Now-a-days bullet journals are all the rage. You see those beautiful instagram #bujo spreads and instantly feel the need to buy yourself all the stationery your pocket would permit and then get scribbling. (Case in point being me) But that was fours years ago when I was compelled to make the prettiest and most unpractical bullet journal ever. Now, I have learnt from my mistake and embraced minimalism.

Below I walk you through the current set up of my bullet journal but let me tell you can read about the original Rydell’s Bullet journal method here (Please visit it after finishing this article)

My current Bullet journal is a DOMS IQ 6-subject notebook with tab dividers. I bought it from my local super mart and it cost me INR 160 (about USD 2.25 ). And I absolutely love it because –

• It has repositionable tab dividers which means I decide the number of pages I want dedicated for each section.
• A document holder to keep my print out of the Chinese horoscope (I am superstitious and I believe in diversity. LOL.)
• A pen holder that I don’t use much but comes in handy whenever I need to carry around my bujo.
• A perfect wiro binding that gives me that fantastic 180 degrees flat surface for writing. It does go back 360 degrees but I don’t like doing that as I fear it will break the plastic kind of spine it has.
• The paper quality is superb. Bright white and 70gsm. Since I don’t do any lettering or artistry on it, it is perfect for me but it will definitely bleed if you put anything other than a ballpoint pen to it.
• And most of all the cover is amazing! I just love the quote.

So, those are the features of my bullet journal, now moving on to the sections and how I actually use it –

• INTRODUCTION
  • The first section of my bullet journal consists of the word of the year (Ukiyo) and the quote of the year
  • After it comes the goals of the year where in I follow the rule of zero – that is I pick any number (one this year) and then add a zero for each goal – for example
    • 1 – one hour everyday for health
    • 10 – complete ten books and ten illustrations.
    • 100 – complete #100daysofproductivity challenge.
    • 1000 – one thousand hours of study 
  • Then I write some important information like Name, Date of Birth, Contact no., email, height, weight, body measurements (for comparision)
• MASTER TO DO LIST
  • This section is inspired from Ruby Granger. But since I can’t carry or maintain dozens of planners, I integrated all of it in one.
  • The list of categories I have is Career, Chores, Work, Health, and miscellaneous. You can decide the width and length of these columns.
• DAILY TO DO LIST
  • This is where my daily planning starts and ends. I follow the usual bullet journal method of writing down the things that need to be done that day and tick off the tasks completed (so satisfying), cancel the unimportant tasks and migrate the tasks undone to the next day.
  • I just add an timetable to the side to schedule my day otherwise I would end up procrastinating.
• IDEAS LIST
  • This is where I list all my blog ideas, art inspirations or story ideas and tick off the ones I have already used.
  • I have found this to be a great practice as we become less likely to forget what we thought was a brilliant stroke of genius. This helps us streamline our content and keep our brain space free for more ideas
• MISCELLANEOUS LIST
  • Just random lists I need like the bag pack list (you can read what I carry in my bag here), books I have read this year list and wish list – keep track of all you ever wanted and hand it over to your family members when they ask you what do you want?
  • I have left a few more pages empty in case I wanted to list something else (I am sure you can tell by now that I am obsessed with lists)
• BUDGETING
  • One of my new year resolutions is to be more financially aware and keep a track of my spending habits.
  • The format I use for my budgeting is to make a page on yearly and monthly expenses – the yearly page has five columns: Months, Total income of the month, total expenditure of the month, total savings, and gross amount.
  • And my monthly pages have the name of the month, and below it I have the total income of the month. Then I have the following columns: Date, Item, +/- (to indicate where the money was gained or lost), amount, mode (in which such expenditure or income was made) and return (since I do a lot of online shopping I make sure to have this column to track whether I have returned any particular item)

Therefore, this is how I set up my bullet journal! I have found it to be very practical and efficient.

Stay tuned for the next post where I will detail the other part of my organization process and include some bonus tips I use for time management.

UNTIL NEXT TIME, HAPPY HUSTLIN’ HON!