How does one start a bullet journal? I want to correct one starting new semester maybe and. I want to find out how you can start with one. And what would you recommend in terms of supplies for making one?
Hi! Thank you so much for your ask! Alright so I myself haven’t done a masterpost on bullet journals, but this is a great one that is super helpful!
Personally, I started mine with a two-year-old, used too many times notebook that was completely falling apart from this Aussie brand store (which is super expensive so don’t even think about it because the quality isn’t so great either) called Kikki K.
The thing I think that’s important to understand about Bullet Journalling, and I’m no expert either, is that it’s completely personal and adaptable to you. You are in charge of what goes in, what pages you put in, how you style it etc etc. It doesn’t have to be like all the ones you see on tumblr - I for one have never reached that standard! But honestly practice makes perfect and soon enough you’ll find out what you like and then your journal will just be awesome!
Ok. Here are some tips.
TIME MANAGEMENT
creating a bullet journal is awesome for organising your life in a way that is suitable, accessible and sensible to you, however, the upkeep of the journal itself can eat up your time. Make sure you aren’t so busy organising your life that you forget to live it! I do it on the weekend, when I have more time to study, socialise, and then the journal becomes more of a leisurely craft in terms of styling a spread.
Also: don’t think you have to keep up with it every single week. If one week is absolutely hectic and you know that you’ll be stressed about the journal spread for that week, forget it if you have to. There are other ways you can organise your life just as effectively.
HOW TO START
in the beginning of the bullet journal, you’ll typically have something called a Future Log, which plans out the next year/semester. In this you’ll want to map out the upcoming months and the events happening, and this is something you can refer back to when you come to a new monthly spread.
You’ll also need a key/legend page if you’re big on symbols, for example if an event is a square, and a reminder is a circle. I won’t go into too much detail, check out the masterpost to find out more!
Index page, for all the important pages and their numbers. Remember that all of these are optional yet extremely helpful to start.
SPREADS
monthly spread:a monthly spread is like an expanded future log for the month. You can put in a calendar and write in important events, write down some goals, tv shows you want to watch, etc. You can have a specific theme for the month, for example Harry Potter, or a different colour for each month, so for me june was blue.
my monthly spread
weekly spread:this is the one you see probably all the time around tumblr. This maps out the week ahead, and you can put in a habit tracker, to do list, and then list the days and what is happening on those days. You can decorate these as much or as little as you like, don’t feel that it needs to look like the ones scattered around tumblr. As long as it makes sense to you, its working.
some of my weekly spreads
OTHER PAGES
monthly reflectionbooks to readexercise trackercountdown
SUPPLIES
I’m going to preface this with a good ol’ you don’t need expensive pens to have a good bullet journal. Technically, all that you will ever need is a pen, ruler, and maybe a highlighter. But we can all safely say we want more than that, and that’s ok!
I use Zebra Mildliners, and either Tombow brush pens or Faber Castell brush pens. These are good for adding a little colour and separating information, as well as decorating etc.
You don’t need this expensive stuff! Check this out to find more supplies! Off eBay the zebra highlighters cost me about 45 Australian dollars, however someone I know who lives in Singapore got them about two dollars each. There are a total of fifteen highlighters, so do the math and make sure you don’t pay too much.
Hit up your local arts and crafts supplies store and find everything you need, or if you’re in Australia, you can hop on down to everyone’s holy temple, Officeworks! Find a wholesale stationary store and you’ll find cheap washi tape, pens and notebooks if you look hard enough.
I hope this helped and I hope to do a masterpost on bullet journalling soon! Happy journaling! xx
