When I saw the colorful pictures of “bullet journals” on social media, I thought it was a strange name for what I was seeing – where are the bullets? Only glancing at them, I mostly saw what appeared to be planner spreads except they were hand-drawn. How painstaking it must be!
Then, I read about the original idea of “bullet journal” by the creator, Ryder Carroll. (If you’ve never heard of this and curious about it, then go straight to the source.) As I watched his video talking about various “logs,” and “migrations,” I dismissed it, thinking it was too complicated to bother. On the other hand, I sensed that he was talking about something very similar to what I have already been doing all along; I use little squares for tasks, which get check-marks if done, and arrows if moved/postponed to the next weekly page. What he has done, in my opinion, is that he used common notations and methods, combined them, and developed a comprehensive and methodical organizational system.
As any avid bullet-journalers will tell you, the core of this method is its simplicity and adaptability. The colorful pictures all over the web are just one facet of its applications. As I thought about it more, I realized this could be way way better than my old weekly planner or my current Hobonichi. Maybe I won’t even need to carry a planner AND a notebook. Maybe I could truly have everything in one place!
I think the reason I ended up changing my planners so often in the last couple years when my life became busier than it’s ever been, is that none of the planners truly gave me what I needed – having everything in one single portable book. The traveler’s notebook and Roterfaden covers helped a lot, thanks to the ability to carry multiple notebooks in one place. Thinking about Ryder Carroll’s explanation of his system, I realized I was confined by the pre-conceived notion of what planners should be, and what notebooks should be. Who says I must keep appointments and tasks in one book, and school notes or meeting notes in another? With systematic but simple organization and indexing, I could have anything and everything in a single notebook.
So, let me share with you how I personalized the “bullet journal.”
The Notebook of Choice
I had recently ordered a notebook sampler from Goulet Pens from which you get 5 pocket-size notebooks and a great way to try out brands like Rhodia, Mnemosyne, Clairefontaine, etc. From the pack, I fell in love with the little Apica, with its butter smooth paper and the quaint design. And so I bought an Apica Premium in B5 size. Their Premium notebooks have 96 sheets which is about 1cm thick. I love the B5 size which gives you more room than A5 but not too big like A4. See the picture above to get a sense of the size in relation to the regular traveler’s notebook and my recently featured Roterfaden custom size (A4 minus one inch).
Year View
This could be analogous to the “future log.” For my job in a hospital, I need to see classes that I have to teach all day, conferences, vacation times, any major housewide events many months ahead. So, a year-at-a-glance feature was a must. I got the idea from Hobonichi planners which have vertical columns of months and you can see the entire year on a spread.
I have 3 months on a page which gives me enough space to put important events for specific day. I purposefully left a large space at the top so I can put my quarterly goals/priorities. I also like to indicate major projects and their duration using double arrow atop the months so I can get a sense of how my schedule would be like.
Month View
Similarly to the year view (or quarterly view rather) my monthly page is also a vertical column of dates with major events or deadlines written next to them. If I need to update future events, I put it here if it occurs in the current month. For future events farther ahead, then I go to my year view. Again, I have some space to list tasks/priorities for the month.
Daily Log
Once I embraced the freedom of the bullet journal, I am so struck by the beauty and utility of the system. I loved Hobonichi Cousin for its large daily pages, but nevertheless, I was confined by “one page per day” rule. With the bullet journal, the current day is limitless. For example, I started the Monday entry with a couple of tasks I had migrated from the previous day. As I was working on the second task item, which was an item related to my qualifying exam, I had to look up an experimental method. So I jot down a quick note on the method. I had more notes as the day went on, which is spilling over to the second page. Whenever I end up writing a sizable note on a particular subject, it will be indexed for easy reference. At the end of the day, I started the Tuesday entry and migrated any tasks that had to be done that day.
As for delineating each day, I originally just wrote the date and drew lines. Then I remembered a set of decorative tapes I had bought a long time ago one of which had all the days of the week (except weekends) and I could just tear off one at a time. How convenient! The blue color of the tape pieces really helps to distinguish each day so much more than my feeble lettering attempt.
My Thoughts So Far…
As much as I like sketching and various artistic pursuits, I have not been able to find much time for personal reflections or arts and crafts… I am keeping my bullet journal pretty much for its utilitarian purpose of carrying it around work and school. It requires hardly any supplies. I have a multi-color pen to distinguish work items from school items from personal items. (As far as I can remember, I have used blue ink for work.) I don’t even need a ruler for drawing lines thanks to the square grid. As for the portability, it’s been amazing now that I ditched separate notebooks from planner books. While Apica Premium is a thicker notebook than say, Moleskine Cashier, it is my planner, meeting notes, project notes, school notes, all in one. I still use Microsoft Outlook – it is essential since my organization uses it exclusively for scheduling meetings. But I am not fond of using Outlook for tasks and I hate its month view. Oh and you can’t even see more than a month at a time. I can’t imagine any digital solution in any foreseeable future that is better than pen and paper. Or, at least my brain finds comfort in pen and paper and I don’t think I can change that. And with the adaptability of the bullet journal system, hopefully I will no longer be in perpetual hunt for the “perfect” planner.
It’s been about a month doing this. So, we’ll see if it sticks.
~meow~
jottermeow 