YouAlberta
How do I stay organized in my insanely busy life you ask? Well, I use a bullet journal!
What is the alien-sounding, oddly-names thing, you ask? It's basically a handmade agenda.
Now don't click away yet, I promise it's not as weird as it sounds.
Bullet journaling involves creating your own agenda that is particularly suited to what you want and need in that day/week/month/year. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it totally can be!
I like to add the *fancy* letters, but that's just because I have to stare at this for hours every day. I want it to look nice, but simple. I tend to do this when I'm extremely busy and have no time to make it extra artistic! Here I also added some ripped paper to look cool. Yeah, *cool*.
Another really simple one because sometimes you just don't have time to make things fancy (this is usually what my bullet journal looks like during finals).
But sometimes you do have time to be super artistic! And you can do cool artistic things with your bujo (the cool way of saying "bullet journal" - trust me, there is an entire genre of Instagram dedicated to #bujo and #bujoinspiration).
I prefer the beautiful, delicate spreads (the technical term for a weekly page). I also do a ton during the week and log absolutely everything I need to do in my bujo, so I need a lot of space and that doesn't leave room for a ton of art! I am also a huge fan of laurels on everything so they often make it into my bujo…
Doing cover pages for each month is a bit of a trend in the bujo community (I always do one), but that doesn't mean you have to! Remember, this is you bujo and you can do whatever you want or need with it!
I really love to play around with colours and textures in my bujo when I have time. I find that it makes it interesting and relaxing to do, and makes it engaging to look at for the rest of the week! Am I the only one who finds that store-bought agendas get really boring really fast? Well that does not happen with a bujo because you get personalize every single week!
Like, August? Augusts? Get it?
I also like to fill mine with inspirational quotes. Uni gets hard sometimes and I find that it's nice to flip through my journal and see little snippets of encouragement. (Designing them, the fonts, and the placement is a lot of fun for me, so I have lots of these).
Remember how I pointed out the ripped paper in the first image? See the ripped paper here? Some people (like myself) like to pick a theme for the month and make every spread fit the theme in different ways! January's theme this year was…. sand-coloured ripped paper….
But I also like to include calendars in my layouts! I find it's nice to have a monthly overview of what's going to happen on top of the weekly overview. Some people even like to do daily spreads! They put one day on each page so that they have a ton of room. Sometimes I do this during finals and plan out my studying for each day.
You can put so many different pages in your bullet journal, it doesn't just have to be an agenda! For this one I am writing a list of all the books I want to read this year. I was inspired to make this layout by another artist on Instagram (@journal.away). A lot of artists do that: find inspiration from others and then tag them in their posts, so you don't have to be instantly inspired. Sometimes it takes a bit of surfing through other peoples' posts of their bujos to find something that you like. I do it all the time.
Some things I've seen people include in their bujos:
- Habit trackers for things like flossing and trying to stop biting your nails
- Workout trackers
- Art pages
- Journal pages
- Ideas for blog posts (okay so I might have done this one…)
- Lists of movies/books they want to see/read
- Song lyrics they like
- Lists of cool words
- Stickers
- Random scribbles
- Paintings
- Grocery lists (I do this a lot)
- Grades from classes
- Lists of when assignments are due
- Packing lists for trips
- Word lists for if you're trying to learn a new language
- Lists of terms for studying or when you forget what they mean mid-class
- Scholarship deadline lists
What you put in your bujo is only limited by your imagination.
Remember that this is up to you! If you want to paint one entire page black, go for it. If you just want an agenda? You can do that! If you need help keeping track of taking medication or feeding a pet, put that in there! If you want to scribble to get your frustration out, it's all yours! Artistic? This is the thing for you. Not artistic? This is totally for you too.
Happy journaling!
[Editor's Note: Using a journal is often cited as a way to support mental health by using it to manage stress, practice mindfulness, develop a hobby, or support mental health by using it to manage stress, practice mindfulness, develop a hobby, or support a routine. These are some useful strategies and suggestions to get started with journaling.]