My Bullet Journal

So, bullet journals are a new thing, and I, being an organizational freak, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon. Of course, I got started looking at bullet journals online and got completely overwhelmed. The original Bullet Journal guy is like me and pretty sleek and streamlined when it comes to calendars and organizations, but a lot of artistic people have taken these journals to extremes and made them gorgeous and fancy which got me completely undone!

After I calmed down a bit, I went back to some of the websites and figured out the basics of bullet journaling and decided what would work for me. The underlying idea of having every page numbered is a little tedious to do, but makes lot of sense when you're trying to figure out where you wrote something down. I also liked the index, again for when I want to find something that I wrote down somewhere. I've also added tabs so that I can find lists of things. I made the tabs out of Post-It notes which makes the tab for "today" easy to move each day.

I haven't been using a weekly calendar because I have Google Calendar on my phone, but I think I'll start doing that this week. I can actually see how having a written weekly calendar could make my life easier. The daily pages are what makes it for me. For each day, I include what I'm going to do and also add in there what I DID do, the books I read, the topics I studied (I'm working on my Family Practice boards), what I'm knitting, and a space for journaling. I also have spaces to track sleep, weight, keto (whether I'm in it - No for today), meditating, exercise, mood, and headache. I also left a space for notes which I haven't used yet.

In the back of my journal, I have pages of lists - Movies to see, Books to read, Topics to study, Knitting projects to make, etc. I figure I can also put in here any other things that I think are important.

I'd like to get some Washi tape to pretty up my journal. I already use different colored pens for each day. I'm not artistic enough to do different kinds of lettering and I don't want to take time enough to do fancy and pretty things. I'm a pretty boring person sometimes. Mostly, I need my journal to help me plan and track my life. Since I don't have external plans, I need to make my own plans and see that I get them done. This is one way to do it.

If you want to try your own bullet journal, good luck. But, be careful when you start Googling! It is overwhelming! I spent a week researching before I was confident enough to put anything actually in my journal. But, have fun. I'm enjoying mine so far.

Let me know what you think if you get started!

Catherine