About a year ago, I started my very first bullet journal. And it completely changed me! I have always been a lover of lists, and constantly have like 20 floating around my desk. I’m definitely type A and fit the typical speech pathology student stereotype lol. But my bullet journal has helped me compile those lists into one notebook, and stay on top of everything. Win, win, win. Recently I decided it was time to start a new one, because I was running out of pages in my old one and because I wanted to add in more pretty pages!
First, you will need a notebook, colorful pens, a pencil, and a ruler. That is pretty much all I use in my bullet journal, but occasionally I will color something in with colored pencils!
For my first one, I just used a lined composition book that I already owned so it wouldn’t cost me much if I stopped after a month. This time around, I knew I wanted one with either dots on the pages, or completely blank. I found a teal sketchbook at Michaels for only $5, so I snatched it up since it had blank pages!
My favorite pens to use are the Staedtler rollerball pens. I find that they do not bleed through pages much, and I have loved using them in my agenda too! I also am left-handed and these pens do not smudge when I use them, which of course is a win in my book! I picked mine up from Target, but I am sure they are at many stores.
Now that you have all your supplies, it is time to research what you want in your journal. This was so fun for me, because I basically spent a whole day pouring through Instagram and Pinterest getting inspiration. There are so many gorgeous pages to inspire you, but do not feel intimidated that all your pages need to be Pinterest-worthy too. The beauty of bullet journaling is that everyone’s journal is different, and your pages will reflect you and your interests. One of the reasons I love mine so much is because they are 100% customizable!
Many people start with an index in their journal. I put one in my old one, but I never really used it so I didn’t put one in my new one yet. I did leave the first page blank in case I decide to add one later.
I recommend having a good pencil and eraser so you can sketch out your pages before you add in pen or paint! I do almost everything in pencil first, and I will erase and redo until I am happy with the result!
I chose to put all of the pages I will only have in my journal one time at the beginning. This means I have my books I’ve read, my podcast list, my future projects page, my cleaning schedule, etc within the first few pages. Once I added in all my one time pages (and left a few extra blank pages in case I come up with more to add later!) I added in my monthly spread. I will do a whole post soon about how I set up my monthly spreads, but I absolutely love it for keeping track of my habits, spending, gratitude, etc! I don’t do weekly spreads because I find I don’t have the time for that, and I just use my agenda for my weekly calendar.
My biggest piece of advice is just go for it. There will be pages with imperfections, but that is totally okay! You will learn from your mistakes and you will still have a gorgeous bullet journal even with small imperfections!
Do you have a bullet journal? Are you planning on starting one? Let me know in the comments below!
xo, Scarlett