I adore bullet journaling. I have around 80 journals (yes, the number keeps increasing) and I bought my first bullet journal a couple weeks ago. I’ve seen bullet journals in passing on social media but never vibed with it because I like to fill my journals solely with words. I didn’t feel creative enough or motivated enough to put effort into creating special designs. It also seemed like a calendar that I would likely get bored of quickly.
More and more bullet journal videos came across my TikTok and I became obsessed. I loved how simple some made theirs and how they used it for so many different reasons. As mentioned in my first bullet journaling post, the motivation behind starting this type of journaling was to help one of my teenage clients who has been having a tough time with school.
Being a role model for clients is a huge aspect of my job. If my clients see me taking positive steps to help my mental health, pursue other goals, and simply put time into creating a healthy lifestyle, maybe they will feel motivated to do the same. I made sure my kiddo understood that they could do whatever they wanted with the journal, even throw it in the trash. I didn’t want them to work on the journal simply because I suggested it. I want them to feel it actually helps them.
They seem to like it but I’m not in their brain, so I’ll write about my experience so far. I’m almost hitting 15 days of having the bullet journal and being active with it. I have 10 pages that I interact with on a daily basis. I’ve been adding new ones as I go so it’s a little jumbled as I get used to the journal and figure out what is going to work for me.
Here’s a run down of the 10 pages:
- A one year writing log with a colored key representing the amount of minutes spent writing each day
- A one year reading log with a colored key representing the amount of minutes spent reading each day
- A one year water log with a colored key representing whether or not I drank my daily water goal
- Nine tiny October calendars with nine corresponding goals I track daily
- A one year emotions log with a colored key representing my emotions each day
- A page titled “Say Something Nice About Yourself” where I write something nice about myself each day during October
- Two charts representing the daily steps I get and the amount of hours I sleep each day in October
- One page to track reasons why I did not accomplish the goals listed on page four
- Debt tracker to help build a focus on paying off debt
- An October Emotions check in where I write a sentence explaining the color I chose on page five
Like I mentioned, I add pages as I go so there are a few things I would change if I create a new bullet journal in the future.
I would likely block off a few pages to have yearly pages where I track something the entire year. Having them in one area of the journal would be more cohesive and make my brain a little less annoyed when I go from page four to five! I also may want to add other one year pages in the future.
I would likely block off a few pages for random things like the debt tracker I created that are not necessarily associated with a specific month or even year.
I would then block off a few pages for each month. I like having page four but I wish it was closer to page eight. I thought of page eight later. I decided this when I considered my teenager. They also created a habit page and an emotions page. I didn’t want to see habits not completed with no explanation as to why. I wanted them to be able to look at it at the end of the month and find a pattern. What exactly led to more days of not completing the task than completing it? What task did you accomplish pretty frequently that you may not want to track next month?
I didn’t want to see the color(s) where she was having challenging emotions every day and having no place to process why. Same goes for happier emotions, what contributed to those feelings and how can we build more of that into each day? I figured adding an emotions check in page would be a good recommendation so they were able to look back and process through what was going on that day.
For me, seeing my habits not marked simply because I didn’t make the time, is eye opening. Also being able to note dates where the task was not possible for whatever reason is important so I acknowledge those days are not failures.
Simply noting difficult emotions or not completing desired tasks and nothing to back it up would likely not help create desired behavioral changes either of us want to see. I’ve already noted it in myself, I don’t like seeing multiple red squares on my writing page. Red squares on my water tracking page means I could be contributing to dehydration. Red in general, is pretty much a color that means I’m not where I want to be. What can I do to have more green?
The “Say Something Nice About Yourself” page is a lovely surprise. I know I need to be better about speaking kind words about myself. I’m a tough critic and often live in the negative space in my brain. I appreciate taking a few moments each day and finding a positive attribute about myself. I’ll show the picture of what I have so far so you can get an idea if you want to add a page like this to your bullet journal!
I will continue to document my journey through bullet journaling. I want to use this opportunity to inspire others to use it as a tool to support your overall health. If anything, take a moment and say something nice about yourself!
I would love to read other people’s experiences, see suggestions for journaling ideas, and discuss how bullet journaling helps others. Please share on the blog, comment/message on my Instagram page, or send an email to authorarielpierce@gmail.com!
Ariel Pierce 