Have You Started Your Bullet Journal?

Last week we learned about trackers and collections plus we had some great beginner tips by experts. This week, we wanted to explore different Bullet Journal styles, extra tools, what migrating is, and touch upon finishing your Bullet Journal.

What Kind of Bullet Journal Will You Create?

Super-Organized 

Your Bullet Journal is at the centre of your life. It includes calendars, planners, to-do lists and complete dailies, weeklies, and monthlies. Your goals are all in there including how you are going to achieve them. No topic is too obscure to be made into a collection. It helps you feel in control of your life.

Artistic

Everything you do is an opportunity to showcase your artistic talent. So why not your Bullet Journal? You love to share what you’ve created on social media, pin it and others share it. Your bullet journal spreads are what other Bullet Journalists use for inspiration. Your Bullet Journal has to look good for you to feel happy with it. Using different mediums such as markers or watercolour paints is your way of expressing yourself.

Tracker Tools

There are so many tracker tools available to use in your Bullet Journal from how much water you drank in a day to exercise, meals, calories and more! Finding new habits to track and cool ways to track them is a hobby. You can’t wait to include them in your next month. You are the person who gets it when you hear that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. The data and statistics you have gathered about yourself show this.

Scrapbook

If there is a new sticker collection available, you will have it in your Bullet Journal. You know where to source the most diverse collection of washi tape and your pen collection is vast. You love to express yourself by finding interesting objects to showcase your creativity. Over the years you’ve collected concert tickets and other objects to include in your Bullet Journal. Every spread is carefully planned out to showcase your findings in a beautiful sense of order.

Minimalist

Black and white, simples lines and clean plain pages work best for you. Your Bullet Journal is a tool that helps you reach your goals. It’s perfect for keeping organized in the most important areas of your life but you’re not going to spend more time on it than necessary. After the necessary lines, you don’t feel that you need to fill the space. Once you find the right tools for your Bullet Journal, you don’t need to change it up. It’s about what is essential and what helps you to achieve your goals.

Tools

What is a Bullet Journal Key?

When you first start using your Bullet Journal, you’ll want to set up a system of icons and symbols that will help you organize yourself. You can set up a Bullet Journal key page which is a list where you keep track of the symbols and icons and what they mean. 

Your key can be as simple as you want or as elaborate as you want. Some people like a small list with few symbols other people prefer a long one with many different symbols. 

You are probably wondering what the key really is for and what to do with all the symbols and icons. Their purpose is to increase the effectiveness of your Bullet Journal.

If you’ve done some browsing of Bullet Journals online maybe you’ve noticed circles, X’s, squares and a few other symbols. They enable you to categorize information at a quick glance. They will help you determine what needs to be done, what’s in progress and your priorities. Add in some colour-coding and it will be even easier to see at a quick glance what is happening in your weekly or monthly.

As you see how useful icons and symbols can be, you will decide which ones you want to add to the key in your Bullet Journal. Like everything else in your Bullet Journal, what you use and how you use it is up to you. Here are a few symbols to get you started:

     o      In Progress

•     To Do

     x      Completed

     >     Reschedule

     !      Priority

Here is a video of a bullet journal key being made:

Printables & Elements

If you don’t have time or artistic ability, you can use of printables to add-in to your bullet journal. A lot of the printable are customizable. You simply print them out and you’re ready to use them. On the other hand, if you don’t want to use ready-made templates, there are still elements you can print out and add to your Bullet Journal. For example, doodles, borders, titles and so on.

Online you can find printables of any page or spread in your Bullet Journal such as the index, future spread, weeklies, monthlies, habit trackers. Anything!

You can add thousands of elements to your Bullet Journal if you don’t want to do everything by hand. Lettering, frames, layouts for titles, even watercolour elements are just a few examples.

For more about creating watercolour elements in your Bullet Journal, here is a great resource: 

https://www.sweetbujo.com/watercolour-in-my-bullet-journal-experiment/

We have also included two other links for some printable elements:

https://lifeismessyandbrilliant.com/free-bullet-journal-printables/

https://thepetiteplanner.com/30-free-bullet-journal-printables/

Pinterest is also a fantastic place to look for ideas, inspiration and elements. The important things to remember is to have fun and not get overwhelmed by all there is out there!

Migrating Your Bullet Journal

Migrating content is one of the foundations of keeping a Bullet Journal. Once you start your second month in your bullet journal it may be time to migrate some tasks. Take a look at your previous month’s tasks, cross out the ones that you've completed and determine whether the incomplete tasks are still important. If so, you move the task(s) forward to the new month. This can also be done with dailies and weeklies.

Your future log is another important tool in migration. When you’re setting up your new monthly log, check your future log. Are there items that are scheduled for the new month? If so, migrate those items from the future log into your new monthly log.

This may seem like a considerable effort and repetitive. However, there is intention in this process. It gives you the opportunity to take a look at your items and consider whether they are still relevant. Once you’ve determined their relevancy you can choose whether to migrate them or not. That way you’ll only have things that are truly important to you. It can also help you become conscious of your own habits thus making your Bullet Journal more effective.

Migrating your Bullet Journal also happens on a larger scale when you’ve finished one Bullet Journal and start a new one. In the following video you can see this process in action.

Finishing Your Bullet Journal - Migrating From Old to New

No matter how you choose to finish and migrate your Bullet Journal from the old to the new, it’s time to acknowledge what you’ve accomplished. Getting through an entire Bullet Journal is an accomplishment. Think of how many notebooks you’ve started and never finished! 

Part of migrating your Bullet Journal is to not make it too complicated a task. It’s important to take your time and, as stated above, determine what parts, tasks, tools, trackers, and collections you want to migrate. Remember, there is no right or wrong, simply what works best for you. You can always add-in something at a later date.

You may also be wondering how long it should take you to finish your Bullet Journal. There is really no time-line. It depends on the size of your journal, how much content you add to it and how much you use it. Most likely, the more you use Bullet Journals, the faster you’ll use one up. 

We’ve come to the end of our Bullet Journal series. We hope you’ve enjoyed it and found value in it.