I see a nice journal and I just have to have it. I might have ten ones at home filled with blank pages, but I can’t resist the urge to crack the spine open on a new set of pages. I’m partial to a nice moleskin but I’ve also recently fallen in love with a type called a bullet journal, from the brand Leuchtturm1917.

I do more bullet-journaling than chronicling these days, but I find them both quite therapeutic. A bullet journal is basically a do-it-yourself planner that was created by Ryder Carroll (Click this link for more info on bullet journals ). You can create different pages to keep yourself organized in your scheduling and getting things done. As the illustration to the left suggests, it’s somewhere in the middle of a diary a planner and to-do list. In one of the original versions, there is an index and then a yearly spread to start off. The hierarchy sort of branches out from there with more and more specific pages called monthly and weekly spreads. You can also personalize different markings like a check for something that’s finished or an arrow as a reminder that a task was migrated to a later date. I heard about it a few years ago and was immediately obsessed. I LIVE for organisation and stationary. The ability to personalize made the idea very appealing.

I use my bujo (a cute little abbreviation) as a planner for school and it helps me stay sane when I’ve got so much to do. I have two pages that cover each month at a glance, followed by two pages for each week in that month separated by day. Then under every day I have a line for each subject in the order that I have my classes. I make mine very minimalist because I’m not super artsy, but that is the benefit of having a system you can make your own. There are so many ways to mix them up. You can have mood and spending trackers, monthly and weekly spreads, really anything you want. I’ve spent hours tumbling down the youtube rabbit hole that is bullet journal planning. So many people make videos showing how they set up each month; there is a never ending-stream of inspiration. People even use fancy calligraphy and washi tape to style the pages. I don’t usually go that far. I might use a fancy pen or highlighter to spruce it up, but I stick to what I know. But I particularly like when I have extra pages in between months so that I can add a nice quote or make a quick doodle just to separate out all the chaos.

I advise making a bullet journal if you feel like you need to get organized, or even if you’re just looking for something new. It has helped me revolutionize my checklists and school work tracking.