MY BULLET JOURNAL

Hi there!

As some of you may know, I am a huge list-person. My thoughts usually consist of a non-stop stream of things I have to do, things I want to remember, ideas for recipes and blogposts, etcetera etcetera. The constant pressure to actually remember all of that can get a little exhausting at times. I'm sure you're all familiar with that feeling, because who hasn't experienced stress? My way of slightly slowing down that flow of information is making lists. Every single thought that crosses my mind and is worthy of remembering needs to be written down, otherwise it'll get lost in the sea of thoughts and ideas that might not all be as great as that one. Apparantly I have a lot of thoughts I consider worthy of remembering, because my desk - and the rest of my room - is littered with lists. Furthermore, I have 46 lists on my phone, 28 on my email account and - wait for it - 295 on my computer. It's absolutely ridiculous, I know. Lists are great, but the one thing I still struggle with is the fact that they are never in the same place. I don't have a notebook of lists, I have a pile, and another pile, and another one. Plus, I have the same list over and over again. If I have an idea for a blogpost, but I can't find my 'blogpost-ideas' list, I make a new one. My love for lists and my need for all the information I need every day to be in one place, led me to try something new called a Bullet Journal. So - after this very long intro - that's what I'd like to write to you about today.

The system of bullet journaling is extremely simple and minimalistic. It was created by a man called Ryder Carroll - click here to go to his website, also the official bullet journaling website - but there are whole communities of people who have taken it to a whole new artistic level. The main idea is to write down to-do-bullets for every day, and at the end of the day, you either cross them off - because you've done them or because you discover they're actually not necessary - or you migrate them to the next day/week/month. There are also things called 'collections' and 'trackers' - and this is where it gets interesting. Collections are basically lists, and trackers are things to help you with for example keeping track of your savings, your workouts or your weight. Now back to the artistic part. I'm not very good at drawing, but I do like to make my BuJo - short for Bullet Journal - look pretty. What follows are a few pages out of my own Bullet Journal, maybe you can get some inspiration for your own:

The index: where you can make a list all of your lists...

I blanked out my friends' names for their privacy, but this is my birthday + important dates circle thing...

My monthly overview for February; I like to write down my favourites and memories here, so I don't have to gather them from the deepest corners of my memory at the end of the month. I also have a shopping list in my monthly.

I made a mistake here so I used washi tape and a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge to cover it up ;)

The weekly: like a basic journal but a little more extra... You can track your workouts, instagram posts, food or whatever you want.

The habit tracker: I kinda wanted to have a little bit more sight on how many hours a night I sleep and how often I wash my hair etcetera etcetera.

The reason I would definitely recommend you try bullet journaling - because I would - is that it has helped me so much with getting the buzz out of my head and onto paper. Lists could do that too, but the chaos of all the different scraps of paper didn't really help at all. Since I started - which would be January 2017 - I have found myself less stressed in general because I'd continuously go 'Oh well, everything I need to do is in my Bullet Journal, so I really don't have to worry about it.' That's something that - sadly - is new to me. There is more quiet in my head and that allows me to overview my life - that sounds deep - more clearly. There's a few things - other than my newlyfound quiet - that I love about bullet journaling. Firstly, it's all you. You start with a blank notebook and you make something out of it. You can design it however you want. And when something doesn't work for you, you can change it up next time. Secondly, when something goes wrong, you can just find a drawing or a picture or a quote you like, glue it over the mistake, turn to the next page and start over. For instance: this page right here was an absolute disaster. I'm talking smudges, holes, the lot. So I ripped a few pages out of a travel brochure, added a quote and voilá. It's now one of my favourite pages so far.

There's a few tips and tricks I'd like to share with you before I rush off to my yoga class - yes, that's a thing now. Firstly, don't be scared to try something new. If it doesn't work for you, you can try something else next time. Secondly, don't plan too far ahead. Mainly with the weekly overviews - for all the info and the whole story go to bulletjournal.com - because if you make too many in a certain style and that specific style doesn't really work for you, you're stuck to it for a while. I mainly make one weekly a week, so on Saturday, I'll make the one for next week and until then, I put all my upcoming appointments in the 'coming-up' section at the bottom of my current weekly. 

"Open my heart and you will see, graved inside of it, 'Italy'."

If there's any other questions you have or things you'd like to know, I'll be back on the internet right after my yoga class ;)

Have a great week!

Love,

Rosaly