Starting to look for a new book for next year and was thinking of switching up.

Anybody used more than one kind (standard bound vs binder vs disc bound, etc)? Any pros or cons for you?

I like the idea of the non-traditional ones to be able to add pages if needed or rearrange things as I go. Also opens the possibility of printing graphics on pages and adding them in since I like charts to fill out but get frustrated making them...

I don't know... just looking for opinions!

I’m still very new to this, and am looking for advice on something I haven’t seen addressed (I’m not great with searching, so if there is a thread on it please point me in the right direction).

I am using my journal for work, and I have a few tasks that are ongoing forever. I don’t necessarily touch them every day, but I will never get to a point where they are finished - I will be either working on them or they will be waiting for me to work on them.

I can’t see listing them every day, but I don’t want to lose track of them. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can track an ongoing task that I only touch intermittently? (Maybe once a week but not always?)

I just started my first bujo today. And the tasks for tommorow are too many for the rest of the page.

So i am wondering how do you continue logging the same day from one page, to the next page?

I have a layout review page, where i played around with some arrows, pointing from one page, to the other. But that method doesn’t seem quite right.

I hope my question is understandable. Thanks.

TL;DR Are there things I'm not considering that make starting a new journal on Dec 1st a bad idea?

Okay sooooo I FINALLY filled up the Leuchtturm I bought back in 2017 lol. I have a brand new notebook that I intend to use for my 2025 BuJo, but I kind of want to just start it today instead of on Jan 1st. It's Dec 1st. It's Sunday (beginning of a new week basically). It's the first day of Advent which is important to me. I'm feeling like I should just get it going.

My question for you more experienced folks - will I regret not waiting the extra month? If I choose to wait, I have a paperback A5 in a Lochby Field Journal cover that I can use for dailies through December.

I am using a bullet journal for a while and find it helpful to cope with my feelings and thoughts. Writing down seems to help, that I can process things better. Sometimes I think, writing by hand is a waste of time and I could use a digital planning method instead. But indeed writing things by hand helps me to remember things I would forget otherwise.

Somehow writing seems to help to get through things that feel overwhelming, too.

How do you benefit from your Bullet Journal?

I’ve been going to the gym religiously (well, for my standard 😅). I’ve tried different ways to track it but haven’t found the best system for it.

Could you please share what setups have worked for you?

I use three kinds of bullets in my journal: a dot for an action, a dash for a note, a circle for an event and an = for a mood or feeling.

But sometimes I find it difficult to differentiate between notes and feelings.

How do you use your bullets?

How did it hold up over the years?

Is there anything you wish you would have used instead?

Do you mark the task in the future log with >? Or do you X the task in both future and daily?

I have two kids, 2 and 6. My day usually either starts with me being woken up early by one of them or “sleeping in” until 7am. Either way, once I’m up, my hands are full until we’re out the door. By the time they’re in school, I normally make it to work slightly late or with minutes to spare before my first meeting.

Not complaining, just genuinely curious how people approach this. While I’d love to sit down and take a breath before the day starts in earnest, it’s currently not realistic.

Have you found a rhythm that works for you where your morning reflection happens later? Have you found a way to not need it and still feel somewhat in charge of your day?

For context, I basically keep dancing between my digital task manager (emacs org-mode), and going all-in on paper. Digital serves me very well, especially at work, but sometimes I think it'd be nice to be able to walk away from the screen more often with my bujo and know I have everything in there to keep thinking about the projects I'm working on.

So I'm curious to hear if anyone has converted from being a proponent of digital tools to fully relying on their analog notebook, fighting the urge to go back to digital along the way and coming out happier on the other side maybe. Curious to hear your experience. Thanks :)

I just rekindled my use of a Leuchtturm1917 that I started in 2018 and decided to get back into BuJo as I build my business. Since 2018, I've continued to journal a lot with fountain pens. I have a Blackwing notebook, an Exceed from Walmart, and I have a Lochby Field Journal set up with 3 Tomoe River inserts. I'll soon buy a new notebook for 2025, and want some opinions. The Exceed feels a bit too cheap for me even though it's decent. I don't love the lack of color options and have ruled this out as my next BuJo.

Leuchtturm1917 - Feels classic to me. I love its simplicity, and especially love how ivory the paper is and how tiiiiiiny the dots are. Comes in great colors. Only downside is some ghosting, but it's no biggie for me.

Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal Edition 2 - Tempting to try an official BuJo. The notebook looks really nice, and it is set up intentionally as a BuJo. Does anyone know if the 120gsm paper is still ivory and if the dots are tiny like on the original 1917? My fear is that it won't have that "classic 1917 feel" that I really enjoy.

Lochby refills - I've considered turning my Lochby Field Journal into a BuJo. I currently have 2 dot grid inserts and one ruled insert inside. I love TR paper, but I ultimately don't think I want my BuJo to be quite as big and clunky as the field journal. Major plus is that the refills are interchangeable and I can have one journaling system for several different needs. Other major plus is the pen loop.

Anxiety is making me overthink, per usual. Just wondering what other folks do.

Since we have the freedom to start in any notebook, any time of year, it's very tempting to abandon my current bullet journal (started in September because I wanted to try an academic year in one book) and start up in a new notebook (sitting on my shelf, watching me) that I'll realistically never get to until next September if I fill up my current one.

Hey all. Just wanted to share a tweak I made to my bujo that has improved my workflow a lot.

The problem was basically that I didn't know how to incorporate a space for thinking on paper while working on projects. As I understand, the classic solution is to add a collection for a project you want to take notes on. But at work I have a lot of small projects, and it was basically causing too much friction to maintain the index, decide how much pagespace to reserve, flip pages when switching between projects, etc.

In come "focus logs". Rather than creating collections for single projects, I just make one infinite threaded collection per major life domain where notes are added continuously while working on one project after another within that domain.

So the major continuous collections in my bujo are:

• Future/Monthly/Daily like the original method
• Work focus
• Personal focus

I might add one or two focus logs more for major self-improvement areas like certain hobbies or professional development, but trying to keep it simple for now. On personal time I write thinking notes in the personal focus log, and at work in the work one.

These could just as well all be separate notebooks entirely, but that again would add more friction for me.

The flow of tasks in my bujo is now a bit like a kanban board:

1. Backlog -> Future Log & Backlog (undated someday/maybe's)
2. Todo -> Monthly/Dailies
3. In Progress -> Focus logs

'<' bullet means it goes back a stage, '>' means going forward.

Workflow:

• When picking up a new larger task:
  • I put a '>' symbol on the task bullet
  • Copy it to the related focus log
  • Put a roman numeral next to it, that's a short identifier for that project on the current spread
• Take chaotic notes on the current task
• When switching to another ongoing task within the same focus spread, I only write the roman numeral of that project and continue braindumping
• When a task's done, I mark it with an 'x' on that page and that's where it stays.
• When the spread is full:
  • Start a new spread
  • Thread the pages
  • Only copy over non-finished tasks + still relevant info for those tasks
  • Add fresh roman numerals to the tasks
  • Continue
• When I decide to put a task on hold for a longer amount of time, I add a '<' and migrate it backwards.

Example:

i   . Project A
ii  . Project B
      Notes on project B
      More notes
      Diagram

i     Notes on project A
      Blablabla
      x Write email
      Blocked until I get a reply

ii    More notes on project B

iii . Project C
      Notes
      ...

The amount of simultaneously unfinished items on a focus spread should always be as low as possible.

Longer term tracking of bigger projects can still happen in separate collections. These focus logs are more about the deep work part.

The currently active spread for Dailies, Work log and Personal log each get a little postit bookmark at a specific pageheight on the left of the page. From top to bottom, I know what these logs are, and I can easily flip open to the correct log to write something down. Works a lot better for me than the bookmarks that come with my Leuchtturm.

Another advantage is that it's a way to have everything in one notebook while having info of only one domain at a time on an open spread. This means that at work, I'm not leaving open some work notes side by side with a piece of longform journaling. The only place where domains are mixed is in the dailies, which I like because I want to have a complete view of my day in one place.

Hope this helps someone out there, and curious if anyone does anything similar.

So I'm trying to track when I'm working and when I get paid (and how much). I work part time for a family member so it's kind of all over the place. I try to work 2-3 days a week but when I do and for how many hours and stuff, it's all all over the place. Rn the agreement is that I get paid a certain amount a month but I still want to track when exactly I get paid (since it changes) and how much. So I want to track any days I'm working, for how many hours, and maybe start and end time, and when I get paid and how much. How would you track something like this? I haven't decided if I'm gonna do it in my bullet journal or in excel or something, we'll see.

My Journaling is pretty scattered. I have many paper journals going back years, kindle Scribe, Samsung tablet notes, a standalone Journaling app that I've used on and off for about 10 years, and a few Google docs. I'd like to bring all my years worth of writing together in one digital place. Has anyone undertaken digitizing old hand written journals? How did you do it.? I'm a slow typer so I'm thinking about an ocr method or voice to text.

I accidentally spilled water on my page. Do you guys now how can I fix this?

I've started using my bujo for my work tasks on top of personal. I have three rough categories of work things- tasks, meetings, and things I'm tracking. The things I'm tracking don't require any action from me at this time (or for a while) but will eventually result in a task. Think like tracking a document that's going through approvals that I'll post on our website once it's approved. I'm not sure what sort of key symbol to use for these things. I use a circle for tasks and a triangle for meetings. Square is already taken- I use that for projects.

I feel like the planning/bujo community has been bombarded with 2025 content since August. It generally made me feel fomo and that feeling of being "behind."

But honestly I've found that there is still time to both work toward 2024 goals and enjoy my system/planning routine.

So I just wanted to say, hey, you don't have to have your "system" figured out, or to think about the new year yet. Look at where you are and what you (and your bujo) can do from right here.

For me, on a really long project, I like to record my medium- and long-term ideas (since I often forget my original thoughts as I go) as well as the insights I gain along the way.

I've been practicing aspects of the bullet journal method for at least five years. Last night I was making a few entries in my evening review. I was starting my fourth or fifth oneliner when I wondered how this bullet method might be effecting my ability to write cohesive longer form. Had anyone noticed a move to shorter sentences in their other writings? I remember many years ago finding some sort of odd pleasure when I read a long complex flowing sentence from someone like W. Somerset Maugham and preferring that over the style possibly made famous by Hemingway. I'm not saying I'm anywhere near them, as you can likely see from this post. Nor do I aspire to be anytime like them. Just wondering how a bullet journal practice might effect my other writings.

hi! i’ve been journaling and doing bujo for about a year now. i just started a new medication and have been feeling some side effects and i wanted to track them on my bujo. has anyone done this before? what works for y’all? i’d love some inspiration

Hi!

I’ve recently started using google calendar and ticktick as my main productivity tools for university. I now want to incorporate bujo in my life again, but I can’t come up with a good hybrid setup.

Can you share how you do yours?

Thanks!