How I Journal (and why it doesn't have to be perfect)
Bullet journaling (also referred to as bujo), is by no means a new practice. Ryder Carroll invented it as a versatile style of journaling. In the simplest terms, it’s like a DIY planner. Instead of buying a planner with weekly and monthly spreads already included, you can choose to create your spreads in a blank notebook, fitting your personal needs. Whether that be for just scheduling and planning your day to day, tracking goals, habits, or moods, or having a place to dump any thoughts, this style of journaling gives you the flexibility to create one space that works for all your needs. You can check out bulletjournal.com for more detailed information.
I’ve been using my bullet journal as a planner and journal for a little over two years now, and I by no means boast to be an expert. There’s plenty of people out there that put in a lot of time building spreads and making their journal into this form of art, and I am not that person. Before I started my journal, I was so intimidated looking through Pinterest, thinking that if I chose to take on journaling, mine would have to look like that, or else I would be some kind of failure. I had been using the ban.do planner, which I still really love and think is a great planner to this day, but it wasn’t giving me enough space to track habits and keep myself accountable on more than my day to day tasks. I had looked into some other planners that marketed themselves as goal setting planners that had these templates included to plan long term projects, but I found those constraining in there style, not knowing if that would work well for me in the long term. I opted to dive into bullet journaling just to try it out and see if I would like it, and it ended up working really well for me.
I’ve liked the freedom of having a blank page to work with each month or week. It lets me adjust my format based on what I have going on during that time, whether I need to make it schedule heavy when I have a lot of different places to be or make it more of a journal-style during vacations or slow months. With an empty book, you have the freedom to add any additional layout you want, like budget tracking or a workout routine, or just a page of doodles. This journaling style is also not constrained to one year per book. I wait till I finish a journal, and every page is filled and then start my new one where I’ve left off. I also use my journal as my time to slow down and destress. I try to keep a habit of setting up my month layout on the last Sunday of every month, which gives me time to slow down to reflect and plan.
I thought it might be fun to show some of the ways I’ve set up my journal over the years, as well as my favorite tools I use just to show how simple this process can be. I’m also going to share some things I tried that didn’t work for me and what I did to change them. Also, disclaimer, I used the acne retouch tool on iPhoto to hide some personal information, so please excuse the terrible editing that came out of that. So now, to take a little look at the history of my journaling style.
Here it is, where it all began. See, this isn’t that cute. I started real traditional with a simple year at a glance and added a quote I read at a hostel while abroad—nothing tricky here.
I went with a purple triangle theme for my first month, and it looks a mess, but hey, I was new at this and trying things out, and that’s okay! This Habit tracker and month view didn’t end up working for me, but I had to try it to figure that out.
The next month I tried laying out my month a little differently. It isn’t a traditional look, being that I turned the calendar on its side, choosing to have the days of the week vertically rather than horizontal, but it fits on one page, and that works for me.
During this time, I was still finishing up school and working a couple of jobs, so having my days broken up hourly worked best for me to stay organized. I liked using this style of weekly spread because it was simple to look at an overview of what to look forward to through the week.
If you haven’t caught on yet, I gave myself color themes for each month that correlates with my year at a glance calendar. I loved making this month’s spread because vines are so simple, and it becomes therapeutic to draw all the tiny leaves. I set this one up while watching a movie for a class so I could just zone out and doodle. I’ve found that having more simple doodling themes such as this makes for a cleaner looking spread throughout.
Here’s one of those add on spreads that you can’t get in any store-bought planner. I found easy little workouts on Pinterest and assigned one to each day of the week and put it all in my journal to keep myself accountable. I find it hard to look back at digital things, so a hard copy reminder works better for me.
In the first couple of weeks of June, I went to New York with my boyfriend and his family for his sister’s graduation, and it was my first time visiting the city. We did a bunch of touristy stuff, so I used my journal more to document what we did by sketching and adding ticket stubs. I’m no artist; my doodles are from looking at something or an image and copying it down, but I really like how these turned out, and it’s a sweet little memory of our time there.
Over summer 2018, I was pretty much just working every day, and anything added to that was more spur of the moment, so I didn’t need to do my usual hourly break down. I tried a new way of laying out my week that worked so the time. I also messed around with printing images rather than drawing to create my theme.
Oh! I haven’t shown my habit trackers yet. As I mentioned on the photo of my January spread, I had initially tried one method of habit tracker that I saw online, but it didn’t work for me. I eventually switched styles, and I’ve stuck with this style since. I like using the little boxes in a month format rather than a long line because it’s easier to keep track of the days. Then on the right side, I have my spending habits, which is essentially just a log of purchases. I find it helpful just to write everything down, so I’m more aware of where the money is going.
I just find it fun to do themes for holidays. Also, I like to keep my week layouts within the month spread, so if a month starts later into the week, I will find creative ways to fill the extra spaces.
For the Holidays, I made a Christmas shopping list spread with each person I had to shop for in their own gift box. Having my list organized this way made it easier to keep track of, while keeping it in a simple yet cute style that fit my theme for the month. I also like to do countdowns for events and special days where you color in something each day like these string lights.
Going into 2019, I wanted my year at a glance to look a little cleaner in style. I didn’t want to assign monthly colors again, so I went with a black and white style and a bible verse to go into the new year. I also spread out the monthly year at a glance, knowing I had some months coming up with a lot of events.
This is one of my favorite additional spreads that I’ve done each year that I like to call, “and the nominees are..” I’m a big film person and try to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as possible. I like the look of these little film strips, which are super simple to draw, and I get to color in each movie I get around to.
I made a couple of changes to my spending habits tracker once I moved out in April of 2019 to help me keep track of budgeting. I doubled the columns to account in a little bit of an increase of spending, as well as added two small columns to the right where I track my income and expense ratios with a bar chart.
I had a lot of fun with this August spread, going with a late 90s vibe and that classic Blink 182 lyric for my birthday month.
Coming into this month, life was looking a little different because of quarantine. There isn’t much scheduling going on, and I don’t have a calendar of events, so a lot of the way I was journaling has changed. Also, I was inspired by Amanda Rach Lee for the theme of this month. Honestly, I get a lot of my inspiration from her, so check her out to for sure.
I built myself a little quarantine routine in addition to my typical habit trackers. I am someone who needs routine and organization to function, so having all this time at home needs to be put to some use, or I’d go crazy. I gave myself a rough layout of how I want each day to go with some ideas of how to use my time wisely, so I don’t find myself just browsing social media all day.
There are two ways I am documenting my weeks now. First of which is by good old fashion journaling. I am just starting each day by writing the date and writing thoughts and quotes to get me through the day. The page I have photographed here is pretty much just bible verses because we were going into Easter weekend, but those pages have kind of been my thought dumps, which is helpful for me in these times. I have also been giving myself little weekly goal pages, to be more specific in what I need to accomplish and giving myself deadlines to do so. It helps keep me accountable when it is so easy not to be.
This is a little template that I saw someone else add to their journal as a cheat sheet to splitting up pages for individual spreads. I find it super useful to have the count for breaking up into quarters, thirds, and halves as well as just having the vertical and horizontal count.
And lastly, I thought I’d share the tools I use for my journaling. I am currently using the Blackwing Pearl Slate Notebook, which I like because it doesn’t number the pages, and it has a pen holder on the side. I wanted a journal with unnumbered pages because if I mess up a spread, I tend to rip out the page or glue two pages together, so it bothers me when the numbers aren’t lining up correctly. I do also really like the Leuchtturm1917, which tends to be everyone’s go-to. I’ve been using the Blackwing Pearl pencils to sketch. Honestly, I don’t know if this pencil is substantially better than most for journaling, I just like it for aesthetic tbh. I use Sakura Pigma Micron pens for pretty much everything. They come in different sizes that give a thicker or thinner line. I use the 005, 03, and 05 most often. Every once in a while, I will use the Sakura Gelly Roll pen to either create an effect or fix a mistake. The white pen in my favorite to either scribble over a mistake I’ve made to make it magically disappear or to give a different depth by writing over black space. Finally, to add some color to my themes, I use the Zebra Midliner highlighters and Le Pen fine liners. What I love about both of these products is that they come in soft color tones that aren’t too harsh on the eyes. I am obsessed with my yellow midliner highlighter because yellow is my favorite color, and most classic yellow highlighters are just a headache.
Hopefully, this gives you some kind of inspiration to start journaling for yourself. I’ve found my journal to be a space where I can be organized and creative all at once, and I would hope others could find that too. Especially during this time where we are all sheltering in place all around the world, journaling is a healthy way to distress and deal with those weird emotions by putting them down on paper. It’s not hard; it doesn’t need to be special; it’s just what you do for yourself.
Stay safe and stay healthy out there y’all.
Love,
Julia Carrington
