By Lily Bourne
Do you love the idea of making art and staying organized, but lack the artistic abilities and general discipline to create a completely personalized journal by yourself? Well, I have the perfect hobby for you. Bullet journaling makes the daunting task of filling up endless empty pages a little easier by providing a more structured, but still open-ended, approach. Rather than simply writing a stream of consciousness each day, bullet journaling focuses more on keeping track of smaller bits of information – think bullet points. To get started, all you’ll need is a journal with the dotted pages (I got mine from Michaels) and a pen. I like to use the Midliner highlighters to do all my designs but you can pretty much use anything.
Each month, I create a cover page with a design on one side and a monthly overview on the other. Now, like I said, I am not a super artistic person by any means. Instead of thinking of my own designs, I head straight to Pinterest and copy whichever one I think is cutest. This helps me choose a theme for the month which I’ll also use in my Habits page.
Next, I have two tracking pages, one for sleep and one for screen time. For my sleep, I usually set a color theme of three colors and alternate each day. For screen time, I do a green/yellow/red scale each time to hopefully discourage myself from letting it get too high (this does not really work, unfortunately). Each page takes me only a few minutes to set up and less than a minute to fill out each day, so it’s a lot easier to manage than a more complicated tracking page.
Then, I have a habits page where I track a multitude of other things, such as completing my homework, exercising, and eating healthy. The habits page usually follows whatever theme I chose for my cover page, and also usually takes the most time to set up. It’s worth it after the first day though, since it functions basically as a checklist that I can easily fill out right before bed.
Finally, each month I keep a page I call “Everyday 5”. Rather than face the pressure of what to write every single night, I simply answer these five prompts
- I’m grateful for…
- I love that I…
- My favorite part of today was…
- I am excited for…
- One thing I learned today was…
This format removes the decision paralysis of not knowing what to say, and also allows me to end every day on a positive note and practice gratefulness! If you’re going to do any part of this bullet journal, I would highly recommend starting your own Everyday 5. Now, although these pages look like a lot of work, I would estimate I probably spend about an hour on the cover, another hour on the habits, and probably 10 minutes combined on the other three pages to set up each month. Each night, it takes me probably three minutes to fill out. The best thing about bullet journaling is that even if you miss a night, or can’t find the time to make a page, literally nobody will ever know. It’s all about having fun and being creative. If you read through this whole thing and feel inspired to start your own journal, let me know! I love seeing new spreads (shoutout to Samhita Holla) and can’t wait to see where other people’s creativity takes them.