So, I'm restarting a bullet journal, after 10 months with a Hobonichi Cousin that I just could not love. Of course, I watched some Ryder video's about intentions (especially this one). Theoretically it makes sense to me to set an intention before even starting anything, because making explicit your why helps it to stick and to set it up accordingly.

The problem however is that after thinking about my intention for a couple of days, I cannot seem to formulate it. Maybe I am overthinking it, but nothing feels right, like that is what it is about for me.

I currently have two thought strings. The first one is that the bullet journal should help me to get insight into what makes me feel good and things I learn. The problem I have with this, is that this doesn't relate at all to my goals in life at the moment. This is also not formulated as someone that I want to be, as Ryder says in the video. My second intention would be something like 'to be a better [fill in my job/career path]'. I am searching for a new job and feel things are changing, and it is not entirely clear yet what that job/career path is going to be. Also I am also not this person that defines themself as their job. I am more than my job.

How are you setting your intention? Why do you bullet journal or what does it help you with? How do you know it resonates completely with what you want to be on this moment?

I feel habit trackers are engaging. So far I'll track (starting in November):

• groom the cat
• floss
• journal
• programming my own projects
• study
• CV send

Most of them are boolean, so I was looking for some inspiration in quantitative item to track.

What are yours?

Crossposted from r/bulletjournal! It takes me about 15 minutes to set up my monthly log (counting migrating events over from the future log), and I have all my trackers in one place to see correlations easily :)

Found some videos covering the Alistair method and it looks interesting. Also checked out the bulletjournal blog site where they mention using a similar structure but instead of days/weeks/months for the columns, you can use a kanban style ticket status instead.

Is this really just a ‘what works for you’ kind of thing? while I do have daily tasks to be completed, a lot of my work is a mix of making sure other people are completing their tasks/tickets, and tracking multiple medium size deliverables for clients which can often take multiple weeks (occasionally also months).

Trying to work out the best initial approach - understanding I can adjust as I go but i’d like to be in the ballpark at least.

For any of you that use this system, what do you find is a comfortable timescale/cadence to work with, and how does that map to the kinds of tasks you have (which may provide useful context for the original answer)?

Initially I’m thinking the kanban approach is tempting as it has no specific dates (I can map concrete dates in a year/monthly planner or attach target dates to the tasks). weekly would perhaps be doable but then I can’t really see a convenient way to have those in columns unless I use up12-13 columns to try and get a quarter view at a time.

When in the course of a day and I am rapid logging as stuff comes to mind, there's a big difference between:

• buy new toothbrush

vs.

• write a novel

The latter is, in GTD terms, a someday/maybe and it doesn't seem approopriate to endlessly carry it forward during monthly migrations until I maybe one day get around to writing a novel.

I guess the obvious thing is to create a Someday/Maybe collection?

Very simple question really, if you do not use the 'official' Bullet Journal Notebook from Leuctturm, what note book do you use and why? what is the paper like as well?

Edit Because a comment made me realize I could have added a bit more info:

I am asking because I am venturing into (but kind of back into) using Fountain pens so the paper should be thick enough to keep bleeding to a minimum. I do also like the Finer Nib for my fountain pens though.
as for Paper color the Leuchtturm paper isn't exactly pure white so it doesn't much matter to me if the paper is off white or more of a cream color...

Does anyone else ever just want to re-do their entire bullet journal?

I been trying to keep track of my ideas and research, to use as a place to go back too like a database.

I’m just stuck how do you guys keep track, what do you guys keep track of?

Can you guys shows me your screenshots of how?

Basically title. I already have a planner (not a bullet journal) but would like to create a bullet journal just to track my moods and symptoms for my disorder so I can keep my psych informed with how I'm doing and potentially catch episodes.

I'm looking to track moods, energy levels, manic, depressive and psychotic symptoms, meds, sleep and food.

I just don't know where to start as I find bujo's overwhelming to make and I want to make it creative and fun but my meds kinda squash my creativity.

Many thanks!!

I just posted a monthly layout I use in my bulletjournal. And some of the comments suggested, that it couldn‘t be considered a „basic bullet journal“, because the effort in creating it seemed to much.

This got me thinking of what the criteria for a „basic bullet journal“ might be. Here are mine and I would love to hear/read how the rest of you define a basic bullet journal.

My Criteria for a basic bullet journal:

• No decorations
• Not more than one my colour/pen and one highlight color
• No washi tape or stickers
• No long form diary text or „morning pages“

A basic bullet journal may (in my opinion) use:

• a ruler
• predrawn grids for monthly or weekly spreads or collections
• contain some flourish handwriting (which I dont use)
• contain an index page and a key-page

A basic bullet sticks to the essentials of bullet journaling. So dots, lines, checkbox, circle.

So what is Your opinion?!

I like my Monthlies prepared. I decided for a layout for 2025 and I am ready to roll.

This is prompted by another post asking about indexing. I know the theory behind it, but I’ve never found the need for it personally. Do you use your index? What do you use it for? What do you look up usually? Specific events? I’m curious as I don’t think there’s anything but the past month I really would have the need to go back to. Thanks!

I got a new notebook and it's un-numbered and like 300 pages. I could number every other page, sure, but I want to find other ways to index to make it more interesting.

What other ways have you indexed?

I mix in my collections with my dailies so I was thinking maybe a month name at the bottom with a page number. So like, Oct 1, Oct 3, until Oct 35 or however many pages I'd use. And then start with Nov 1, etc. Maybe that would be confusing with dates at the top of each daily.

Any advice for sticking with bullet journaling? The biggest thing I get from it is the habits I'm tracking get done pretty reliably. Those habits immediately go to hell if I stop using the journal.

The biggest problem I have is I don't feel like I have enough going on for daily use. 80+% of my days are just habit tracking entries (I put the items in my daily log each day to keep them in front of me). I'm not sure what else I would add because nothing "useful" comes to mind, and I don't want to do a bunch of random stuff so it feels like I'm using it. Even if I did, the "feels like I'm using it" would certainly fade over time.

Thoughts?

Sharing an image of one of my future log spreads for u/live-influence2482. I do three spreads of this in a new notebook. For the last spread, in place of December, I would put "Future" and leave off the calendar in that section, for any future events/appointments that get scheduled for past what my future log covers.

I'm just starting a bullet journal and am organizing my index. I'm most *almost exclusively) excited for some trackers I've seen here that involve coloring or doodling to correspond with certain moods or activities.

I keep a long-form narrative journal already, and a planner for work, so I'm honestly not sure what even goes in my daily section. Does the month long tracker I revisit daily go in monthly, or daily? Intuition says monthly but then I'm curious what I break down in the daily section.

Also I really want to start next month instead of waiting for January. Will I confuse myself, maybe go to jail? Mess up my journal somehow?

ETA: Thank you for all the advice! I will try not to take this first journal too seriously.

I recently decided to start bullet journaling. Also, I want to dedicate a part of my bullet journal to long form journaling. I want the bullet journal to be a safe space for me to use as many pages as I want for anything. But I don't know why the fear of finishing my notebook too soon prevents me. (Also, I don't want to have a separate notebook for long form journaling.)Have you ever experienced this feeling? How did you overcome this fear?

I was gifted a pocket Sterling Ink for 2025, but I'm a very minimal bujo-ist. I don't use a paper planner for appointments and things, I keep pretty much to the Ryder Carroll method and have morphed into making it a "what happened today" journal and less of a future planning journal. I do a monthly page, dailies, collections, but no weeklies and I track very few habits/things (usually just one thing on my monthly list). I'm at a loss for how to use all of these extra pages. If I had purchased my own, I'd go with one of SI's numbered-page notebooks instead. But here we are!

Pics below if you're not familiar with these pages.

Yearly tracker: I was thinking of maybe a cycle + symptom tracker because my app is no longer helpful due to irregularity.
Monthly page: Honestly I don't know how to use this and pages like this are why I don't buy pre-made planners lol. I use my phone for actual appointments/events.
Weekly: Maybe write a few things that happened that each day and put a weekly reflection on the blank side? I don't reflect every week in my current system but I suppose I could.
Quarterly tracker: I'll put my goals for the month here, but again I don't track a lot of things, so I'm not sure what to use the right side for.

yearly tracker

month page

week

quarterly tracker

I just started this method and right now I have set my BuJo up as the original method with a future log, monthly log and daily log.

The future log consists of 3 months at one page. But how do you all plan future meeting. Say I have an appointment with the dentist, 2 months from now. Do you just put it in the future log and then migrate it to the monthly log when that month starts?

I have a bit of problems with future events that have no page in the journal yet.

I thought 3 months a page would be enough, but it is getting pretty full already. And do you migrate everything? Because that seems double work. There must be a better way for this.

Thanks!

Edit: I use a vertical planning with 3 columns with months and days in a row.

I used to use a Leuchtturm for a long time, but I found it really inconvenient for a few reasons:

1. the fixed pages make it hard to manage multiple projects; flipping through the index to find pages is a hassle;
2. important info, like long-term goals, gets buried, and it’s tough to find quickly;
3. the notebook is a bit big and bulky, making it hard to carry around, so I often forget to write things down.

Then I switched to a ring planner, which makes it easy to categorize different projects. I can keep important tasks at the front for daily review, and I can easily add or remove pages. A lot of people worry that the rings affect writing, but I use 11mm rings, and I don’t find it bothersome. Plus, I can just take the paper out to write if I need to!

I've been using this weekly layout for a month or two now. After several idea this is the one that emerged as most compatible for me.

https://preview.redd.it/gi8g47vufjsd1.jpg?width=5451&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d158e7495281aa5a7b154381a4a16b64a9489367

Been BoJoing for a week now, but almost immediately discovered that I find it hard to read a day back when all the entries are listed underneath each other.

Started to separate events, tasks and notes on the page. Anyone else does this and has some tips on layout. Because mine still look a bit messy. I put events on the left, tasks on the right and notes at the bottom. I use half a page a day.

so when I write down an appointment in my book, I use the ^ suggested in the various notations but then using the < to schedule it or the > to migrate it doesn't really work.

So what symbol do you use for an appointment when you write it down in your bullet journal if it is different than the ^ and do you even use any kind of notation when you transfer that notation to the future log or elsewhere in your book?