Everyday tasks and to-do lists can become overwhelming to manage sometimes. If you tend to take on a lot of activities or jobs for the day but find it challenging to manage them, a bullet journal will be perfect for you.
It’s a creative way of planning, organizing, and confidently moving ahead in the day. The simplicity of making your notes is refreshing and energizing in today’s fast-paced digital world. If you’re looking for some of the best bullet journal ideas to help you begin your journaling process, you have come to the right place.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to wait till the beginning of a new year to start your journey of personal growth. The beauty of bullet journaling is that you can start today and reach organizational efficiency in less time.
Continue reading our guide to 21 incredible bullet journal ideas you need to steal!
What is a Bullet Journal?
Keeping a bullet journal is similar to maintaining a diary, except for adding doodles, drawings, sketches, and diagrams and fashioning it creatively. It fuses the best elements of a diary with those of a planner, organizer, and sketchbook. While the former is typically used to record our day-to-day or journal our feelings, a bullet journal can be used to make lists and planners, set goals, maintain achievements, and much more.
The best thing about a bullet journal is that it is extremely customizable, implying that everyone can use it imaginatively. To better handle everything a bullet journal is useful for, read our bullet journal ideasand get started on your own!
Bullet Journal Ideas to Help in Planning
1. A Monthly Planner
The best way to start is by beginning with a monthly planner. Design a monthly chart to jot down all your appointments, targets, and priorities. You can also mark your personal goals and record when you achieve them. To make the process more fun, sketch a doodle of the month’s name on one page and make the boxes on the other page, similar to what’s shown in the picture. This is an amazing way of planning your month.
2. Plan Your Year
Yes, a monthly planner is perfect for charting your goals and achievements from week to week. But if you’re undergoing a journey of self-improvement and personal growth, start planning annually. However, don’t set random goals that will hinder your progress. Figure out reasonable and achievable goals at appropriate intervals throughout the year and start your journaling from there. You can add tiny bits of motivating words to keep you positive throughout the process!
3. Plan Your Meals
This is our top recommendation for all the health freaks out there. Managing your daily schedule while regularly exercising can become overpowering sometimes. In the midst of that, planning your meals merely adds to the trouble. Hence, use your bullet journal to plan weekly meals, measure your calorie intake, and keep an eye on the calories you burn. If you like to consider the nutritive values behind each meal, the bullet journal can be a great help.
4. Grocery Lists
Considering our last suggestion, grocery lists are indeed presumed. Going grocery shopping every couple of days after work is not only tiring but also a daunting task. What better way to manage it than put it in your journal? This way, you can list out everything you need. As an added tip: plan out the meals for each day, and write the ingredients required. This will make shopping and cooking more fun!
5. To-Do Lists
Some days feel more overwhelming than others, and getting out of bed can seem like a huge task. What better way to tackle demotivation than organizing yourself better? Start the day by noting all the tasks you have to complete in the day in the form of a to-do list. You can design it creatively to keep yourself motivated or add positive reinforcements once you check off each point.
6. Incorporate Your Work
Charting out your work is often a great way to feel more productive and get mentally exhausting tasks done sooner. For instance, if you are an influencer or a blogger, posting regular content is a given. You can use your bullet journal to make a routine and schedule your posts. Try sketching the crucial parts like themes, main ideas, and keywords to make your notes more colorful!
7. Vacations
Working hard and toiling away through the week is all worth it when planning vacations with our friends and family. Even a couple of days can become the most precious ones throughout the month. So take on your pencils, and plan the vacations effectively to ensure you utilize every slot of time to have as much fun as possible. You can make itineraries, plan travel details, mark the popular restaurants, and note the shopping points.
8. For Your Finances
Aren’t all of us always trying to manage our finances better? It often gets confusing to pay bills and rent, stock the kitchen, buy things around the house, and save up with the amount of money one receives each month. Hence, one way to implement your bullet journal ideas is to plan your monthly finances. This way, you can budget efficiently and carve out money for extra expenses as well. Try it out today!
Bullet Journal Ideas to Keep a Track
9. Bills in Check
Once you have planned your finances for the month, the obvious next step is to ensure you follow the budget. How to do that? With a budget tracker, of course. We highly recommend this way of note-keeping since it keeps your expenses in check. Moreover, you have a constant eye on the things you are spending too much on, like shopping or takeout. Decorate it in cute ways to ease the stress of budgeting!
10. Track Your Fitness Journey
If you’re taking into account our recommendations to plan your meals and grocery lists, this is arguably one of the most apt bullet journal ideas for you. Make a gym log in your journal and input the highlights of your workout. You can keep an eye on how much you exercise, the number of calories you’re burning every day, and your overall progress. Soon enough, you will have a complete regime that keeps you fit.
11. Make a Reading Log
If you’re a bibliophile, you must have faced the problem of keeping tabs on all the books you’ve read so far, the new additions you got in your last shopping spree, or the second copy you lent to a coworker. But worry not! We have brought you the perfect bullet journal ideas to document your reads. You can add tiny designs and annotations to remember the key aspects of the books or link your memories.
12. Note Your Cleaning Schedule
While cleaning and organizing can be daunting for many, it is also therapeutic for many others. You can sketch a cleaning schedule in your bullet journal to add all the dates you’re supposed to clean on and then cross them off once you’re done. This helps us to be more organized and manage the job of maintaining the house more efficiently. Try it out, and let us know how it works!
13. Color Your Year
If you have taken our second recommendation for planning your yearly goals, you will certainly like sketching this. All you have to do is create a grid with every box designated to each day of the year. Then, you mark every day according to how it went and the emotions or feelings you felt the most. It’s an incredible way to track your highs and lows and figure out how you can work on them.
14. Sleep Tracker
This is one of our wisest bullet journal ideas. If you’ve struggled with maintaining a decent sleep schedule or tend to experience insomnia, tracking your sleep might be a good decision to better it. You can start by charting it daily and then study your monthly sleeping patterns. This way, you will get a good idea of the changes you’re supposed to make. Depending on your sleep, you will also note when you’re most productive.
Creative Bullet Journal Ideas
15. Some Positive Reinforcement
At some point, we all have experienced a difference in productivity due to positive and negative reinforcement. Well, the same theory works when we direct it toward ourselves. Why not begin your bullet journal with motivating thoughts encouraging yourself to achieve more? You can sketch or doodle on the first page all the things that increase your charge and direct your work better. You can add picture snippets as well!
16. Compliment Yourself
Positive reinforcement is to motivate yourself to get through the task. But what about your rewards? While materialistic rewards may work, the best ones are where you recognize your efforts and acknowledge your feat. Hence, when you sit back to reflect on your day, note down all the compliments you can think of for yourself. They can be for achieving a huge milestone in your career or as small as getting through the day.
17. Store Your Passwords
With the ever-imminent threat of hacking and data stealth, protecting your passwords is more important than ever. Make a list of all your credentials in the bullet journal to ensure you don’t forget any of them. Decorate it with rough sketches of the logos of apps or websites. However, if you’re using a digital bullet journal, this may not be the best idea since using gadgets eliminates the safety precaution.
18. Travel Diaries
Maintain a colorful record of all the places you’ve visited and all the places you wish to go to! One of our most vibrant bullet journal ideas, it is a beautiful way to document your experiences and memories. You can stick your snaps or polaroids along with a small memoir of your journey and stay at the place. As for the places you want to visit, doodle or stick snippets of the city to keep your journal lively.
19. Learn New Hobbies
How can recording in a bullet journal help you in learning new hobbies? Well, it’s known that practicing any skill or habit for 21 days straight can help you inculcate them in yourself. Utilize the journal by noting each day’s work to track your progress conveniently. Also, add colorful doodles or bright sketches related to your hobby to keep yourself engaged and motivated. It will also help you retain your interest.
20. Gift Ideas
Birthdays, anniversaries, festivals, and other special occasions often require basic formalities like gifts and presents. We express our love and affection by gifting others valuable things. How about planning ahead and jotting down all the possible gift ideas? Most often than not, the most brilliant ideas strike us at the oddest moments. Go ahead, and add them to your list to ensure they don’t slip out of your mind.
21. Cognitive Release
At the end of the day, when we’re done with work and chores, we usually carve out some me-time to rejuvenate our energy. If you like engaging in creative activities for the same, you can try bullet journaling. Note the awesome novel plot that came to your mind at work, or sketch the landscape you thought of in the middle of a lecture. Bullet journaling is an effective way to stay charged and put your thoughts across the paper.
How to Get Started on a Bullet Journal?
You can get a diary or journal pre-templated. However, a bullet journal is something you have to customize and personalize according to your preferences. It’s something unique to you and your creative process. Do you wish to try bullet journaling but don’t know how to start? Have no concerns since we have elaborated on how to begin your bullet journaling experience in four simple steps. Read on to find out!
1. Grab Your Supplies
Gathering supplies doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to find the best notebooks or sketching pens. You can use a simple dotted journal to begin with. Next, get some basic sketch pens or colored pencils to customize your journal. You can also use some of the most amazing supplies available online, like stickers, calendars, colorful tape, and planners, to make it livelier and more vibrant.
2. Figure out The Purpose
As we have elaborated in this guide, a bullet journal can be your personal planner, tracker, to-do list, and diary, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be everything. Hence, take a moment to figure out what purpose you want the journal to serve. Once you figure it out, you can implement any of our bullet journal ideasto elevate your experience and make the most out of this hobby.
3. Be Consistent
While you can use your bullet journal to jot down your ideas or sketch an occasional doodle, it’s most useful for productivity and organization when you journal consistently. If you’re using it as a planner to manage appointments or a tracker to keep a check on your finances, make sure you fill it in every day not to lose track.
Final Words
In conclusion, a bullet journal opens up a plethora of space for creativity and imagination. Since you can uniquely personalize the journal for your needs and preferences, it can greatly increase productivity and organization. You can use it as a daily, weekly, monthly, or even annual planner, add to-do lists to make them more fun, and track your health, appointments, and fitness journey. Try writing positive reinforcements or words of encouragement for yourself to stay on your toes.
Bullet journaling is for everyone. It’s a personal journey where you can explore your creativity and embrace experimentation to see what works best for you. Once you have gathered your supplies, explore the various bullet journal ideas and get started!
What has been the most significant difference that bullet journaling has brought in your life? Let us know in the comments!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Should I Do in My Bullet Journal?
You can use your bullet journal to keep yourself on track. Make to-do lists and note down your goals creatively to stay motivated. You can use it for brainstorming sessions to note your ideas, thoughts, sketches, and more. It can be used as an encouragement tool as well. Write encouraging words for yourself and mark your achievements!
Are Bullet Journals Good for Students?
Maintaining a bullet journal as a student can bring a prominent change in your life. It is known to increase a student’s productivity and organization. You can use it as a tool to manage your time and studies-related anxiety and plan your semesters.
Is a Bullet Journal Better than a Diary?
A bullet journal is a much more creative and effective way of documenting your life. Along with a special place to write everything that’s going on in your life, you also get a creative space to reflect on your routine, personality, and aspirations. While a diary requires you to fill in each day consistently, you don’t need to designate the pages of a bullet journal to anything beforehand. Let your creativity and imagination flow!
What Age is a Bullet Journal For?
A bullet journal is for everyone. As long as your kid can write independently, they can start bullet journaling. Since most prefrontal cortex development occurs during adolescence, teens are the perfect age to start this hobby and get an early handle on organization and creativity.
How Do You Start Bullet Journaling?
To start bullet journaling, all you need are primary stationery items like notebooks, sketching pens, stickers, etc. Next, personalize it however you want with doodles and sketches. You can use it in whatever way you deem fit to manage your routine. To develop bullet journaling, start filling it consistently. Check out the bullet journal supplies here on Amazon.
