3. How To Get Started Bullet Journaling

Welcome to part three in the series on bullet journaling.  So now we know the what, the who, and the why we need to get into the how.  How do we do it?

Simple, get a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil.  Boom!  Done.

Wait.  What?

I know, not what you expected.

But before we can do the how we need to plan.  Yes, you need to plan your planner otherwise you will fail at this.  Over the years I wasted time and money because I had no clue what I wanted or needed my planner to do.  I would waste pages writing stuff on it then crossing it out or even tearing sheets out.  I'm not one for messy planners and eventually I would stop using it.  The last thing we want is to waste time and money on something we're going to get frustrated with and stop using.  So let's take five minutes to plan.

1-What do you want to keep track of?

Some ideas

• Menu planning
• Weight loss
• Birthdays
• Moods
• Monthly money flows
• Budget
• Schedules
• Pain
• Medications
• Passwords

  and on and on.  For an idea of lists you may want to include, check out the links below.

Crystal at Bullet Journal Addict has a nice list of 15.

 Joanna Rahier has a decent list of 20 pages for your journal.  

Whitney at Life By Whitney has an incredible 379 item list you can print or watch the video.

However, to keep from being overwhelmed before we even begin, I recommend sticking with one of the first two links.  Also, this is YOUR journal.  Just because someone else says these are 'must haves', 'essential,' or 'the best' doesn't mean you have to have them in yours.  What works for one, doesn't necessarily mean it works for all.

2-Decide if you are going to do a monthly, weekly, or daily spread (layout).  

You don't have to do one or another.  You can do a combo.  Many people do a monthly calendar as a divider and then have weekly or daily spreads after.  Weekly spreads help you see your entire week all at once.  A daily you only see one day at a time and it uses more paper.  This means you'll run out of pages faster and might need another journal/planner before the year is out.  This means more money out the window.

Pinterest is a fabulous resource on different spreads.  You could spend all day lost in a sea of journal pins.  For the purposes of this series, we are only using the most basic, fuss-free layouts possible.  Check out the links below.

This link to Nikola Kosterman's website has 10 basic journal layouts.

Need more inspiration?  Claudia at The Fab 20s has 35 layouts including trackers.

3-Decide how you want it to look.  

Do you want art?  Do you want color?  Do you want a specific theme like comics or mid-century atomic?  Do you want flowers or cutesy?

Here's a secret: you don't have to choose just one thing.  I constantly switch themes in mine.  I've seen many bujo masters change their themes weekly or monthly so don't feel you have to be stuck with one thing forever.  It's YOUR journal.  Do with it what you feel.  If you want nothing one week and want to do unicorns or Harry Potter the next week, then rock on!  There are no limits here.

Notice how we still haven't spent a dime yet.  Now that we've got an idea on what our planner needs to do and how to set it up, we need to gather materials and set up the first pages.  That'll be discussed in the next post.

What are some of your thoughts so far?  

Thanks for reading!  As always, Keep Moving Forward!
Kelli