I did not know how empty and chaotic my planning life was until I stumbled upon the Bullet Journal…. and then the heavens did’st open and angels sang a chorus!

I am a micro-planner and a compulsive list-maker- to the point of irritation of my husband at times 😉 I also love order and organization, and have all my life. There are few things that thrilled me as much as a child as a fresh notebook, sketch pad, or new pens. I like things to be in their place- and not just physical things in my house, but time things, schedule things, life things.  Though it’s something that I can easily go overboard with,  I don’t think that this is a bad thing. It means that I know what things are coming up, what things need to be dealt with when, and how to budget and plan so that I’m not caught off guard unnecessarily. It means that trips home go smoother because I’ve already figured out where we can stop and when on the 12 hr drive and when we will need to stop for gas; it means that we make time to see everyone we can during our short time in SC; it means that when we bought our house I knew what the next step was in the process and could keep us moving forward quickly with real estate, loan and title agents.

And I get a great sense of satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment from seeing my progress, whether it’s financial progress towards paying off my credit card, finishing books on my to-read list, completing projects in the new house or finishing my personally designed knitting projects. I’m very visual and like to see progress visually represented.

There are, of course, times when my relentless desire for order and the tracking of that order can get to be too much and it reveals itself to be unnecessary. Sometimes I have to  take a step back and remind myself that sometimes you need a break- you don’t have to do two rounds on your Star Trek cowl tonight because you actually have no deadline for finishing it; or there is absolutely no need for you to track your daily water consumption because you have that under control, no matter how cute that Instagrammer decorated their water tracker page in their Bullet Journal!

But I digress…. a large percentage of those reading this are probably quizzically staring at the screen and asking “Whatever would one want to shoot a journal for?” and “Does that make it hard to write around the hole?” and possibly, “Well maybe you can feed a strap through that bullet hole so you can carry it like a purse….” Okay probably not that last one.  But never fear! all shall be revealed.

The Bullet Journal is a system that was created by Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer. It has since proliferated into myriad different forms but the main point of it boils down to this: make it work for you. The Bullet Journal, in many ways, becomes an existential question in my mind: if there are no absolutely essential elements in a bullet journal, but you instead customize it into whatever you want, what actually makes it a bullet journal? The very lack of definition is what defines it as what it is?….. So deep.  There are many common pages and elements that people use but they are all customized and customizable.  When I stumbled upon this system I recognized my organizational soul mate.

I’d kept planners before and lots of lists but there was always frustration when things started to become messy. Pages weren’t set up in the ideal way to keep me organized. I can remember looking through day planners a few times and just feeling like none of them were really going to be that useful.

But the Bullet Journal—oh that glorious bullet journal– is completely user friendly. You design it exactly the way you need it and if something doesn’t work, well then, the next time you add pages you rework them to accommodate the issue. It can be as complicated or as simple as you want. It can be nothing but a day planner, or it can keep track of everything from your health habits, to finances, to personal wellness, to hourly schedules, to TV shows watched, to daily doodle challenges… The options are endless.

There is a thriving online community obsessed with designing and sharing their bullet journal pages which are great for getting inspiration. Some of my favorites are: @maplebujo; @bohoberry; @pageflutter; @hhbujo; @norajournals; and @bulletjournaladventure

I started bullet journaling back in August of 2016. I heard about  this system, bought a Moleskin journal with graph pages, some pens and some markers, and gave it a shot. My journal lasted me about 9 months or so before I ran out of room. Now that I had a good idea what I wanted in my journal and what really wasn’t helpful I decided to plan out not only what pages to include in my new journal, but also how they would be grouped.  My first journal was very spread out. I had some pages like my “Books to Read” page and “Movies to watch” in the front and then had several weekly spreads, i.e. just like a normal weekly planner with a two page spread for a week’s schedule. But everything was intermixed and though I did keep track of everything in the index, I found it quicker to add sticker flags and colored paper clips to certain pages so that I could flip there quickly, which ended up getting cluttered. I resolved that in my new journal things would be more organized and much neater.

I had read how many bullet journalers like the Leuchtturm1917 journals for reasons like thickness and smoothness of the paper, wider sheets etc., so I decided to upgrade and spring for one. I also upgraded to Sharpie Pens which are fantastic!

To make it uniquely mine I found some beautiful Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them inspired stickers on Redbubble.com from the artist Milartis. And thus Sara’s Bullet Journal 2.0 was born!