Simple bullet journal ideas, examples, and templates to organize your life
Summary/Overview
You don’t have to be interested in resolutions or year-end goals to need a little order in your life. Journaling has had a resurgence in recent years as a self-care trend, but certain styles of journals have remained on top due to their high level of utility. One of those styles is the bullet journal, which focuses on breaking your day, week, month, or year into a variety of doable tasks and reflections on how you use your time. Read on to learn more about the bullet journal and how you can use one to organize your life and download some free customizable templates from Adobe Express that will make your journaling process more colorful and fun!
What is a bullet journal?
Bullet journals, developed by digital product designer Ryder Carroll, are a method of personal organization that have exploded in popularity since 2013. Also known as a “Bujo,” a bullet journal can help you be mindful about your level of productivity, and how you split your time between activities, work, and personal responsibilities. The goal of using this type of journal is to live with intention and have a sense of purpose for how you spend your time.
How to start a bullet journal
- Gather the supplies you’ll need. This will obviously include your favorite writing utensil and a dot-grid journal of your choice, whether that’s a trademarked Bullet Journal, or a regular notebook that you can customize however you’d like.
- Brainstorm your journal’s general purpose. How would you like to organize your time? Will this journal be for to-do lists, goal-tracking, or diary writing? Whichever theme you go with will alter its design.
- Create your index or table of contents page. This page will list everything you’ll be including in your bullet journal, whether that’s list categories, logs of your time, or events you’d like to focus on.
- Make the bullet journal your own by filling out the pages with page numbers, time logs, summaries, and tracking systems for keeping up with goals, activities, or responsibilities.
- Have fun with it! This is your journal, which means you get to put whatever you want in it. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good; there will always be more space for changes or alterations as you start to use the journal and find out what works best for you.
Simple bullet journal examples and inspiration
- Bullet journal weekly spread: Take the week by storm with a breakdown of each week day, what you need to accomplish, and what you’d like to focus on.
- Monthly and annually spread bullet journals: Bullet journals can also be broken down into month-long or year-long time logs. Put the most important events of your month or year down first and build around those dates.
- Habit tracker bullet journal: Are you trying to quit smoking, be more creative with your free time, or other habit-related goals? Track when you do something to get a sense of your pattern and how to encourage or break the habit, depending on your final goal.
- Mood tracker bullet journal: A solid self-care and mental health plan can include tracking your moods and seeing how they are affected by other factors in your life.
Things to track in your bullet journal
- School: Bullet journals can be handy with organizing assignments, listing class and project supplies, stating quarter or semester goals, or laying out big concepts like a senior thesis.
- Work: Every job can involve an excess of tasks that aren’t under your job description. Stay focused on your responsibilities and career goals with a bullet journal.
- Home projects: A lot of elbow grease and planning can go into home improvement projects, so a bullet journal can come in handy with listing tools or supplies needed, and having a calendar of repairs ready to go.
- Personal finances: Keep a budget handy for your spending and regular day-to-day costs with the easy bracket and box-style organization of a bullet journal.
- Health and self-care: A bullet journal can be helpful for weekly meal-planning, menstrual cycle tracking, and cataloguing tasks like staying hydrated, taking your medications, or fitting in your regular exercise.
What to put in your bullet journal
Whether your bullet journal is for developing creativity, personal motivation, building an aesthetic, or for professional reasons, there are many things you can add to it for extra personality.
- Layout: There are so many ways to develop the layout of your bullet journal. Check out the free customizable templates throughout this post and below for ideas on how to draw or design your journal.
- Doodles: Splurge on some new markers or pens so that you can go wild and doodle all over your pages to keep things fun as you journal.
- Blank and printable versus online and digital: You have several options for how to format your bullet journal. You could draw your own, print out pre-formatted pages, or go digital and keep the journal online! There are plenty of online templates to choose from if you’re more of a typist than a doodler.
- Stickers: Harken back to your childhood and get some stickers! Whether the stickers are cute shapes to bring a certain mood to your pages, or directional stickers that keep you on task, stickers of any kind add a certain pizazz to each journal page.
