What:
A bullet journal is essentially a self-created personalized blend between a calendar, to-do list, and goal tracker. The creator describes bullet journals as a way to “track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future” (source).
Why:
As a full time educator also working part time and completing graduate school, bullet journals have kept me sane. Several years ago, I was feeling the weight of working while completing graduate school – constantly feeling like I was dropping the ball, setting goals and never attaining them, etc. A friend told me about bullet journals and I was hooked. I am a strong believer in the idea that you need to put effort into organizing your life and bullet journals allowed me to do just that. The first one took some time to setup because I needed to understand the terminology and decide a layout that worked for me. I started slowly with a few goals, a weekly log, and a monthly log. In my highest use of my bullet journals, I was tracking daily habits like social media use, water consumed, and hours slept but also tracked yearly goals like books read and weight lost. I kept a weekly and monthly log color coded for work and graduate school. Once I got used to it, it took me one hour to setup a monthly log, and 30 minutes to setup a weekly log. I would setup the weekly log on Sunday evenings as a way to prepare myself for the week ahead. The most important thing bullet journals do is allow me to feel organized and that everything has a time and place. Using a bullet journal allowed me to no longer feel as stressed or anxious about the mountain of work needed to be done. Instead of my brain constantly working trying to remember all the things needing to be done, using a bullet journal gave my brain the review it needed and then allowed it to rest. The best part about a bullet journal is that it is self-created so you can use the layout that best work for you. You can be as complicated or as simple as you want to be. Bullet journals are not for everyone but I highly recommend them if you are struggling to balance work, life, schedules, kids, etc.
Next Steps
Interested in learning more? Checkout the websites below for great information.
References:
All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above.
TLDR (too long didn’t read):
A bullet journal is essentially a self-created personalized blend between a calendar, to-do list, and goal tracker. The creator describes bullet journals as a way to “track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future” (source).
@hollandkaylah