Bullet Journals

Mary Ann

I was given a Bullet Journal by a friend, and if you haven’t heard about them, the Bujos are an interesting way to organize your life or at least part of your life.  I don’t know about you, but I am forever collecting pieces of papers with information that I might need.  It can be a tear sheet, a Post-it note, a flier, or a booklet about a kitchen gadget. My phone photos are full of screen shots, my electronic version of my ever-increasing stash of info.   A Bullet Journal seemed to be the answer to get a handle on the paper. 

Bullet Journals are quite simple to do.  You can buy beautiful Bujos online, several with starter kits.  However, all you really need is a notebook and pen. There are instructional video if you need more help.  Just Google it.  After you get the notebook, you will make an index of the topics you wish to include with page numbers where the information is found in the journal, and the rest of the journal are the numbered pages of information.  I started with a pile of paper and began organizing them into topics.  I listed the subjects and began a section in the book about that topic.  I numbered the pages leaving a few extra pages for future entries.  The page numbers are then listed by the topic in the index.  

There are advanced uses of Bulletin Journals.  I have not graduated to them yet.  Bujos can be logs for future planning and goals or a reflection log of past work, brain dumps capturing your ideas, habit tracking, and pretty much whatever you want it to be. I looked at several posts online about Bujos, and they pretty much said the same thing.  (Pinterest has many examples.)  They all use signifiers which are symbols to categorize the info.  It is as simple as a bullet point or a dash. You can make the signifiers whatever you want. 

Get creative and use stickers to highlight different sections or colored pencils to differentiate the topics.  Cynthia is the queen of stickers and colored pencils, pens, and markers.  She has organized all her stickers and highlights her planners and calendars with them. They are works of art.  Sometimes, I glue a clipping or clothing tag in the Bojo.  However, I try not to make the book bulky.  

At first, I was pretty good at putting materials in the Bullet Journal. Then, I became lazy resulting in a paper log jam.  I did put all the papers in a small box, so it is ready to go.  I just need to add the new info while I am watching TV or whatever.  This is not hard.  Then I can make confetti gleefully tearing up all the odds and ends of paper.  Of course, I will recycle.  I will then have a go-to place when I am trying to find the name of that wonderful plumber everyone raving about.  

I would suggest keeping on top of all the paper, so it doesn’t become a landslide.  Bulletin Journals are an excellent answer to organizing information.  You can use Bujos for several purposes, so the sky is the limit for your ideas. You just need to begin!