How to get into bullet journaling in 2020

The bullet Journal method has gotten very popular in the last couple of years and it is a great flexible way to stay organized and increase your productivity. For some people, it is even an outlet for creativity and artistic expression, be that through journaling or decorating different spreads in the journals. It is overall a very universal way to keep your notes organized, remember all the events, track your habits, spendings or whatnot while also allowing you to customize your journal to whatever will work for you. If you’ve wanted to get into bullet journaling for a while but haven’t gotten around to it yet then maybe this year you should finally give it a shot. In this post, I’ll try to break down all the basics of bullet journaling and how to get the best out of your BuJo experience. The best thing about it is how easily you can change things to fit your lifestyle and day-to-day tasks once you get the basics down. It is an absolute must for those of us who keep losing the important information we write down on random scraps of paper and for those who don't necessarily enjoy the traditional journalling or organizers since they usually tend to be more restrictive. It also allows you to make it more personalized visually and will also likely be cheaper than purchasing similar, pre-planned organizers with excessive decor and unnecessary pages.

Bullet Journal as your organizer

The most common purpose for bullet journals is to use them as a sort of planner/organizer that will keep all your upcoming events, deadlines, appointments and social event in one place. Some people find this method obsolete in the age of Google calendars and multiple different apps that serve a similar purpose, but the truth is that the majority of people still prefer having their planners and journals in a physical form and to carry it with them as a separate thing from their laptops. Bullet Journals are great for organizing simply because the grid on the paper allows you to draw the lines however you find suitable for your lifestyle. The preplanned organizers often are wasteful because they are practical for a very specific lifestyle, leaving too much-unused space, or too little space to write out extensive details about the task or whatever it might be. When you use a bullet journal you can draw the lines however you want, and it will look clean because of the grid. You can choose to optimize out yearly, monthly, and weekly logs however you like. For example, most people do the regular yearly spread to have an overview of all the important events that they already know are happening throughout the year, This spread usually takes two pages and then you move on to your monthly overview where you can do a variety of different spreads, depending on how busy your schedule is and what type of note-taker you are. You can separate your events into two categories by purring your dates in the middle, but you can also do a regular calendar to make it more aesthetically pleasing and color-code your event. Bullet Journal allows you to make the most out of each page, depending on what your schedule for the month is or what helps you be more productive.

The creative aspect of bullet journaling

Most people nowadays, if they are not professionals artists don't really have time or want to put effort into cultivating hobbies that revolve art or allows them to express themselves creatively. Bullet journaling is a great way to get creative without having the pressure to create separate art pieces. And while some people do put a lot of effort into their art, it is not necessary to do masterpieces on each spread. It can just be you playing with colors or patterns or different artistic elements, including textures to create something beautiful and creatively fulfilling as a meditative practice that grounds you and is your designated time to relax and just be creative.

If you’re an artist this can serve as an additional practice, but if you usually don't have time to be creative but feel like you could benefit from ti doing that through bullet journaling can be extremely therapeutic. You can change up your styles and color patterns each month or however you please. In addition to serving as a great creative outlet, it will also likely make you want to use the bullet journal way more. Since every time you open it, it will be a pleasant experience and it will keep things organized and easy to look at, hence encouraging you to use it more often and to actually stick with it. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who keep their bullet journals very minimalistic, and if you feel like adding the extra task of coloring and drawing will just be a burden then you absolutely don't have to do it. You can just stick with the planning aspect of it and still benefit from the practice. Some entrepreneurs even swear by this method as their way of staying afloat.

Bullet Journaling as a meditative practice

Even though it might seem like the farthest thing from meditation, the practice that is supposed to ground you in the present, planning for the future can actually be grounding as well. For a lot of us, with busy working schedules and social events to attend to, it is hard to find the time to just be with ourselves and focus on the present. Actually bullet journaling is often described as a practice that merges mindfulness with productivity. Truly for those of us with hectic schedules planning and being productive is crucial, but equally important is to check in with yourself every once in a while, be that daily, a couple times a week, or once a week just to be alone and quiet our minds while also being productive about it. Not only that, but being organized can reduce your anxiety and stress level a lot so being in control of your time and knowing exactly what’ comping up is good for your mental health on a whole different level as well. So if you find yourself constantly worried about potentially forgetting something or losing your notes every time or having to look for different information at different places the bullet journal can help you immensely to deal with the anxiety of your day-to-day life while increasing your productivity and overall wellbeing as well.

One of the most important things to consider when starting a bullet journal is that you can only see the benefits of it if you stick with it. That is why it’s so important that you customize it to your needs and don't add extra details that you know will just make it redundant to fill in your bullet journal. It is a practice that can elevate your day-to-day life by making it all more organized while giving you the chance to also organize parts of your life outside work. You can have separate pages to journal, some to track your habits and some to set out your intentions for the month and keep all your notes of the month in one place. One of the best things about the bullet journal is that it makes sure that nothing ever gets lost since you will be keeping track of your pages in the key section of the journal. Overall it's a very pleasant and calming practice, so if you think you could use some more structure in your life than make 2020 a year when you finally take control of your own time and find out what sort of planning techniques work the best for you and your schedule.

It can be kind of daunting after years of failed journaling to believe that the similar activity will actually help you instead of becoming just another chore you need to attend to, but since so many people have had a great experience with bullet journaling, myself included it is worth it to give it a try. It’s a journaling method that mix the best of both worlds. You have the room to actually journal your through when you need to, you have a structured overview of your months, your weeks and what your responsibilities are for the said day and you also have all your scattered information in one place, where you can dump all this information on a separate page meant specifically for that and then neatly organize all of it in a way that makes sense to you.

Bullet Journaling fits a variety of different lifestyles, simply because of its flexibility but also because it is a blend of all different journaling and planning methods, so it allows you to distribute the pages and your time according to you priorities instead of following the preplanned organizer that does not suit the very specific details of your lifestyle and can actually often set you back because of it.