What You Need To Make A Bullet Journal

Are you tired of buying costly planners with high hopes, only to abandon them when they don't fit your needs? A bullet journal is the solution, and you only need two materials to make a bullet journal, so you can have your new favorite system up and running in a matter of minutes. A trip to the store probably won't even be necessary! Just look around your home for paper of some kind and a writing utensil, and that's it.

Most bullet journal users choose a notebook of some kind, such as a Moleskine journal or just an ordinary spiral notebook from the drugstore. But there's no reason you couldn't use another type of thing like a three-ring binder or a deck of index cards as an alternative (these might be more flexible over time than a notebook with a fixed number of pages). As for the paper itself, go with what you like, be it lined, unlined, graph paper, or anything else. Be careful to choose thick paper if you prefer pens that tend to bleed through pages.

Your bullet journal will have a few basic sections, including an index, a future log, monthly logs, daily logs, and collections of dispersed content. Even though this popular "How to Bullet Journal" video is a little complicated, it's actually super simple to set up the journal, promise. You might want to check out this step by step guide for how to make a bullet journal instead.

What makes the bullet journal different is that it's much more about the method than about a product. Sure, there are plenty of beautiful day planners out there, and planners that promise productivity. But whenever you buy a pre-printed planner, you're necessarily constrained by the form that's already there. The formats of planners make a false promise, that they'll cause you to get more done than you'd ever imagined you could. Disappointment is practically inevitable (I've been there so many times myself).

Everything in the bullet journal comes from you, right down to the organizational structure. If you're extremely averse to DIY-ing it and have money to burn, it is possible to buy a pre-fab Bullet Journal with the template printed inside, to use as a starting place. But personally I think that's a little contrary to the spirit of the method. The bullet journal invites us to reap the benefits of writing things down by hand in a digital age, while taking the focus off the paper and keeping it on your content. Happy journaling!

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