Back in 2007 Ryder Carroll introduced the idea of bullet journaling to his colleague who was planning a wedding, and on August 2013 he launched his site together with a tutorial video. He sees this as an evolving, adaptable practice meant to be self-curated as you determine what works best for you (“Bullet Journal”, n.d.).
Each bullet journal is unique to its owner, having different
purposes for the owner’s personal needs. You can put a lot of different spread
sheets such as a habit tracker, mood tracker, YouTube or blog growth tracker
and many more depending on what you need.
I talked about the reasons why you should start a bullet journal a few posts back, and it pleases me to see that
I got a lot of positive feedbacks from it. Assuming that I or your friends and family was able to convince
you to start a bullet journal of your own, I created this post to help you out
on starting your journey. So here is the Ultimate Beginners Guide to Starting a
Bullet Journal.
The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Starting a Bullet Journal
Basic Materials
What You’ll Need:
- Bullet Journal Notebook
- Highlighters
- Colored Markers
- Ruler
- Your favorite black tinted pen
For your bullet
journal notebook, I recommend getting either one of these three sheet
styles: blank, dotted grid or graphing paper. I am recommending these sheet
styles because they do not limit you on how you organize your thoughts.
Lined notebooks are great for people who use their notebooks
strictly for writing (“Paper Notebooks Explained”, 2017). There’s nothing wrong
with using that as your bullet journal but having no restrictions and limits
where you can doodle unobtrusively with blank, dotted grid or graphing paper
will give you the best experience in bullet journaling.
For the pen you
can use your favorite one, but I personally love the look and feel of using the
Artline Drawing System in 0.2mm line width for drawing and writing on my bullet
journal. This is a water based and water resistant black pigmented ink used for
drawing, graphic design, illustrations and documents. The pen is available from
0.1mm to 0.8mm of line width so you have a variety of choices to choose from.
Highlighters and colored markers are essentials because
they add life to your bullet journal. My favorite highlighters are the pastel
color ones from Stabilo and I use colored markers from Faber-Castell. Color
plays a major role in setting up our mood, emotions, feelings and state of mind.
Which is why it is important for you to choose colors that makes you feel good
inside.
Bright colors such as the color yellow encourages us to be
happy and optimistic and the use of dull colors suggests being moody and
emotionless. But the use of color still depends on the theme you are going with
and your aesthetics so who am I to stop you. You do you!
The “Basic”
Spreads
- Key and Index
- Future log
- Monthly Spread
- Weekly Spread
- Collections
1 1. Key
and Index
The index will serve as a guide for you in the future to be able to see what goes where in your bullet journal and the keys will tell you on how to mark various things such as completed tasks, events, birthdays, important tasks and many more depending on what you need.
The design of your keys depends on how you
want it to look like, if you are at lost you can find inspirations from Pinterest
and Instagram.
2 2. Future
log
The future log is a simple and easy place
to flip to when you need to check when a specific event is happening (Carroll,
n.d.). It doesn’t necessarily need to be fancy or creative you just need to
establish and find a way to fit all 12 months into two pages while considering
if there is enough space for you to write on.
3 3. Monthly
Spread
The monthly spread is an overview of the whole
month. I know you see a lot of fun and creative monthly overview layout from YouTubers
like amandarachlee and jennyjournals but yours doesn’t need to be that way. If you like a more practical and minimalist
style you can do that. Your bullet journal is your safe haven, you can do whatever
you want with it and nobody is going to judge you.
4 4. Weekly
Spread
Weekly spread is an overview of the week. It is all about preference at this point but personally, I prefer to have a weekly spread as oppose to having daily spreads because that way I can have an overview of the task, appointments and events with just one glance; additionally, daily spreads are not really my thing.
But like I said it is all about preference
at this point and if you prefer to have daily spreads instead of weekly or if
you prefer to have both of them then by all means go for it. No one can dictate
you what to do with your bullet journal not even me! I wish I could insert a
winky face right here but that would be too unprofessional.
5 5. Collections
Collection Modules or Collections are great
for organizing specific lists (shopping lists, reading lists etc), classes and
projects (Carroll, n.d.). Basically, a collection is just a one big to-do list
for the whole month or year even. I have a collection spread on each month that
goes by and so far, it works well for me.
Apart from these “Basic” Spreads there are others that you
can do as well such as,
- YouTube and/or Blog Growth Tracker
- Gratitude Log
- Time Log
- Habit Tracker
- Mood Tracker
- Bucket List
- Goals Tracker
- Budget Tracker
- “I am Thankful for…” List
- Important Contacts
There are a lot more spreads that you can create that works best
for you and your lifestyle. Just like what I have mentioned earlier in this
post, Bullet Journaling is an evolving, adaptable practice meant to be self-curated
as you determine what works best for you (“Bullet Journal”, n.d.).
I hope I was able to help you with this Ultimate Beginners
Guide to Starting a Bullet Journal and if you aren’t already convince that
bullet journaling may help you in becoming an organize person then you might
want to check out 3 Reasons Why You Should Start a Bullet Journal.
Happy Journaling!
