Bullet Journal – March Update

I am finding my Bullet Journal very helpful in making my days at home feel more purposeful and less aimless. I haven’t yet worked it into my school life as the days go by too quickly and a simple to-do list on my laptop or my to-do list pad seems to work well enough. My BuJo is more of a reflective and fun medium that doesn’t fit in the hectic school day. It doesn’t help that I don’t have a proper space to work – I don’t have my own classroom and the English department office is, let’s say, somewhat chaotic. I need to carve myself a bit of space in there.

I know there is a huge community of people out there with gorgeously drawn layouts and elaborate pages in their bullet journals but that just wouldn’t work for me. I have added a bit of fun stuff when I have had a moment but it is not something that would work for me on a weekly or daily basis.

So this is how my Bujo is made up:

I have a Future Log which hold keys dates for six months at a time. I refer to this when I set up each Monthly Log which helps me keep track of what’s happening that month as well as some overall tasks for the month that I want to achieve.

Then on daily basis (or rather, on the days when I find it useful or I have time to be organised!), I have a Daily Log which lists my tasks for the day. Sometimes I put things on which I know I won’t manage that day but which I mustn’t forget. I add any uncompleted tasks to the next new Daily Log. When I find myself migrating the same task over and over, I ask myself – can I bin this task or (more likely) is this really important but in some way unpleasant? If it’s the former, I cross it off, if the latter, I just have to DO THE THING.

One of the ways I make it a bit prettier is by added weather symbols and a spot of colour. Sometimes I add planner stickers. The Daily Log also allows for recording events (with a circle) and notes (with a dash) so it can also serve as a memory planner. It will definitely help me when I go back to do Project Life pages – I can add those little observations that might otherwise have been lost.

Weekends are another time that I often miss out depending on how busy we are. I sometimes do a quick review to keep track of things that have gone on although I have just spotted a mistake: Evelina and Austin did NOT go to see Lego Batman together! Evelina went with Rich!

At the beginning of the year, I also set up some goals pages for reading and for other things I wanted to try to do over the year (I fear that two months and a bit in, my weight loss goal might be a tad ambitious since I have made no positive progress – and exerted no effort – in this area). The reading goal is going better though and I am currently a couple of books ahead of target in order to achieve the target of 50 books in the year.

As well as tasks, my BuJo is a great place to keep lists of other kinds  – these are called Collections. The one above is a list of meals for when I need inspiration (with page references to the cookbook as needed). These collections are great because you just pop them on the next available page and put the page number in the index:

You can learn all about Bullet Journalling from the guy who devised the system, Ryder Carroll.