To know what to include in a bullet journal, you need to know the options. Let’s dive into that today.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
What to Include In a Bullet Journal – Intro
Maybe you have read about bullet journaling, maybe you seen some inspiring creations that different ones have shared of their own bullet journal.
So you thought ‘Yes, this is it. This is going to work for me.‘ But then you get the blank notebook in front you and don’t know what to do.
READ: Getting Started: How to Design Your Unique Bullet Journal First Pages
Of all the amazing ideas that you have seen what should go into YOUR bullet journal? This is the big question that I want to help you with.
We are going to look at lots of bujo setup ideas and tips which will help you to decide what you need to include in your lovely new bujo.
Overview of Planner Setups
If someone asked me: what should be included in a bullet journal setup? I would say:
Usually a bullet journal planner includes beginning pages like a key or index, yearly planning pages like a future log and goals, then monthly and weekly planner pages that include calendars, to-do lists and personal add ons like habit trackers.
Let’s break them down a little bit more though.
BEGINNING PAGES!
The beginning pages are the ones you might use for reference. For example people might like to include a guide to remember the dot grid spacing numbers, or they might have an index so they know what is on each page.
It could be though that you prefer your beginning pages to have inspiration – maybe a quote or some other inspiration that you want to reference throughout using your bullet journal.
YEARLY PLANNING PAGES!
Your yearly planning pages are the pages you want for yearly planning and tracking – that’s probably obvious, LOL.
So what bullet journal setup ideas are there for yearly planning pages. Here are some:
- Cover page
- Yearly overview
- Future log
- Goals
- A year in pixels
- Monthly tracker or tasks list
- Things to check out
- Savings tracker, or reading tracker, or whatever the interest
- Quarterly overview pages
- Memories
There are of course more things that you could want in your yearly planning pages. But this gives you the general bujo setup ideas.
MONTHLY PLANNING PAGES!
The monthly planning pages can include any thing you want to record, track or plan for a calendar month. Some ideas are:
- Cover page
- Calendar
- Habit tracker
- Mood tracker
- Monthly dashboard
- A log – gratitude log, or other log
- This month in review [list music listened to, movies watched etc]
It can be a temptation to make lots of these monthly pages, but over the years I have noticed that many have simplified their monthly setups because it can take time to make these spreads.
So if you are a beginner looking for what to include in a bullet journal, I would say – less is more!
WEEKLY PLANNING PAGES!
I find there are two layouts that are most popular for weekly planning spreads:
- A two page layout with a box for each day of the week
- A one page layout with smaller daily boxes for events for the week, and then having the 2nd page blank for writing lists and notes.
But if these don’t appeal to you there are so many more options that you could find inspiring.
Other Bujo Setup Ideas
For more ideas to include in a bullet journal I thought we needed another whole section.
The list could honestly be as long as your imagination. Let’s look at a few examples.
JOURNALING
Some believe it or not use their bullet journal for journaling. Not all bullet journals need to be planners.
If you do want to have your bullet journal used for this function, have a look at this article for tips on prompts you might want to include.
COLLECTIONS
Collections are super popular in the bullet journal community. There are so many ideas.
Basically it is using a bullet journal to house the planning pages, trackers, or notes of a specific topic. For example you could create your own unique recipe book in a bullet journal – how awesome would that be.
READ: Get Organized and Inspired: How to Start a Collection in Your Bullet Journal
Here is another idea of what to include in a bullet journal:
WORK STUFF
My husband actually uses a bullet journal purely for work related things. It could be tasks, people to contact, emails you want to send. A time plan of the work you want to do.
He also has a task management system that is used by his team and company in general, but for your own day to day things it might be an idea to have a bullet journal at the ready to keep your work related stuff organized and efficient.
COLLEGE / SCHOOL NOTES
Lastly for these ideas to include in a bullet journal is your study notes.
If you are at college or school, you can use a bullet journal for a particular subject and keep all your notes in one place for that topic.
One thing I am planning soon, is to create my own personal Italian language learning book.
Anything that keeps your study notes nice and organized is a good idea in my book.
Conclusion
Did I cover all the ideas to include in a bullet journal? I am sure I didn’t.
So please share with me if I missed any uses of a bullet journal that I missed.
Overall we covered planner setups and other ideas like journaling, and collections.
Are you now ready to make your own bullet journal?
I can’t wait to hear about your bujo setup ideas.
Thanks so much for being here today.
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