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For the new year, I started a bullet journal. In December, I found a video by Boho Berry, which was a flip through of her bullet journal and I immediately fell in love. I’ve never, ever been one for planning or making goals or anything like that but I have always been a list maker and a journaler. I would have multiple post-its notes floating around of things I wanted to do, stuff I wanted to check out or things I wanted to buy. The idea of putting all of this into one simple journal was incredibly appealing. It was also really appealing to start journaling again. I journaled a ton as a kid/teenager and sort of stopped in my early twenties. I love looking back on those times in my life!

In addition to the journal, I use a variety of pens in it. I love my Tombow Dual Brush Pens for headers and making the colored dots. I also use the Paper Mate Flair pens for the daily headers. This month, I’m going to start using my pack of Staedtler pens!

The bullet journal is a super easy system and you basically customize it to work for you. As I mentioned, I’m not big on goals so I don’t have a lot of things I need to do each day, but there are things that I should get done so it’s nice to jot that down and have a reminder there. I’m much better at getting things done when I write down the task. I used Google Calendar for a long time but it’s so easy for me to forget about and ignore. I look at this journal at least once a day, usually more. It’s perfect.

The journal I use is the Leuchtturm 1917 with dots. I purchased the orange cover just because I couldn’t find a purple one with dots. Out the of the colors I could find with dots, orange was my favorite. I’m hoping I can snag a purple one to use when this one is full. I love the Leuchtturm journal as it already has numbered pages and an index. One of the big things about bullet journaling is indexing all of your spreads and collections.

After the index, I jotted down my key. Mine is really simple because I honestly don’t do that much. Everything that I have as a “to do” is something that will get done that specific day. I don’t have a need to migrate tasks or anything like that. I also don’t have a lot of appointments (besides dentist appointments now…) so just having the open circle to differentiate an appointment versus task works for me!

I also have a brain dump as one of the first few pages. I like having a place where I can quickly jot down things that come to mind or things that I want to include in the journal at some point. It’s very helpful!

After the key and brain dump, I began my January spread. I included the first three months of the year on the left side so I could easily do future planning, if needed. On the right, it breaks down January by day and it’s a great overview of things that I have done or want to do during the month. It’s a great way to keep track of appointments or days off since you don’t typically do the daily spreads in advance.

 

One of my favorite things about Boho Berry’s journal was her tracker. I think that was the reason I fell in love with this system. It’s so important for me to have a reminder of things that I want to do daily and it’s also motivating. I love being able to fill in each box when I complete a daily task. I also added a blog tracker so I could easily keep track of which blog posts I’ve done or need to do.

I include a lot of collections in my journal. This is my “Music to Check Out”, which is my most important collection. I often hear songs that make me want to check out the band’s other music but I always forget. I love having this reminder!

You can also check out my bullet journal flip through video over on YouTube.

Do you bullet journal? Tell me what you love about it!