Discover a Fun and Useful Hobby with Bullet Journaling

Photo by Emily from The Pondering Pen

You sit in your living room, ready to relax after a long day. You take a sip of tea from your favorite mug, and then grab the TV remote. As the show starts, you pull out one last thing to do – go over your journal for that day, and begin a list for tomorrow. After adding, crossing out, and moving what you need to, you can finally sit back with a clear head, knowing that you have tomorrow set up for success.

Welcome to the world of bullet journaling: a land of creativity and getting things done! In my previous post, we looked at what exactly bullet journaling is, and I promised that I would try it and get back to you after testing it out for a week. With that week now over, here is my experience with bullet journaling from start to finish, to give you an idea of what to expect should you decide to give it a go:

First off, I had to get the supplies. I had a bit of a hard time finding a bullet journal at the stores I normally shop at, so I took a fun little jaunt over to Hobby Lobby and got a bullet journal from there. The second thing I needed were pens. To meet this need, I used some Staedtler pens that I already had. I personally like these pens because there are a lot of colors available and they don’t bleed through my paper very much, but any pen set from whatever store you go to will be fine if you find yourself needing to buy some – though I would recommend getting some that don’t bleed or smudge.

Ok, I had my basic materials, now for the fun part: starting my journal! I mainly used my journal as a task list. In one article I looked over, the author also used their journal to write down memorable moments during the day, so I decided to add something similar to mine and write down any positive or negative happenings throughout the day.

Photo by Emily from The Pondering Pen

So, using bulletjournal.com as a guide, I wrote down some signifiers, and then added a few others I’ve noticed various people use that make it a little bit more fun and creative.

Then I wrote down the types of collections I wanted to use; the main two I used were a weekly log to track homework due dates and a daily log to track tasks and occurrences. For the weekly and

daily logs, I mainly used the outline layout from bulletjournal.com, but at the end of the week, I decided I wanted to experiment a little bit with different layouts, so I used a page to draw a calendar for the upcoming month and wrote down a few important events, and then on the next page, I wrote down a future log for three months with a few key dates, just to see how they would look if I were to continue the bullet journal.

Photo by Emily from The Pondering Pen

In the past, when I tried daily task lists, I would either write down too many things for the allotted time, or unexpected events would pop up during the day and I wouldn’t be able to get everything on my list done. This time, I prioritized writing down things that absolutely needed to be done that day, and then I would add to the list and cross items out as I needed to throughout the rest of the day or at the end of the day. Having more of a write-as-you-go process where I wrote down the most important things first, and then I could review the journal and edit it if I needed to, helped me to prioritize my tasks more and be more productive with the tasks that I needed to get done. While I didn’t have any stencils, stickers or other items that some people use in their bullet journals (though those would be very good additions to a journaling collection), using different colored pens for different things helped with organization and also made the whole process more enjoyable. Reviewing the journal in the evening and writing down different positive or negative things that happened during the day also made it double as a mood tracker, which I think was a positive added element to the journal.

I have to admit, I wasn’t entirely sure how successful this venture would be, but after trying it out for a week, I can definitely see myself continuing to use a bullet journal in the future and using it to explore my creativity more. It’s a really great way to make lists, get thoughts or ideas out, sketch, or do anything else you might want or need to do. While it might take a little bit to adjust to using dots instead of lines to guide your writing and drawing, and, just like any new habit, it does take some self-discipline to keep at it, I would definitely recommend bullet journaling if you’re looking for a new hobby or a way to better track your schedules. What other type of journaling do you want to know about? Let me know what I should try next!