I first learned about bullet journaling when I saw these beautiful layouts on Instagram for various people's bullet journals. The idea entranced me. Making your own notebook from scratch, deciding where everything would be and how everything could look, etc. were such interesting ideas to me. I finally managed to get the materials I needed back in April. I got a journal with dots on the inside from Barnes & Noble, 3 packs of Mildliners which I found for cheap on Amazon, and some glossy, gel pens. I always write with glossy, gel pens because they are smooth and I love the glossy finish over regular pens. You have to wait for them to dry, but honestly it is worth the wait. The journal I got came with an Index that was already made and ready for you to add page numbers and page titles which made life a lot easier, and the pages were numbered.
On the first page, I titled it "What's Happening This Year" and I do my best to add important little things that are happening throughout the year of 2018. On the second page, I made a calendar for all of 2018 so I could keep track. Following these yearly pages were my lists.
The lists I have are birthdays, Movies to Watch, TV Shows to Watch, Anime to Watch, and my Wishlist. The birthdays are where I keep track of the people in my life's birthdays so I don't forget to wish them a happy birthday. Every time I see something about a movie, TV show, or anime that I'd like to watch, I jot it down on their respective lists. Finally on my Wishlist, I have all the things I plan on getting in the future that are inexpensive so I can save up.
Dispersed through the rest of my bujo are other lists such as Things to Live For, Things to do Before I Die, Things That Make Me Happy, Things That Make Me Upset, Meme Ideas (for when I used to make niche memes every day), Pretty Song Lyrics, packing lists, Book Ideas for the novel I'm currently working on, and mini book reviews that I use to keep track of books I've read. I also have different work out ideas listed in there.
After this come some more important things such as my Bank Account Tracker, Important Quotes, and Important Verses. I use my account tracker to monitor my spending once a month so that I am aware of where I'm at. I found nice, positive quotes to put under the Important Quotes section to look at when I feel particularly down. For the Important Verses, I did the same as the Important Quotes. The verses all come from the Bible, but I don't know if I'm particularly religious. Sometimes I do believe in God while other times I'm more agnostic or atheist. I really don't know.
After this, I have several recipes for comfort foods such as mini chocolate cakes, edible batter for different things, and more.
Now we get to the months and how I started those. For April, I tried to do a habit tracker for the rest of the month once I had my materials and I tried to do a mood tracker. Sadly, I forgot about them and didn't fill them in after the first couple days. I started out by doing weeklies. I'd take two pages, side by side, and I'd map out 7 days for me to write in.
In May, I tried to do the same. Similar weeklies, Habit Trackers, and Mood Trackers. I had a hard time keeping up with my bujo and eventually I decided to give it up because I felt like it just wasn't working out for me.
A week or so into June, I decided to go back to my bullet journal with a different approach. I made the month's page and flipped to the next to decide what I would do for the month. I decided to do dailies instead of weeklies, which has helped me so much. I wrote the date at the top then split the rest of the page horizontally. The top half was for to-do lists and what was happening that day and the bottom half was used as a place to write down my thoughts as a mini diary. Halfway through the month I made a TV show and anime tracker that has helped me a lot with binge-watching multiple things at once. I can't say that I never miss days, but since they're dailies, it doesn't matter as much if I skip a day than part of a weekly which tends to lead to missing the whole week.
This month, I did the same sort of dailies, but I changed the format a little bit and it goes with this months color scheme which is purple. I decided to do habit trackers like before but now, I do it by weeks rather than the whole month and it is a lot easier. I also have a TV show and anime tracker for this month too.
I've had many ups and downs with bujoing, but overall it was really worth it. I enjoy it a lot and it is a way to be creative each and every day.
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-Éden
