bullet journal is not for everyone
Alright, let's be honest here. I've been bullet journaling for over 4 years now. And I have to say, bullet journaling is probably not for everyone. Yes, I agree that it is a good way for you to organize your day and thoughts but based on my experience if you are someone like me, then planners would be a better option.
Let's go back to 2015 when I first joined to studyblr community and discovered bullet journaling. Back then, I used a B5 grid notebook that was sold at Muji for like $1.60 SGD. For that price, it was worth it. I did my planning, which I rarely did during my first three years of Secondary School and I continued until my Prelims before stopping bullet journaling to focus on my O Levels.
I literally stopped bullet journaling and tried to go back to it after my national examinations, intimidated by the pretty, minimalistic bullet journal spreads that I've seen on the community. But it didn't last that long before I gave up. So, if you are like me and start bullet journaling just because of all the pretty, aesthetic "picture perfect" bullet journal spreads, maybe you are not ready yet. Don't fight me because this is really based on my own experience.
Yes, I've stated in my "A Small Guide to Bullet Journal" that I've posted 2 years ago, that bullet journaling serves you a purpose to keep your daily, weekly, monthly planning organized. But if you are really intimidated by the thoughts of your spread won't be as good as those people out there, I suggest you don't, for now.
Next, I've spent money investing in Moleskine notebook only to realise that the paper quality does not "absorb" the ink that I'm using. This means that there's a lot of bleeding going through and I had to switch my pen from my trusty gel ink pen to a ballpoint pen to ensure that the ink would not bleed. That same year, I migrated to a Leuchtturm1917 notebook to "restart" my bullet journal, only to realise that I will be using it for like 5 months before I stopped bullet journaling because I was just too busy (and sometimes lazy) to create that weekly spread. Sometimes, I would just dedicate one Sunday for that month to create 4 identical weekly spreads and would jot down the task that I need to complete.
Bullet journaling is time-consuming. You have to set up everything – future logs, monthly logs, weekly logs, the list is endless. For someone like me, who is studying and working at the same time, there's no time for me to dedicate a good hour to do this. My weekdays are packed with classes and occasionally having to go to work at night (and reaching home at like 1 am) and my weekends are just me going to work. There's simply no time for me to do this spreads and thus, I just cancelled bullet journaling.
Bullet journaling can be a nightmare for a perfectionist like me. I am definitely someone who can't stand a messy spread and prefer something really perfect. If one thing went wrong for that spread, I would just scrape off that page and work on the new page. It's that bad, I swear.
However, bullet journaling is definitely unique. It's your notebook so you can do whatever you want to do with it. So, at the end of the day, you choose whatever planning system that suits you.
Don't be like me, jumping into the bullet journal community just because it's aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I'm currently migrating my bullet journal to a Traveler's Notebook which I'll be using the monthly insert, vertical weekly insert and the weekly layout with the memo insert to plan out my hectic day. Have a great day everyone!
With love,
Aini (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡
