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

[yhlee]

I really like your third link. I'm very new to this and having fun, but Googling for bullet journal ideas has sometimes been overwhelming!

I have a really specific question that may or may not have answers: I'd like to integrate my writing workflow and bullet journaling more (I'm a sf/f writer, so writing basically is my job), are there particular spreads that lend themselves well to that? I am bad at organizational stuff so ideas are welcome.

Less specific question, I notice some people use Midori Traveler journals--I have one and am not using it for bujoing but for other things, but how does one use multiple notebook inserts with the system? If at all? I'm not so much looking for a mythical definitive answer as ideas and possibilities.

[inkstone]

So, I previously used a Midori. My initial form of the Midori was traditional planner with structured inserts. But the next form I used was a bullet journal. What I ended up doing was that I'd have one insert where I'd have daily logs (the planner, more or less), another insert where I'd keep my collections (what I was reading, watching, etc), and a final one to track writing progress. Some people prefer to separate them out like this, and I'd initially thought I wanted that too. I don't. Or rather, it doesn't work for me because I tend to ignore certain inserts in favor of others.

That's why I opted for a single Moleskine this year as my main bujo. But many people use Midoris that way, and it works for them. Or, they have one insert for home and one for work and one for school. Like I said, some people like the separation.

(Ironically, I tried to have another bujo for my current novel-in-progress because that's what people said you "should" do but no. I didn't learn my lesson the first time. Keeping things separate is annoying! So I'm hoping someone will answer your writing workflow question because I'm going to try incorporating them next month in my spreads.)

[yhlee]

Thanks for the insight!

I like keeping things in a single notebook for the moment because keeping notes and to-dos in separate notebooks (although not using the "formal" bujo system) was what I was formerly doing, and the separation was driving me up the wall. The Midori I'm using is for writing notes and draft stuff, so not specifically bujo; I'll leave it there. It's also physically too small for some of the stuff I want--I keep art anatomy notes in my bujo and I tape in diagrams, and there's no way they'd fit in a Midori (well, unless I drew smaller, but then detail is harder to see).

[fadedwings]

I'm using a word count spread in my bullet journal this month.
I made a post with a couple of pics if you want to see. Nothing fancy: the day, word count, what I wrote, the total of words so far. I may tweak it a bit next month. That's one of the things I love about bujos is that if a spread isn't working for me, I can drop it or change it next time around.
Link: HERE (public post)

[lovepeaceohana]

That Buzzfeed article was what got me started, incidentally - I dove straight into the deep end with Pinterest straight afterward :P

[gorgeousnerd]

I started my bullet journal in September based off the video that's on the first website. I found it simple and really useful, and it was the first place I'd seen where the journal wasn't in a hundred colors or an art journal, basically. I felt free to be a little messier. Once I watched the video, I started with a composition book I had lying around, and I haven't looked back.

Really, I'm only just now starting to start adapting the original format to suit my needs more closely (although I've been playing with the Daily Log format for a long time). And I'm starting to play with more colors/washi tape. But I still like that I can write in pen and scribble things out without worrying about messing up my pages.

My question: I've done Future Log (although I think I'm going to drop/adapt it because I haven't been using it), Monthly Log, and Daily Log. Does anyone do a Weekly Log and have a good simple format for that?

[inkstone]

Yeah, that's why I hesitate to point newbies to the various IG challenges and the like -- which can spark lots of ideas and inspiration by just looking at the hashtags, but can really make certain personality types fall into perfection traps. "It must look this way." or "Oh no! I messed up! I need to rip out this entire page!" And that can be pretty demoralizing.

[daidoji_gisei]

I am studiously ignoring any link that goes to Pintrest, Tumblr, etc. Once I start thinking that my journal has to be pretty or artsy I'm going to lose it totally.

[rootsofthestories]

Oooh, I am so excited to see a stripped down version of all this. Part of the reason I have yet to start is because I've stared at all the things on pintrest and instagram and just get stressed out.

[havocthecat]

I do a very bare-bones bullet journal style. It's half paper journal, half task list, half calendar. Pretend that does not add up to 150%. :)

[rootsofthestories]

Oh, that's good to know!

[isis]

Yes! I do a weekly log - see my bujo post here (note that I'm more of a function person than a make-it-pretty person; also, as I discuss in that post, starting this week I have flipped the two pages of the weekly spread, so the weekly to-do and habit tracker are on the right-hand page, and the daily entries are on the left).

[isis]

Some links I found useful are:

The Bullet Journal, Minus the Hype, Is Actually a Really Good Planner emphasizes the 'do what works for you' aspect
How to Bullet Journal: The Absolute Ultimate Guide ditto ditto (but with a lot of rambling)
Top 5 BuJo Ideas in 2016 from the blog at the official site, lots of excellent examples of ways to adapt basic ideas - this is where I got the idea of my weekly log format from.

I'm also a fairly bare-bones bullet journal person. My main reason for doing one is that I can't seem to get tasks done unless they are written down on paper where I have the joy of crossing them off when they are done.

[yhlee]

Oh, that's cool, thank you! I'm currently tracking word count stuff in a spreadsheet BUT I like doing addition by hand (I'm weird). And it would allow me to consolidate stuff into one place. Hrm. :)

[misslucyjane]

That's a brilliant idea. I think I'll try it for my next rough draft. Thanks for sharing it!

[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.

[elfin]

Oh, that Buzzfeed article was really useful! It really broke the different parts of bullet journaling into manageable bits for me. I've been wanting to get started, but it seemed so overwhelming. I think I have a handle on it now.

I'm kind of hoping that this sort of journaling will be helpful for anxiety. Does anyone have any experience with that?

[havocthecat]

Does anyone know of any good guides to weekly layouts that don't involve YouTube? I never end up watching videos.

[fay_e]

Whoops! Missed this post somehow.

For me the two articles that really clarified the whole bullet journal framework were these:

This one page bullet journal reference guide let me see how the elements were supposed to flow into each other. I'm more of a text/ mindmap person, so seeing it laid out like this was useful for me.

How to bullet Journal: The Absolute Ultimate Guide was useful for me due to the thought processes. Ironically, I needed to hear the bullet journal was like a potato and I could dress it up/ down like I needed to really get into bullet journals. If you're looking at a to do for a bullet journal, this is a bit rambly as isis pointed out.

[fay_e]

I also use a really stripped down version. My bullet journal is mostly a diary in bullet points. Anything that can't go into a particular day goes into a dump that barely resembles the future log of the bullet journal :D

[fay_e]

I hate YouTube videos so much too!! But uh, I'm one of those who uses Tumblr to get inspiration for layouts.

A quick look around found this good (and not Tumblr) collection of weekly logs. Make sure to check out the links at the bottom!

[fadedwings]

I use a spreadsheet too, but I also like doing it by hand as well. I track lots of things (like tv shows I watch and books I read) in my dreamwidth that I also track in my bujo, so I guess I'm weird too :)

[fadedwings]

You're welcome :)

[rootsofthestories]

Oh, cool! I'm so glad to know that other people do simpler versions of the system as well as fancier ones.

[eleanorjane]

Where do you find the good stuff on Tumblr? I find it a bit overwhelming :)