Starting to bullet journal

Bullet journalling has been around for a while, but to be honest, I didn’t particularly feel I had a need for it. Until now…

For the last three years I’ve been filling in the Your Best Year books by Lisa Jacobs. They are designed to help small businesses and are full of really good advice as well as having spaces to plan and track how you’re doing. However she didn’t publish one for 2019, and after not really finding an alternative I liked the look of or was willing to pay that much money for; I decided a bullet journal for my blog, When I Grow Up, and business, Threads of a Fairytale, would work.

If you are interested in how to use bullet journals, they are explained much better at the original bullet journal website, but it’s basically a notebook to help you live your life in a more organised manner. You number every page and keep a contents list at the front. You also make a key, so you have a system of symbols such as a bullet point for a note; a tick for a task done; an arrow for a task moved forward etc. I think the idea is that you can organise everything in your life in the one book, so you’d combine a To Do list for work as well as personal things. And I think that is one of the things that has put me off bullet journalling actually. (When I grow up I intend to be fully organised in my mind as well as on paper!) I am a massive notebook user, and have a notebook for every single different thing in my life. (I feel another idea for a blog post coming on!) I just don’t think I want to put it all together. Even with a contents page, I don’t want to go searching through old bullet journals for a new dress design idea; I want to go straight to the notebook I have specifically for dress designs for Threads of a Fairytale! So I decided to ignore the guidelines, and just make a bullet journal for my work.

Under the bracket of ‘work’, I’m including this blog, my YouTube channel, the book I’m writing, and my handmade gift shop, by Helen Hobden. And just to be clear, I still have separate notebooks for each of those, but I wanted somewhere different to get down to the nitty gritty of business and easily find the important stuff.

So I chose a beautiful book by Lemome, and also treated myself to a new pack of coloured pilot pens. I spread out my pack of calligraphy pens, Zig Kuretake watercolour brush pens, pencil, rubber and ruler, and after being inspired on Pinterest and YouTube, I got started. Here’s the video showing all my page layouts; I hope it gives you some bullet journal inspiration:

After using my blog and business bullet journal for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t shake off the thought that a personal bullet journal would also be useful. Ticking off the daily task list is quite satisfying, and also acts as an encouragement to do them in the first place. I thought I could do with that incentive for my personal goals as well as work ones. And so, a second bullet journal was born!

As you can tell, my personal one is a bit more rough around the edges, and as well as keeping track of goals, I’m also going to use it to make notes throughout the year for whatever is going on in my life (such as packing lists and planning days out) (that I don’t already have another notebook for!) and I thought that would be quite nice to look back on in the future as well.

It is a bit annoying that rather than reduce the number of notebooks I have on the go, bullet journalling has ended up increasing the number by two! But I’ve really enjoyed doing it. It is time consuming, I have to admit, but my number one new year’s resolution was to start properly having weekends off. So in this new free time when I’m not blogging or video editing, I can now be bullet journalling instead! I’m looking forward to practicing my drawing and doodling and incorporating that more into my bullet journal.

Do you keep a bullet journal? Have you managed to keep it up? What do you find it most useful for?

Linking with the #sharealllinkup at Not Dressed as Lamb.