Setting up a Bullet Journal is just the beginning, discover the true power behind this analog system.
Don’t get caught up in deciding on the different kinds of notebooks for bullet journaling is the best notebook to use. What are the best pens for bullet journaling? The questions you have may have flying around inside your head. In fact, bullet journaling is intended to get all your thoughts, questions, memories onto your bullet journal pages. For some reason when I dump all those distracting thoughts on to paper, suddenly I can think clearly and focus on what it is I am doing. That thought that just keeps coming at me, seems to suddenly stop. Don’t get me wrong, there are gems that also come to mind. But may not seem like it at first. But you jot it down in your bullet journal. And a week later when you look back on it, you read that thought or idea, and you begin to develop it into something remarkable.
You track your past, organize the present and plan for the future. As Ryder Carroll says, “Bullet journaling is a mindfulness practice disguised as a productivity system, productivity with purpose. It helps you organize what you’re doing while keeping you mindful of why you’re doing it.” He was the one who developed the method of rapid logging, and he then shared it with the world. The power lies in being mindful about what you are doing. Whatever that may be, if you are mindful about what you’re doing, you will do less activities that all they do for you is use up your time and give you nothing in return, leaving you feeling exhausted, but you didn’t accomplish anything.
Setting up a bullet journal is where you want to start. It lays down the foundation. Once you learn the process to it, you can build your house anyway you want. If there is some part of the process that with a little bit of adjusting, you find out that you are able to do things that bring value to your life, then go with. I wrote a blog post that explains the process and the bullet journal set up in detail.
Coming back around to the topic of notebooks for bullet journaling. Whatever type of notebook you feel comfortable with is the notebook for bullet journaling you should use. There are a few rules to bullet journaling, but they have nothing to do with notebooks for bullet journaling or bullet journaling pens.
Ryder Carroll chooses to use notebooks that use dot grids for his bullet journal pages. Other bullet journalists use classic lined journal paper, or graph paper notebooks, even 100% blank notebooks, like sketchbooks.
I would bet if you were to look at the different bullet journal notebooks, all with different interior types of bullet journal pages, you will see that no matter how different each one will be, you will see similarities and patterns between them. If you decided to use a yellow legal pad you can do that too. When it comes to pens for journaling, you may want to get a pen that will not bleed through your bullet journal pages. If you happen to be lefty, then you know that fast drying ink is a must.
But let me stress the point that as long as you’re using the process that Ryder Carroll has shared with us, you can make your own supplies for bullet journaling. Staple a bunch of napkins together, grab an eyelash pencil. Create the core modules of the bullet journal. Bullet journal index, bullet journal future logs, bullet journal monthly logs, and your bullet journal daily logs.
If you don’t know how the bullet journal set up is done, you can view my blog post and learn more about bullet journaling. https://bizprintables.com/dotted-notebook
One more important thing that you need to remember. You need to know what the different bullets represent.
Log entries are short, bulleted sentences. They fall into one of three categories. They are events, tasks, and notes. Notes receive a dash bullet, events receive a circle bullet, and tasks receive a dot bullet.
You’ve been bullet journaling for 29 days. You’ve been logging tasks you had to do for the past month. You also been jotting down your thoughts throughout the days as notes. It doesn’t matter what you write down. Studies have been done about how many thoughts a person has in a day. A recent study done shows a person on average has around 6,200 thoughts per day. Your thoughts will vary, some will be good, some will be bad, some will be great, and some will be horrible. You’re really not thinking about what you’re writing. You’re just getting those thoughts out of your head and onto paper.
At the end of each month, you set up the next monthly log, the same as the month before.
Then you go back to the beginning of the month that is ending and assess your daily logs. What tasks do you have open? Which ones have you completed? Review your notes and look to see if there was anything that you wrote down that you want to carry on or do some research into it to fid out if it is worth your time and effort.
You will x out all the tasks you completed. The open tasks you want to ask yourself if the task is still important? You may find that the task seemed important two weeks ago, but know that you’re looking at it, it has no meaning to you anymore. The you strikeout the task and move on.
If the task is still important, you add a right arrow next to the dot bullet and then copy the task into the upcoming month task list. If the task was a project that doesn’t need to be completed until 4 months down the road, you will add a left arrow next to the dot bullet and copy the task into your future logs.
For tasks that are a priority, you add a star next to the bullet. Signifying that it is a priority. You can download a Bullet Journal Key on my blog post, learn setting up a bullet journal, and how to make bullet journaling work for you. Dotted notebook
Whenever you start a new page, you will number the page. Then add the page and page number to your bullet journal index. This is like a books table of contents. You will be able to open to the exact page you want review or add another log entry to. It Saves you from searching through the pages trying to find that one page you left off at. It is your reference for later. Bullet journaling is rapid logging. You will be able to record and capture information quickly.
With those few rules to guide you, you are free to let your creativity show and design a system that works for you.
