Bullet Journal Hacks
In the past few years, bullet journaling has become an extremely popular way to organize your tasks and record your memories. A bullet journal is a combination of a planner, a to-do list, and a diary, so it can hold virtually everything that you need to write down.
If you’re just starting your bullet journal, you may be overwhelmed by all the different possibilities. There are an unlimited number of sections you can include in your journal, and you can design them in any way you want. While this gives you lots of room for creativity, it also can make it difficult for you to decide where to start.
With this type of journal, it is important that you have a good plan beforehand, but also that you learn some little tips and tricks that seasoned bullet journalers have already begun using.
The following information is going to give you an inside look into some tips and “hacks” for your bullet journal, whether you are brand new or have been working with this type of journal for a while.
Keep reading to get the inside scoop on bullet journaling.
1. Decide on Your Sections Beforehand
The number one hack everyone should know about bullet journaling?
Preparation! This is a lot more important than people realize. When you rush through setting up your bullet journal, you probably miss a lot and don’t have room to move stuff around or add new pages. The best thing you can do is make a lot of the big decisions before you even put the bullet journal together.
Choosing all of your sections before you set up your journal will help you keep it organized. You can add collection pages at any time when you think of them. However, if you want sections in your bullet journal that repeat each month, deciding on them beforehand will help you space everything out evenly and leave enough pages for each topic.
What Pages to Add
The main sections for a bullet journal are the index, the future log, the monthly logs, and the daily logs. Some popular collections pages to consider adding include:
Yearly goals
Books you’ve read or plan to read
Movies you’ve watched or plan to watch
Recipes to try
Things that made you laugh
Your favorite quotes
Goals or tasks
Personal or business lists
Other miscellaneous collections or pages
If you’re using your bullet journal to track your progress toward goals or to help you develop new habits, you can add monthly collections pages. Choosing about how many different sections and collections you want will help you select the best sized journal. Some monthly section ideas include:
Sleep tracker
Weight tracker
Water intake
Chore log
Spending log
As you can see, there are many pages to add and a lot of ways to approach the journal.
Hack: Write down a list of the main sections you want first, such as the index and the calendar logs. Then, come up with a list of other pages, such as those above or others you want to add. Then you can come up with a good order to put the pages in the journal. This very crucial preparation step will save you a lot of headaches later on.
2. Make All Your Decisions Before Starting the Journal
You don’t want to get halfway through creating your bullet journal before realizing that your setup won’t work. When deciding how to design your journal, consider all of the different sections you plan to include.
Do you want all of your pages to be uniform, or are you okay with some variety between sections? Would you prefer your monthly task lists to be written in calendar form or in list form? What do you plan to use for signifiers?
If you want to be very creative or artistic with your journal, try designing a couple of sample pages on loose sheets of paper before starting your journal. This will help you figure out exactly how you want to format your different sections without having to remove pages from your journal that you don’t like.
Hack: Start looking at other bullet journals and sample pages to get a look and feel for how people like to set them up. Don’t just try to copy one person’s journal, but rather use multiple journals as inspiration. Many times, you find the inspiration you need to add your own flair and creativity to your own journal.
3. Start Simple
When looking up ideas for your bullet journal, you’ll probably see lots of elaborate, beautifully-decorated journals with dozens of different sections and collections. You may be inspired to create the be-all and end-all of bullet journals, but it’s better to start simple.
If you’re not used to journaling, you may get overwhelmed quickly and be more likely to quit. Keep it simple until journaling becomes a habit, then start adding more detail or more content.
Try beginning with just the main sections of a bullet journal: the index, the future log, the monthly logs, and the daily logs. Add a couple of collections pages that are important to you, but don’t go overboard. If you want to add some color or doodles, go ahead.
However, your bullet journal can also be written entirely in pencil with no fancy designs or drawings. Focus on the content more than the appearance, and build on the foundation of your bullet journal only when you really feel inspired.
Hack: Not artistic? That’s okay! You don’t need to be in order to make your bullet journal look pretty, but also keep your simple design at the same time. Try using some of the following items to create good layouts that don’t require too much thought:
Use a ruler when making lines, boxes or grids.
Try small stickers to be used as your signifiers instead of drawing them yourself.
Get printables with designs already on the pages.
4. Leave Blank Pages Between Sections
It’s up to you whether you set up your journal for months in advance or take it one month or week at a time. If you do choose to get a few months ahead with your journal design, leave more blank pages between each section than you think you’ll need. It can be very frustrating to want to add a new collections page or a longer daily entry but not have enough space.
The more you journal, the more ideas and inspiration will come to you. Leave at least five or six blank pages between each month, just in case you have a lot to report. If these pages end up staying blank, it’s completely fine. If you do run out of space in one section, though, don’t worry. The index at the beginning of your journal will keep track of where everything is, so you can skip ahead to the next blank page and record it in your index.
Hack: If you aren’t sure where in your journal you might want to add more pages, just add one blank page after every few sections. This gives you room to add more as needed, and additional space in the journal if you end up migrating pages later on.
5. Color Code Your Different Categories
Once you’ve set up your journal and have gotten used to it, color coding is a great next step. There are a few different options for color coding, so you’ll have to decide which is best for your own journal. You can color code each section of your journal, so monthly logs are all one color, daily logs are another color, and collections are other colors. One option is to color code your collections based on these categories: