The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Starting a Bullet Journal

June 17, 2018



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!





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16 comments

  1. Wow great idea would love to try this 😍😘

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  2. I love my bullet journal, whether it is for planning or doodling! I love re-creating Amanda Rach Lee’s monthly spreads but one day would love to try my own!

    Ellyn xx | Life Of A Beauty Nerd

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    1. I love re-creating Amanda Rach Lee's monthly spread as well!

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  3. It looks so nice! I love the weekly spread too! 😁

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  4. I love how simplistic, yet effective your weekly spread looks- it's so aethtetically pleasing! I've been mad to try a bullet journal for ages, but I fear I would be too picky haha!!

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    1. Thank you so much! You can start your bullet journal with any notebook you've got in your house haha

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  5. Thank you for the post! I've been bu-joing, but recently lost motivation and only filled the habit tracker page. You brought me some more motivation, thank you!

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  6. Woow. This made me make my own bullet journel for sure...
    Thanx for sharing...

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  7. Great post. Thanks for sharing.

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  8. While I'm personally not new to bullet journals I really appreciate how well laid out and simple your guide is! I've seen some that I feel would just totally overwhelm a newbie as they bombard them with information, yours gives them just enough to tickle their fancy :)

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  9. I like the way you broke bullet journaling down. It seems like an effective way to keep track of things.

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  10. Though I'm not a pro, like a lot of people, lol, but I do like the idea of bullet journaling and it does help me plan and keep track. This is a great post for anyone planning to begin bullet journaling. :)

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  11. My daughter does this. I might have to jump on the band wagon..:)

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