A Bullet Journal Beginning

I'm a tech person, but have a love affair with the world of analog notebooks.

In fact, I usually cart around three. This is something I have struggled with - justifying the use of so many at a time and trying to fit them all in my bag. What went in each was pretty clear cut - personal musings in my journal; calendar, schedule, and to-dos in my planner; everything else in my everyday notebook. It was the hassle of carting all three around everywhere that complicated things.

I tried to reduce them in different ways. For example I tried merging the journal and planner into one book. Using a large plain Moleskine notebook, I glued printed calendar pages in for each month and journaled on the remaining pages. This system worked amazingly well, but still left me carting around two notebooks.

I also tried merging the notebook into the journal. It was completely disorganised and made it difficult to refer back to notes I'd made on a particular topic. Adding a new book to my "To Be Read" list required a search party and a packed lunch just to find the correct page.

I then tried going smaller, moving to pocket size Moleskines on the logic that three small notebooks would be easier to cart. The did fit in my bag better, however the lack of page space meant cramped writing and no room to think. Likewise a move to a Midori Traveler's Style notebook allowed all three notebooks in one cover, but I found the page size limiting when taking notes.

I also tried to go digital, moving calendar, to-do lists and notes onto my smartphone. This left me with only my journal still in a notebook. The digital calendar was great and I still use it. I couldn't gel to the to-do list and notebook applications though. Paper and pen kept calling me back to an analog solution.

Then I read about bullet journaling - you can read about it too at Bullet Journal Instructions.

Something clicked. For a start, it has a heavy focus on one of my great loves - lists. It is also quick, simple, organised, and easy to set up. The only requirements are a notebook (any notebook) and a pen.

As luck would have it, #OneBookJuly was also rolling around with a challenge to use only one notebook and one pen for one whole month. With that added kick I made the leap and committed to moving everything (bar the digital calendar) across into a new notebook. Journal, planner, and notes - all in one book, all neatly organised, all searchable via the index pages.

A month later and the system is working really well. Some of the Bullet Journal methods, such as the use of collections, were techniques I already used in some form or other so adapting was quite easy.

I have focused mainly on the daily log, the future log and collections, leaving out the monthly log layout. The first few pages of the notebook are my index and it's been easier than I expected to keep this up to date. I found I prefer to use checkboxes rather than dots for my list items, so have adapted this to fit my style.

One huge benefit I've found with the system is being able to just move to a new page as required - no more leaving blank pages "just in case" and no more waiting to finish one topic before starting another. You just move to a new page and update the index accordingly.

Action

Have you tried bullet journaling? Did it work for you? How did you customise it to fit your needs?

Further reading

• You can read my #introduceyourself post here - 8 things about Sammie
• @michaeljaccarino has a great post on using a notebook/journal here - The Power Of Keeping A Notebook: 5 Reasons To Keep A Journal
• @missberg describes herself as a stationery geek and wrote about the Productivity Planner - Me & The Productivity Planner - Starting our relationship