How to create a Bullet Journal

Bullet journaling is a fun and creative way to create a tailor-made format for keeping yourself organised. From daily tasks, to-do lists, and monthly planners to goals, habit trackers and dreams for the future, the bullet journal is for anyone and everyone. A bullet journal (or BuJo for short) is basically a diary, planner and journal all in one.

The best part is that you make it yourself! That means the layout and content is totally customised by you, for you. There are some basic guidelines to help make your journal functional and efficient, but the most important thing is to make it work for you! Use whatever notebook you like, and whichever pens – there are no rules. BUT to get you started we thought we’d put together some handy hints and tips for you.

We’ve used a Moleskine Cahiers notebook with gridded pages – grids and dotted pages work really nicely for bullet journals as it helps to keep things neat and in order but as mentioned above – use whatever notebook tickles your fancy. The first two things you should do is give yourself a cover page and then number your pages (this will come in handy when you do your index page).

On the next two pages create your index page and your key page. The index page will allow you to efficiently find things in your journal and the key will help you to categorise your tasks, events and notes etc. Again, these can be done in any way you like.

Next up we created a 6 month calendar and seeing as we’re in August we decided to start right here. Beneath the calendar you can write down important dates, birthdays etc. This page acts as a quite handy reference guide for the next few months. We’ve colour coded each month and continue this colour throughout the journal for the corresponding month to help keep things cohesive. (*note: don’t worry about making mistakes, just cross them out and keep going!)

Here we have our “future log” – a common BuJo term. On these pages we have a more detailed list of things to do and events for each month. These can be accompanied by the symbols used in our “Key” so we can keep track of what needs to be done etc. This is a nice way to start planning ahead at a glance; and also to see how far you’ve come as the months go by.

Next up we have our August month overview. On the left we have the dates in August with important notes about the day next to it. On the right-hand page we have goals – include anything you’d like to do more of, less of or change in your life. Perhaps you’d like to look into going to a yoga class, or you want to try and eat less sugar – add these in here for ease of reference and to help remind you throughout the month.

Daily tasks – on this double page spread we’ve laid about a 7 day week. Each day has a space for tasks, events and notes. During the day this will help you stay on track with things that need to be done and you can enjoy the satisfaction of colouring in a completed task as you go. Anything that you couldn’t manage to do that day can be rescheduled to a later date.

Create your own pages – such as a habit tracker. Trying to floss every day? Drink more water? Reach your 10 thousand steps? Keep track of your daily habits here to see your progress. Other ideas for pages include a daily gratitude list, meal planners, recipes you like, birthdays, long-term dreams and goals, travel plans and ideas, lists of films to watch, books to read, keeping track of your savings and more. Think of your bullet journal as a work-in-progress that will grow and develop as you go. We’ve loved using colour in this one – especially the new colour Pigma Microns for fine lines and the Koi brush pens for headers. We also used UniPin fineliners, Stabilo fineliners and Faber-Castell Redline felt-tip pens. If monotone is more your thing then by all means embrace that too.

Its never to late to start getting organised, so go forth and get bullet journaling! If you need a little more inspiration, check out this great YouTube video.