I opened this topic because I just started a bullet journal, and I wanted to show you guys what I’ve done on it so far.
First of all, you need a notebook.
Most bullet journal guides recommend choosing a notebook that you’re comfortable using and that makes you feel like writing in your journal. Although you can use any notebook, notebooks with dotted pages are ideal for this type of journal. Unfortunately, they are very hard to find in my city. I had one back in 2018, and since then, I had been unable to find another one in the same store. I tried all different kinds of notebooks— regular lined ones, blank, thick pages, typical agendas, graph paper journals— and gave up on all of them after two months or so. Why? Because I couldn’t create what I wanted in those notebooks. So, finally, I decided to order one online.
Here’s the one I chose:
The font’s beautiful, I love the florals on black background, and the quote is inspiring— plus, it says nevertheless, which is a word that appears twice in my favorite song (
She was all bad-bad, nevertheless 
)
Pens, markers, etc.
The pages of this dotted journal are thick enough to use markers, brush pens, and watercolors without having them bleed through, which makes it ideal if you are into lettering and watercolor painting, like I am. Regular notebooks just don’t do it for me in that sense. But if you don’t like using markers or anything fancy, all you need is a pen that you like writing with.
The index
A general recommendation for anyone who wants to start a bullet journal is that you number your pages and create an index to make certain pages easier to find.
Here’s my incomplete index:
Some people include a habit tracker, a spending log, or other things they want to track. I included the headache log because I get them often. I haven’t included a financial tracker for January because I got the journal yesterday, and the month is almost over. But I will start one for February.
The Key
Your key can include the symbols you use for each category of your to-do list, as well as a color code to separate the things on your list into categories. As you may notice, I copied the key on the first post and made mine very similar:
Monthly cover and overview
You can make a cover for each month if you’re feeling artistic. The overview is like a calendar to keep track of events coming up that month. Some people make a future log to track future events that will happen later in the year, but I don’t really like planning that far ahead, so I didn’t make one.
Here, I wrote down important things coming up like professional development meetings (CTE), birthdays (my mom, but I blocked out her name because she might not feel comfortable with me sharing her name on the Internet), and exams that I’m giving.
Mood tracker / log
I saw this “house with balloons” mood tracker on Pinterest, and I really liked it, so I decided to make one. Similar to the Rad Mood Calendar thread, I put the number beside the category of how I was feeling that day. I took this picture yesterday, so today’s not on it, but it was a ‘blue’ day.
Headache Tracker
This is something I find useful, since I get migraines often. Instead of making one for the whole month, I made one for the whole year. (I suck at drawing straight lines; sorry.)
And, as for the daily logs where you write your to-do list, I’ll update it with those later this week.
I’m jelly
