If you have been around me at all this summer, you have probably heard me discussing my recent obsession: a project I have discovered known as bullet journaling. I was first introduced to it by my roommate, who always has beautifully crafted fonts and designs in her journal. Therefore, I dismissed the idea, thinking I wasn't "artsy" enough to start a bullet journal of my own. When I returned home from college, my friend gave me a journal she had bought while abroad in Spain. The pages were blank, and as I flipped through them, she said "maybe you can do bullet journaling or something!" The gears started turning in my head and then suddenly I was up late that night googling bullet journal ideas. I just wanted to post about this to share why I love it so much, and maybe inspire others to create something of their own. I think bullet journals are really quite open ended and there are a lot of cool things you can do with them. Why am I so drawn to bullet journals, you may ask? I love to write, but sometimes keeping a regular journal can be too much work for me. Some days I may have a huge urge to write things down, but I don't do it because I feel like I would have to give a lot of context in my journal in order for everything to make sense (of course, there are no rules about this but that's just how I feel). What I like about bullet journaling is you can just write little snippets (bullets!) of a memory, a goal, a song... something that will allow you to look back on a certain moment and remember. And you can organize it any way you want. Here are some of the pictures I found online to give you an idea. BUT I would like to say that you should not feel intimidated by how intense some of these look. Again, I am not anywhere NEAR an artsy person, and doing something like these pictures would stress me out to no end. But it's fun to see the different things you may want to write about or keep track of! As you can see, a lot of these are very visually pleasing and focus a lot on the artsy details. What I love about bullet journaling is the different boxes you can create to form a template for what to write. And with that in mind, this is what my journal looks like (it's about as simple as one can get): A lot of the journals shown online are very colorful, but since I am avoiding a lot of the drawing/fancy fonts, I just outline the boxes with black marker and write the rest of the words with a lavender pen to at least give it some color. And since I love this type of journaling so much, I want to elaborate on each section I created to give you a sense of what you can do (otherwise feel free skip to the end for a website with more suggestions)! Header For my journal, I do a weekly spread, meaning everything you see on both pages is for the whole week (which is specified in the upper lefthand corner). I also use the heading margin for a quote I came across that week (a song lyric, a movie quote, something I read in an article, etc.) Films Watched I love watching movies, and since it's summer I usually watch a couple each week. This space is for documenting those movies, including who I saw them with. If it's a new movie I usually include my thoughts on it (ones with raving reviews so far this summer: Wonder Woman and The Revenant<3). Song Suggestions I also love finding new songs, and I usually discover a few new ones each week as well. 50% of the time, I find songs in movies I watch, so these two sections pair well together. I write the name of the song, the artist, where I heard it, and maybe what it reminds me of. Gratitude Log This is a longer section because unlike all the other sections, I write something for each day. Specifically, I write something that happened that day that made me happy. I often write about getting coffee with a friend, someplace fun I went that day, or something interesting I witnessed at work (usually breakthroughs I experienced while working with kids). These three sections go well together because for me, a song often becomes something like a memory. The song will remind me of a movie I saw, or a day that I went on an adventure with someone. Healthy Habits I have been really trying to eat healthy this summer (currently my biggest obsession is chia seeds: especially on peanut butter toast, yogurt, and cereal). This is a space to document exercise, new (healthy) snacks I tried, and goals for how to be healthier in the upcoming week. Faith Here is where I write about things I may be struggling with/need guidance for, blessings I have seen this week, or people I want to pray for. Sometimes I just write out prayers which helps me feel a bit more grounded. Thoughts, etc. A general writing section - basically anything else I want to include that's not mentioned in any of the other sections, or to elaborate on something that is mentioned. Sometimes I write mini poems, or jot down plans for a future blog post. This is also a good journal section where I can just write down short snippets of something that happened each week, whether it is good or bad. Goals A list of general goals - both on a broad and small scale. I like that I have started this in the summer so I have some time to experiment and document all the little moments! Here is a website I found that has some good additional ideas if you would like to take a look! I hope some of you can be as excited about bullet journaling as I am! If you already keep a bullet journal, I would love to learn more about your layout. And if anyone has any additional ideas, I would really like to learn about those as well - so please feel free to comment <3
Happy journaling!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |