7 lessons from 7 years of Bullet Journaling
I´m writing this post on April 7th, 2024. Today is my 7th anniversary since I´ve started bullet journaling. The cover photos show my first messy attempts at daily entries. Fun fact: I ended up having to glue in a new sheet of paper on day 2.
Back then my life was different from now. I was engaged and we had a house with a small garden for our own. I was writing my master’s thesis about the molecular biology of influenza viruses. I thought I´d stay in that middle of nowhere on the northwestern outskirts of the state of Brandenburg (Germany). A place where some villages had more storks than inhabitants during the summer. I a place with very “traditional” people and almost no mobile internet if you are more than 500 meters away from the middle of the village.
Now I´m embracing a minimalist, childfree lifestyle in a 34 sqm apartment close to the city center of my hometown with 580k inhabitants in Saxony, which is about 400 km away from that place in Brandenburg. I´ve moved three times since this first entry and plan to move together with my current partner in late summer or early fall this year. I´m working as a customer service assistant for a company providing laboratory analysis for different tech and semiconductor companies. It´s the first job where I have a realistic chance to stay long-term with an unterminated contract.
During these years I´ve learned countless lessons. Today I want to share the 7 most valuable lessons about (bullet) journaling I´ve learned on the go. Some lessons are more specific for bullet journaling, but I hope that overall everybody who does some kind of journaling can benefit from these ideas. I´m writing this focus on physical journals, but the principles should work for journaling with apps as well.
1. Mistakes happen, no matter how long you are practicing.
There will always be a productive spread or habit tracker that won´t work for you the way you want. There will always be a journal where the paper will feel so bad that you struggle to stay consistent. You might have chosen the wrong size, a grid that doesn´t work, a pen you thought you would love but fail… No matter what feels off with your journal, an entry, or a collection, never blame yourself for wasting paper space or money for stationery.
2. Perfectionism kills your journaling practice.
We all have seen these beautiful, perfectly designed journals somewhere online. A perfectly looking handwriting, letters, doodles… It´s only natural that we want to have this too. But in reality, it doesn´t work most of the time. We might miss a day. We might grab the wrong pen when we have to write down something in a hurry. We might underestimate how much space we need for our list of events and actions of the day. We might have more ideas than expected during a brain dump. Embrace these unexpected things as part of your journey. A journal will always be a reflection of your current stage in life and your current mindset, so don´t judge it. Focus on consistency over quantity or quality of your entries.
3. Be honest in your journal, no matter how ashamed you are about your entries
Keeping a journal, no matter what type, is a highly personal experience. It should always feel like a safe place for your thoughts. It´s fine to use different physical journals or different apps to prevent unwanted discoveries by other people. But when your goal is to unwind and reflect, we mustn´t feel like we have to lie to ourselves during journaling. If you write down the same thoughts for one week straight, see it as a sign that something needs to be addressed seriously, not as something not worth mentioning because of repetitiveness. A journal should always feel like an unfiltered reflection of your current state of mind and life.
I´ve developed the habit of writing about everything in my journal. From vacation days to sexuality, from blog posting ideas to potential new career paths, from postcards from exhibitions to venting about a customer. When I feel the urge to write about something, I do it. And I highly encourage you to do the same as much as possible.
4. Be prepared that your journaling preferences change as your life does.
As written before I use a new physical journal every month. So I have to buy new journals regularly. Most of the time I buy cheap ones. I always keep a box with 3–5 journals and/or booklets, which have different grids and usually at least 2 different sizes. During the last 7 days of the previous month, I reflect on what feels most suited for the upcoming month and then choose my new journal according to this.
But it´s not about the medium for journaling, but also about the practice. There will be months when you prefer mind-mapping. There will be months when you prefer to do long-form journaling every day. You´ll have months where all you jot down are bullet points about your current projects. Periods with journaling prompts and periods with stream-of-consciousness writing will alternate.
It´s important not to judge these changes, but to see them as part of your life. You might need a more digital system when you switch to a job that requires a lot of travel or other issues that pop up during your life.
In my case, I prefer to have one journal for my plans and my reflections these days. From the past, I´m aware that during certain periods of life, I prefer to have a separate booklet for my daily and weekly actions. I used such a system in March this year, but now an all-in-1 approach fits better. I´m already aware that I´ll switch back to a two-journal system during the moving preparation month and most likely the first month in our new flat.
5. Journaling is a lifelong endeavor about getting to know ourselves.
At least for me, journaling is the best way to learn about myself. For me writing down my thoughts, how I´ve spent my time, and reading these entries during my reflection gives me more insights about what needs to be addressed more than anything else in life.
As an introvert, I have few social interactions outside of work. This may be one of the reasons why journaling works so well for me. I embrace meeting with friends and stuff, but the deepest understanding about myself I gain when I´m journaling in bed, either early in the morning or late at night.
And these learning processes never change. To live a fulfilled life it´s essential to learn about your wants and needs regularly. As we are getting older, some of our core values need more attention than others. In our 20s and 30s, we might strive for financial security, but seek out more adventures during the second half of our lives. Some might end up with a divorce or the urge to move abroad. No matter what changes in your life you need, by journaling and revisiting these entries you´ll learn about your needs. At least as long as you stay brutally honest in your journal, as mentioned previously.
6. Record first, reflect + refine later
My journaling works according to this principle almost all the time. Whenever something bothers me I write about what happened at first. Like “after watching YouTube video xyz I feel abc”. This simple principle helps me to connect the dots between different areas of life the best.
For brain-dumping ideas on how to address this issue, I follow my gut feeling. Sometimes I do it directly after the reflection, sometimes a few days later. Some bigger issues might require to be addressed over and over again through weeks and months. I try to be consistent with addressing these long-term issues at least during my monthly reflection, but 80+% of the stuff is “solved” within one week.
There are a few times when I have an issue where I don´t know where it comes from. Then I use the opposite approach. Most of the time the list of issues leads to a simple conclusion, like when I notice that I´ve overbooked myself, which happens more often than I want to admit.
7. Nobody cares about the form of your journal… so you shouldn’t too much as well.
Journaling can be very aesthetically pleasing. Or it can be messy and functional. Most of the time it´s a bit of both. Nobody forces you to share your pages online, so don´t force yourself to make it pretty just for the sake of it. If you want to include scrapbooking elements in your everyday journal, feel free to do so. Feel free to combine your planning and doing sketches in the same journal when it feels right.
No matter how you journal, it´s most important, that you do it in a form that works for you. Nobody cares when they see somebody opening a calendar with messy handwriting on a tram. So nobody cares about the way your journal looks as well. Nobody judges the journal. But people might notice how you change and grow as a person when you integrate journaling into your everyday life.
Ok… This post became pretty long. It took me almost 90 minutes to write these words. And another 30-ish minutes to edit it. But journaling is one of the topics where I´m most serious about in my life. I´ll always keep going with some kind of journal for the rest of my life. I´m 33 only, so I don´t know if I´ll still use handwritten pen and paper with 80. Journaling has been the one most beneficial habit I had started in my 20s, a habit which came to stay.
