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

[eleanorjane]

I'm really glad to see this comm has come up - it's very timely cos I have been trying to figure out how to make bujos work for me. My big problems are:

a) in my home life, I just don't have the kind of routine where I look at a journal often enough to get use out of the logging and task lists

b) in my work life, I am so overburdened with discrete tasks (rather than larger projects) that I wind up having to rewrite 30-50 to-dos every week for the new log, and that's demoralising and timeconsuming

So I'm really trying to figure out how to make bujos work for me, because I do like the analogue nature of it.

[fay_e]

I have very different answers for (a) and (b), which is why I run two separate bullet journals for home and work (aside from secrecy issues at my workplace =P).

(a) For home, I realise that making myself put everything in the journal forces some routine in my life. So I have a main source (i.e. the journal) where things are most likely to be, and only start looking elsewhere later.

(b) For work, I find if I have a lot of repetitive tasks I prefer a habit tracker? So it becomes a list of 30 - 50 items with boxes to check off depending on how frequently it's done. Then I don't have to rewrite the list, and it's less irritating to repeat making tick marks every day :)

I'm also a weird person who has melded paper journaling with digital alerts, so take whatever's useful for you

[eleanorjane]

Oooh, I like the idea of the habit tracker. I mean, a lot of my discrete tasks aren’t repetitive, they’re just one-offs (I’m the team leader for an admin team supporting a bunch of operational care workers, so we get handed a lot of single “just do this thing” tasks by managers) but I’m sure I could use habit trackers in a better way - or maybe I could adapt them into a progress tracker style layout, for common but non-scheduled tasks that follow the same processes each time.

Hmmmm! You’ve given me some things to think about - thankyou!

[fay_e]

You're welcome!

I thought of your question when I saw these journal spreads, so tossing them up for you to take a look.

Here's a project plan style layout for moving house.

The Work Flow chart and Project Plans spreads from this How to Bullet Journal for Work article could be useful, maybe on a daily basis?

Here's the time-ladders with multiple projects drawn side by side by the lady who came up with the idea.

And here's an example from my own bullet journal, last image of the habit tracker. I put things on my skin on a daily basis, but the thing I put might be different. So I have an overarching "Skincare" habit (second row of the habit tracker), and instead of checkmarks I write down the letter of the skincare product I used that day.