Bullet Journalling – According to me

Bullet Journalling!

This post is way overdue, I have had it in the draft section for ages. Finally adding it to my bullet journal actually made me pull it out and edit it into shape 😀

Have any of you heard or seen BuJo (or Bullet Journal), in your forays into Instagram, Pinterest or even Facebook? A simple search on google will get you more than 5 million search result on this.

I wasn’t aware of anything related to Bullet Journalling till about a year ago. In the beginning, I was a bit sceptical about it since I thought it was a planner initially. I have tried to use my share of planners and to-do lists out there, both analog ones as well as digital ones. Never once did it work for me.

It all had the same theme

• Diligently use it for few days
• Start to procrastinate
• Forget you ever bought a planner
• Let it gather dust and cobwebs in some obscure corner of the house

But something about Bullet Journaling called out to the inner artist in me you could say. And wham! I was hooked.

What is a Bullet Journal?

Bullet Journal® (or BuJo® for short) was created by Ryder Carroll. You can find more about the official concept of Bullet Journalling here.

But according to me a bullet journal is a combination of a lot of individual tools. It can be a

• Planner
• Series of to-do lists
• Habit tracker
• Rough note
• Sketch book

It is any or all the above. It is what you want it to be.

Simply put, it is just another notebook you pick. The difference is you get to choose what all goes in it. With an explanation like that it is easy to feel sceptical about it. Why would this work when none of the other planner stuff did? which leads us to…

Why use a Bullet Journal?

For me it all boiled down to 3 main reasons.

#1 Customisability

 

A planner usually sticks to one or two layouts. So often, what appeals to us when we buy a planner or a notebook may not be what we like a few months or even weeks down the lane. A bullet journal gives the freedom to use it the way you want to. You can use it as a monthly planner for few months, then suddenly switch to daily task list when the number of things to complete is a lot and so on. It can even suddenly turn into a sketch-book or a brain dump when the mood strikes.

#2 Connecting with oneself

When was the last time you actually took a pen and wrote something? Have you noticed that when you take the time to write something down, it takes longer? And that is not necessarily a bad thing. The more time you take to write something down, the more your mind is fixing the things in your mind. Using a smartphone with an auto-correct and auto-filling feature is actually robbing you of this connection. It just makes us forget because we are sure some notification will pop by to remind us what to do soon enough.

Moreover having a bullet journal will help you connect with yourself in ways you never thought of before. It might open new avenues you never thought to explore till then.

#3 Relaxing

In my case, there is something about just drawing lines upon lines, or randomly scribbling some doodle or the other. It is particularly soothing when I am under stress. So rather than doing this on random pieces of paper, I do it actively in my bullet journal. This helps to calm me down while stressed about something or at the end of the day.

[All images used are from my bullet journal. You can find more at my instagram]

This may not be the same for everyone. But that’s how I feel.

What do you think? Have you tried using a BuJo?
If yes, comment on what appeals to you the most in having a Bullet Journal.
If not, do you want to try this?