What is bullet journaling and its benefits?

What is a bullet journal?

Bullet journals, also called BuJo for short, are a type of journal that serves as both a planner and a diary. As a planner, they track both short-term and long-term goals. As a diary, it can be used to quickly log your thoughts and feelings, making them a great form of self-care. Bullet journals can be used for anything, whether you are looking to improve your health through dieting and fitness or help you stay organized at work. They can easily be adjusted and customized to suit your ever-changing needs. These journals can be either physical or digital journals.

How to start a bullet journal

Bullet journals don’t come pre-made. You’ll have to set one up yourself, but luckily, this will only take a few minutes. If you want to start with a physical journal, purchase a journal with blank pages or a dot grid.

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Bullet journals have four main sections: your index, a future log, a monthly log or task list, and a daily log.

1. The index section

The index section lives at the front of your journal and is used as a table of contents as well as a symbol key. You may want to save the first few pages of your journal as an index in case you need to add more information to it in the future.

Key symbols can be added throughout your journal to highlight important details. Using them in your journal is a great visual organization tool. For example, you may want to use an exclamation point next to notes or to-dos that are high-priority or a triangle next to upcoming appointments. You don’t need to come up with key symbols right away, let them come to you as you create your journal.

2. The future log

The next section of your bullet journal is the future log. This section is used to log your long-term goals, no matter how big or small they are. You can use this section to log personal or work-related goals, future vacations, holidays, or anything significant coming up in the next year. Again, you may want to save a few pages for this section so that you can add to it later.

3. The monthly log

This section serves as a monthly calendar to log important events or deadlines. You can set this section up however you would like—some draw out an actual calendar, while others vertically list each day of the month with space next to it to add notes. Make sure to include relevant items from the future log in your monthly log.

4. The daily log

On this page, you’ll write the date and list the goals, events, or to-dos for that day. Of course, you’ll need a new page for each day. You can also use this section to log daily thoughts or feelings in bullet points. While traditional journaling uses full sentences to log thoughts and events, a benefit of bullet journaling is that you can use simple bullet points to list things. If you’re busy or on the go, bullet journals are ideal because they don’t take too much time to update.

This section is where your key symbols come in handy—you can add symbols to each bullet point to help you categorize or prioritize them.

Digital vs. physical bullet journals

Both digital and physical journals have various benefits. Most people prefer physical notebooks since they love to get creative with their bullet journals by adding stickers or fun doodles to them. Research shows that writing by hand can help boost your memory, which is especially helpful for those who are looking to keep track of events and to-dos with a bullet journal.¹
However, digital bullet journals are also a great choice because they can be accessed anywhere, as long as you have the Internet. Plus, if you back them up in a cloud, you’ll never lose your data, whereas a physical journal could become lost. Apps like OneNote are popular for bullet journaling and you can even add doodles to your notes.

Bullet journaling is a fast and easy way to gather events, thoughts, and feelings in one place. Get started on your bullet journal today to enjoy an organized life.

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