How bullet journaling helps my business and my life

January 28, 2018

You've probably heard about bullet journaling by now, the trend is all over the place. Even michaels has a dedicated planner section now! But maybe you don't know much about it, and you want to know more.

When it comes right down to it, a bullet journal is simply a to-do list. Some people only use them as month overviews, some people make weekly spreads, and some people devote entire pages to a single day! Some people fill them with gorgeous art or stickers, hand drawn or printed, some go minimal. You can make special pages to keep track of what books you read, movies you've watched, places you've traveled. Some people also use them like a traditional journal, writing about their feelings and reflecting on the day's events. You can buy a premade planner, or buy a blank notebook and completely construct your own layouts. The sky's the limit with your bullet journal.

If you wanna know more about the knitty gritty bullet journal details, check out bulletjournal.com or just lose yourself on pinterest. My own bullet journal inspiration board is a good place to start! The notebook I'm using is the Miliko Transparent Hardcover A5 Size Dot Grid Wirebound/Spiral Notebook*. You get a 2 pack for $12.99, so it's a great beginner notebook if you're unsure about committing to bullet journaling. I'll be purchasing a more expensive dotted notebook with thicker paper when this one runs out though, cuz I love bullet journaling!

(* affiliate link)

For the last few years I've been writing mostly-daily to-do lists, for both business tasks and personal ones. Things like orders I have to finish, patterns I want to create, floors that need vacuuming...it's just so hard to remember to do everything if you don't write it down! Some people use phone apps, but I prefer not to use my phone 24/7, and physically writing it down helps way more with memory retention than typing it out on a tiny screen. At least, I think so!

I would often use mini note pads or white boards, but those are super temporary, and didn't allow for future planning for the coming months or year. I'd tried using planners before, but I'd end up skipping weeks now and then, and then it just feels like a waste of paper. Plus, the layout of them was never all that useful to me. When I discovered bullet journaling, it was like a light bulb went on over my head! I can make the layout however I want, and have whatever pages I want, and make it as pretty as I want!

So how does it help with my business?

Well, take a look at this month page I made for January:

I can write down all of the crochet patterns and blog posts I want to create, a list of orders as they come in, and some goals I'd like to accomplish! And on the left side I have a short list of events, for both business and personal items.

I've also got useful pages like this:

Since I make phone & 3DS sleeves, I'm constantly googling device sizes for orders, but now I have them all on this page! And there's lots of room for more.

Here's a page back in november. I ended up filling that last, unlabeled rectangle with cute little doodles because I couldn't figure out what else to put there! Hahaha

Besides helping with my business, bullet journaling helps with my life

I'm a person who goes through bouts of mild depression. It's entirely self-diagnosed, but some days I just have a hard time doing literally anything. But making a to-do list, and making it look pretty, makes every day so much easier. You just gotta get yourself to do the easiest, fastest task on your list. Just get one. After that, typically you can find the energy to do another, and even another after that.

Plus, you can make cute little doodles all over it, which can be therapeutic in itself! Some people use mood & and health trackers as well, to help notice trends and see if there are certain things that cause negative emotions. My bad days aren't often enough for such trackers to be of any use, but I DO make habit trackers! Which I often misspell as "habbit" in my journal hahaha.

I originally started making month-long tracker pages like this, but have changed to making smaller, weekly ones.

This layout didn't leave room for general notes, so I didn't repeat it.

That's one of the most fun things about having a bullet journal: trying new layouts! Both pinterest and instagram are fantastic places to get inspiration, or just straight-up copy. We can't all be creative geniuses all the time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here are a few more photos of weekly spreads I've done:

Ted (my fiance) & I traveled to his parents' place in North Carolina over Christmas, so I had to shut down orders about a week before hand, and wasn't planning to use my bullet journal much, so I made a really simple layout: