My take on the bullet journal
After seeing bullet journalling pop up here, there, and everywhere, I finally decided to give in and find out what it was all about last month. I initially dismissed it because I thought it was something about writing a bullet point each day as a way to keep writing in a journal, and because I don't keep one I was never bothered about it, but it's actually so much more than that. Here's the video by the creator of the bullet journal system who explains it better than I could:
Bullet journalling is a way of combining different elements of diaries, organisers, and journals and customising it to suit your needs. I've borrowed some of the principals of bullet journalling and applied them to my work notebook. Before using this system my notebook was a bit of a mish-mash with no order to it, so going back and finding things could be tricky, and related bits of information could be spread across different pages...honestly, it's still a bit like that now because my notes can't be tamed, but at least now there's a sense of order.
One of the ideas I liked from the bullet journal system is to number all of your pages and save important pages in an index list at the front, so you can quickly flick to whatever you're looking for. I also liked the key system for moving tasks around, because I make a lot of to-do lists, and sometimes things just don't get completed when you think they will. So, rather than having to keep going between multiple pages, I just move it on and forget about the old list.
Another idea I liked was having calendars in your book. I'm always forgetting when the college holidays are, so it's really handy to now have that available to quickly reference. I've also started having a monthly spread too, however I'm going to change it to look like a more traditional monthly calendar in March because I didn't quite like the look of the list style, and I'd rather be able to put more things in each day - for example, when people are off, when meetings are, and if anything else is due. In the list format I'm a bit limited for space in that sense.
Looking at my February calendar at the minute demonstrates exactly why I'm not a traditional diary user - I'm not the kind of person who goes to lots of different events and have lots of dates outside of work-related ones that I need to keep track of, so my diaries always used to look a bit bare and would inevitably get forgotten about after a while. I like that this system has the freedom to be able to combine all of these different elements.
I also like the idea of trackers and have thought about implementing other kinds of trackers, but so far the only thing I have need for in a work notebook is my mileage tracker. It's not particularly exciting to see, but it's so helpful to me as I fill in mileage forms for work to claim petrol money back, and before I was having to try to remember all of the places I'd been that month in one go. It also makes filling the form in much quicker!
Since I've started using this system I've watched so many videos that even Alex now knows what bullet journalling is. As you can see, my notebook doesn't much look like a lot of the beautifully designed, creative journals you can find on YouTube or Pinterest, but it works for me, and I'm always gathering inspiration of other ideas I can implement into it.
If you have a bullet journal, please leave a comment telling me how you use it!
One of the ideas I liked from the bullet journal system is to number all of your pages and save important pages in an index list at the front, so you can quickly flick to whatever you're looking for. I also liked the key system for moving tasks around, because I make a lot of to-do lists, and sometimes things just don't get completed when you think they will. So, rather than having to keep going between multiple pages, I just move it on and forget about the old list.
Another idea I liked was having calendars in your book. I'm always forgetting when the college holidays are, so it's really handy to now have that available to quickly reference. I've also started having a monthly spread too, however I'm going to change it to look like a more traditional monthly calendar in March because I didn't quite like the look of the list style, and I'd rather be able to put more things in each day - for example, when people are off, when meetings are, and if anything else is due. In the list format I'm a bit limited for space in that sense.
Looking at my February calendar at the minute demonstrates exactly why I'm not a traditional diary user - I'm not the kind of person who goes to lots of different events and have lots of dates outside of work-related ones that I need to keep track of, so my diaries always used to look a bit bare and would inevitably get forgotten about after a while. I like that this system has the freedom to be able to combine all of these different elements.
I also like the idea of trackers and have thought about implementing other kinds of trackers, but so far the only thing I have need for in a work notebook is my mileage tracker. It's not particularly exciting to see, but it's so helpful to me as I fill in mileage forms for work to claim petrol money back, and before I was having to try to remember all of the places I'd been that month in one go. It also makes filling the form in much quicker!
Since I've started using this system I've watched so many videos that even Alex now knows what bullet journalling is. As you can see, my notebook doesn't much look like a lot of the beautifully designed, creative journals you can find on YouTube or Pinterest, but it works for me, and I'm always gathering inspiration of other ideas I can implement into it.
If you have a bullet journal, please leave a comment telling me how you use it!
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