How I Set Up My Bullet Journal

This post is basically a more thorough dump than I have hitherto shared, of my own personal Bullet Journal shenanigans at present. Not a tutorial or an example so much -- this is just the way I am doing this and it is what works for me right now. :)

I had a little trouble finding a new blank book for my Bullet Journal (a.k.a. BuJo) this year, because Walmart has apparently done away with the brown-paper journals that I have grown quite fond of, therefore I had to hunt for something else that would work.

I ended up getting this simple yet kind of cute white paper sketchbook/journal. It is slightly bigger than what I have used before, but that is actually perfect, because I was feeling a little cramped with my recent switch to weekly spreads. There are dotted journals and stuff you could use for more official-looking Bullet Journalling, but they are usually more pricey and there is generally even less of a selection. Also, a lined notebook would work in a bind, but that's painful to me, haha.

The biggest things that help with this system, are the numbered pages and index; but it's important to remember that anytime you include something new, you immediately go back to add it into the index and/or key also, so that you can easily find it again! Especially if you have a lot of collections pages -- books read, water intake, meal planning, weather, sleep graph, mood chart, etc. (I don't have much of this kind of variety and details in mine, although I think I might add a book reading page this year...)

2019's Index, almost completely filled in (still organizing and wrapping things up haha)

Last year I tried out a mood chart thing, which was kind of fun, but seemed pointless, too, so I won't do that this year.

Then I've got my calendar and goal pages:

 

The beginning of the year takes a little time to set up, then it's only the months and weeks I do as I need to, so it isn't very time-consuming. Sloppy lines, nothing's measured, just what needs to be there and what I feel like adding because it's fun...oh, haha, I don't know if you can see the ink smears in spots, but it was getting all over my ruler and my hands so I got frustrated and switched from whatever ballpoint I was using to my Sharpie pen. XD (Also had a long and hard fight with my white out tape dispenser, but these were unusual events, even for me.)

I'm pretty sure I've already showed you how I set up each month and my weekly spreads, so that's about it, then! I do about 3 to 5 pages of recap/collections/notes on the year at the end of the year, but other than that, these are the only kinds of pages I do. Well, okay, yes, some drawings and doodles sneak in here and there also...especially when there was brown paper to use with color pencils -- that was fun, and probably how I will use the few remaining pages in the old journal, haha. :)

If you have ever considered trying to do your own Bullet Journal, you can totally do it, too. I promise it's really not very complicated, it just kind of looks like it sometimes!

There are so many tutorials and things you can gather inspiration from for ideas for your BuJo. (I recommend Pinterest, of course, as a great rabbit hole of fantastic distraction place to search for and save your favorite Bullet Journal ideas.) All kinds of tools you can use, too -- stencils, stickers, colorful pens, highlighters, etc. The amount of available information can be kind of overwhelming, but what it really boils down to is figuring out how much organization and decorating and what types of layouts you need to make it work for you. It's suuuuuper customizable -- there's literally no Wrong way to do this! I started out simple a few years ago, with just basic lists and calendar-ish pages that I wanted to keep track of; and I have since been playing around with decorative banners and fonts, and trying out different things as I get more comfortable and figure out what works for me. :)


On an unrelated note, here is the life drawing I did in December:

waiting-for-an-airplane sketch in regular ol' pen

Okay! I was up waaaaaay too late with this post, but let's hope it didn't turn out too crazy -- bye!