Wednesday 16 March 2016

Bullet Journal: The Beginning

I told you all about why I wanted to use a bullet journal in my last bujo post and now that I've been using it regularly, I wanted to share how it's going and if it's working for me.

Short answer? Yes. Yes it most definitely is.

What initially held me back from starting a Bullet Journal was the lack of forward planning. It seemed to be a bit of a pain trying to plan anything beyond the month you're in. As I work shifts and tend to plan things several weeks in advance, that was never going to work for me.

Then I saw Boho Berry's bullet journal and realised - it really can be anything you want it to be. I put a fair bit of thought into the layout of my Bullet Journal as I didn't want to have to hunt for the things I was going to need on a regular basis. So the front few pages are static and I think this is something that I'll stick with in the future.

My static pages include a master list where I'm jotting down things I need to remember to do at some point; a gift idea list; Level 10 Life, which I'm checking in on monthly; financial tracker, which I fill out monthly to track how close we are to our house deposit; long term plans to do list; and finally, monthly calendars up to the end of the year, which is perfect for future planning.

All of these things I would transfer into my new Bullet Journal as they are all really handy and central to why it works for me.

After the static pages, comes the Bullet Journal proper.


Tracker
I'm planning to start every month with a tracker page. I refer back to this every day to log the things I want to track, things like drink enough water, work out and post on social media. It's really nice to see the month's achievements at a glance, but I can already see that my exercise logs are too specific so will make that more general next month.



Month on Two Pages
Yes, another calendar spread. This has more room than the smaller calendar in the static pages and I fill it in at the beginning of the month and refer to it throughout. I've also got a list of my monthly goals down the side. I'm not sure if this will stick, as I already have the planning ahead calendar, but I do want to give myself the option of more space and see if it works. Still mulling this over at the moment...



Daily to-do
This is the bullet journal proper. This is where I jot down my daily appointments, my things to do. I fell in love with Boho Berry's layout for this and like her, I also do mine the night before. I like to fall asleep knowing that tomorrow is already taken care of. I look it over with a cup of tea in the morning, make any adjustments I need to and crack on.

I am very much someone who needs lists, if it's not written down I can flutter away from what I should be doing. My to-do list is the map for my day and this system allows me to pull all the different elements of things I want to do and need to do together so that nothing gets forgotten or missed out. For that reason, the Bullet Journal really does make me feel loads more productive and I'm seeing the results of that productivity. 

Do you use a Bullet Journal? I'd love to see yours, as you can see from this post, I love inspiration from other people.


1 comment:

  1. I don't use a bullet journal but I have been using bits and pieces of inspiration from some amazing bullet journal ladies. I do love lists and notebooks! Currently using a Moleskine weekly planner and a Filed Notes sized notebooks by http://www.sojournerusa.net

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