bullet journal. Or you don't trust your own writing. Don't panic, there are good alternatives for you:

• Templates - these are usually offered on the Internet as a download. You can then print them out on your printer.
• Stamps - in the meantime there are beautiful stamps for almost everything (calendars, todos, etc.). But the choice is smaller than with the templates.
• Stencils - you do not like to think or measure? With the help of stencils, self-designed pages become child's play!
• Apps - for this, there are simple electronic notebooks, or special bullet journaling apps to help you get started with bullet journaling.

Final word

The topic has grabbed you? You want to learn more about it? Then I can recommend you the book of the method inventor:

• The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll

Here you will get more details and ideas on how to create your very own bullet journal.

Have fun with Bullet Journaling!