Coordinate Your Life in a Mindful Way: How to Start a Bullet Journal
In a world full of gadgets and technology that offer all kinds of daily planners, reminders, and calendars, writing down things on paper might seem outdated. But journalling is so much more than planning and organising. It’s a method of creating a productive system in a mindful way.
Whether you want to put some order in all the tasks you need to do, manage your time more efficiently, or relax and reflect, a bullet journal can be the perfect solution to coordinating your life. It’s meant to help you stay productive and maintain mindfulness.
What Is a Bullet Journal?
A bullet journal, or BuJo as many people call it, is an equal parts planner, diary, written meditation, habit tracker, mood tracker, or just a place where you can express yourself. It’s a system you can use to organise your schedule, to-do lists, or appointments but also write down your general thoughts and feelings.
The point of bullet journaling is to encourage people to examine how their goals, tasks, and responsibilities make them feel. Unlike the standard checklists, this method requires daily, monthly, and yearly reflections that enable you to realise which things don’t serve you and which things you care about. Then you can get rid of the distractions and invest your time and energy into whatever benefits your personal development.
You will often see pages with doodles and sketches, drawings and quotes, stickers and washi tapes. It is not necessarily the best art you have seen, but it is a way to get your creative juices flowing and use it as an art paper pad. Whether you include them in your journal is completely your choice, but I am sure you will soon find yourself scribbling something.
How to Start a Bullet Journal?
A bullet journal is not some ready-made template you just buy. You will create it yourself. It can be any blank notebook, or dot grid journal that you will customise to your needs, or you can buy a designer bullet journal. Many people prefer the dotted pages because they find them less distracting compared to the lines, but still good enough to guide them with keeping tables straight.
You can create an index page and key page with selected symbols that are easy for you to understand. For instance, an exclamation mark next to a priority task or a triangle for upcoming appointments. They can be a great visualisation tool, but you don’t have to come up with a whole system right away, let them come to you in the process. Choose a layout that fits your vision or try some pre-designed pages.
You might want to have a daily log for all the goals, events, and to-dos for that day, a monthly calendar for important deadlines, and a future log for long-term goals, no matter how big or small they are. Since this is a bullet journal, you can write your thoughts, ideas, and feelings in bullet points instead of full sentences.
What Purpose Does It Have?
Essentially, its purpose is to take away some of the stress of running your busy life. Journalling is about function over form. Whether it’s beautiful or sloppy, it’s important how it makes you feel and how effective it is. For some people, it is a way to stay ahead of their ever-growing to-do list, for others it is jotting down activities, planning healthy meals, tracking their weekly goals, or brainstorming their ideas. You decide what you want the journal’s purpose to be, but it will certainly help you to:
• Stay organised
• Improve areas of your life
• Keep track of habits and activities
• Relax and discover your creativity
Personalise Your Journal
Make it your own creative piece. There are no rules, no structure, so you can design your own page spreads. Designate pages for doodles, and art sketches, or if art is not your strong side get some stickers and custom collections. You can include inspirational messages, beautiful quotes, or your own personal mantras. Sometimes a few kind words can remind us of what really matters in life and stay motivated when things get tough.
Create a gratitude log. Writing down all the things you are grateful for gives you a new perspective on life and helps you appreciate what you have. Practising gratitude on a daily basis makes you focus on the positives. Become more aware of your, health goals by keeping track of the food you eat, how much exercise you do, and how you take care of your mental health.
Benefits of Journalling
More Productivity
Bullet journals have a ton of great things to offer. By writing down all your obligations in one place, you will achieve more productivity. Breaking everything down into small tasks and crossing them off as they are done will motivate you to keep working.
Mental Health
The time you spend on your journal will not only be relaxing, but you will get a chance to reflect and maybe notice correlations between your habits and your moods. Noticing these links and discovering the causes behind your behaviour will enable you to make changes in your life you might have never thought needed changing.
Goals
Taking action is easier when you have clear goals set in front of you. Visualising short or long-term, big or small goals broken down into sections instils self-confidence and self-belief. Even if you are not a goal-oriented person by nature, you will have benefits from putting your dreams on paper. It has the power to make them more tangible.
Learn More About Yourself
A BuJo can help you to get to know yourself better. Sounds strange, right? But, it can. You discover patterns and tendencies you might not have noticed, what brightens up your days, and what makes you dread them. It makes it harder to ignore all your accomplishments and learn to celebrate them, as well as accept the things you didn’t finish.
Final Thoughts
Creating a bullet journal is beyond time management and ticking off lists. It is practising self-awareness and self-care while enjoying an organised life. And with all the wring and drawing, you will also improve your handwriting and artistic skills.