Newbie-Friendly Bujo Resources

[inkstone]

In these early days of the community, I'd like to keep things low-key while people discover us and filter in. So, to start things off, I thought our first post could focus on introductory bullet journal resources. We have some members new to bullet journaling or are thinking of giving bullet journaling a try, and I think this would be very helpful. I know I was very overwhelmed when I discovered bullet journaling a couple years back (and I actually didn't adopt it then because it was just too much!)

I'll start.

• Bullet Journal: The original bullet journal site. Now, I personally found this site confusing when I first discovered the system, but I still think it's useful. If you're overwhelmed by all of the options, bells, whistles, and artsiness, come to this site because it brings you back to the original, spartan form.


• WTF Is A Bullet Journal And Why Should You Start One? This Buzzfeed primer, however, walks through the bullet journal. With examples! This is the article that helped me understand bullet journals and how I could make them work for me.


• Dear Bullet Journal Newbies: Jessica Chung is an avid bujo user and probably one of the bigger names in the Planner Community^tm. (She's one of the people behind the #PlanWithMeChallenge on IG.) This post has some great down-to-earth advice about starting your first bullet journal and not getting trapped into the mindset that your bujo must look a certain way.

So, let's open the floor. What are your favorite introductory bullet journal resources? The only thing I ask is that you avoid resources based on Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr. Since these are visual-based platforms, they tend to showcase the artsy, crafty bujos and I think that can be overwhelming for newbies when they're still thinking about function and how to make a bujo work for them. This isn't meant to diss prettiness, to be clear! I color-coordinate Mildliners and washi tape in my spreads. It pleases me visually. But that's not the point. Function before aesthetics!

Or: If you're a bujo newbie or thinking of becoming a bujo newbie, what questions do you have about the system? Anything confusing you? Are you wondering how a bullet journal can apply to your life? Ask away. I bet someone in this community will have some ideas for you that can get the wheels turning!

Go!

Comments

[misslucyjane]

I've been using a bujo since last October; a friend mentioned she was using one, so I googled it and found all sorts of articles and blogs, including, thankfully, the original site where it's pretty minimalist. I'm not artistic at all, but I do enjoy lots of different colored inks and stickers, and this has introduced me to washi tape, so I use those to make my journal pretty or at least to mark important pages. (I also bought a stencil with some goofy shapes to mark important days, but aside from birthdays I haven't had much use for it yet.)

I've found it most helpful as a habit tracker, to mark off which medications I've taken today (better than a pill minder!) and to use the index page idea to keep track of my writing notes. I've got notebooks dating back to college with story notes and I couldn't tell you what's in any of them, so the index is just genius.

The notebook I'm using now is meant to be a daily diary more than a blank journal. It's got date slots and a place to number pages, and even a way to record the weather. For most pages, though I just number it, write a title at the top (Plot Bunny Hutch, WIP notes, Habit Tracker, for example) , and note it on the index page. My signifiers also change all the time--I like checking off a box rather than X-ing out a dot, for instance, so I've yet to stick to a specific system for those.

I can't remember where I saw this, but I have seen a bujo where the user just used colored dots to mark different events: blue for school, green for work, red for family, etc. I like that idea very much. And there's another article (sorry, I've read so much about BuJos now that it's all blending together in my head) that suggested using a different color for each day, so you only carry one pen with you every day.

Since my current notebook is black with red ... deckling? is that the word for when pages are colored on the edges?--whatever that is, I'm just using red and black, though not with what you'd call any kind of regularity.