- UNITE Editorial
Bullet Journaling – Worth The Hype?
Bullet Journaling has been all the hype since it exploded on the Internet. The Bullet Journal is an innovative analog system created by Ryder Carroll to help you organize all your events, ideas, and thoughts, in one notebook. The flexible system helps you keep track of all your dates, tasks, and notes in a coherent manner. The best way to know about how to Bullet Journal is to head over to http://bulletjournal.com, which an incredibly user-friendly interface that gives you bite-sized information about the Bullet Journaling system.
Like all trends, there are many contestations over whether Bullet Journaling is worth the hype at all. My Bullet Journaling journey, which commenced from the start of February this year, has been nothing but constant reflexive adapting of an open-ended system to my personal journaling habits. Instead of believing that you have to keep up with a fixed system, going into Bullet Journaling with an open mind helps you achieve more than what you would expect. As time passes, throw away certain parts of the system that do not work for you and keep those that do.
Bullet Journaling is worth the hype if you start by focusing on the core ideas, stripped away from expensive Moleskine journals and calligraphic aesthetics.
The 4 foundations of the Bullet Journaling system that I feel are useful for beginners to know:
1. Keys
Normally, the first page of your journal would be the Keys. Think of the Keys as a kitchen inventory. In order to have an enjoyable process cooking a meal, you need to have a neat kitchen where your ingredients are grouped according to their respective functions: condiments, diary products, confectionery, etc. You don’t need them all, but you do need some of them, depending on the meals you normally cook. In the same way, the Keys make up a highly customizable inventory. These are the basic Keys, but you can add or subtract from it:
Many Bujo writers have come up with their own deviations:
2. Index
By numbering your pages, you can add your entries to the Index in order for you to find your entries easily. Personally, I have never written anything on my index page. However, a majority of Bullet Journal writers find it useful.
3. Future Log and/or Monthly Log
According to Ryder Caroll’s system, the future log is where you write down future events for each month. This comes before the monthly log, where you write down the major events and tasks happening in that month, next to their dates. The monthly log is written at the start of each month. Personally, I found the monthly log more useful than the future log since I never bothered to plan so far ahead anyway.
Future log:
Monthly log:
4. Daily Log
Daily log is used on an everyday basis, where you jot down day-to-day schedule based on the Keys you have equipped your journal with. This is the most vital part of Bullet Journaling and committing to daily logging has done great wonders for my time management. I used to write my day-to-day to-do list on post-its and little scraps of papers, only to lose them or feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks. With daily logging, the aid of the Keys in sorting out my daily tasks calms my mind at the start of each day. I can dock my tasks at a harbor without feeling overwhelmed since I can always change the • (task) to a > (task migrated) if I am unable to complete them on the day itself.
There are so many other additions that you can employ, such as Habit Trackers, Ideas Lists, Spending Logs, etc. If you feel overwhelmed by the vast waters of the ocean called Bullet Journaling, head over to YouTube and search “Bullet Journal Setup” to get advice and inspiration!