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Bullet journaling is one of the coolest new fads out there.
It combines great ideas from many different disciplines:
- It is a method of productivity and time management. It can combine a lot of short “to-do” lists into a single cool interface.
- Bullet journals can also be a method of expressing your artistic side by making fancy artistic journals that look awesome.
- Rather than keeping a diary of daily events, a bullet journal can be a diary on steroids. Tracking everything important that happens in your daily life.
- If you are trying to create new habits (or break bad habits) tracking your new habits is essential. A bullet journal is a perfect place to track these habits.
- Finally, with the many benefits of gratitude, a journal is a great place to keep your daily gratitude journal.
While a bullet journal helps keep track of your busy schedule, habits, and to-do lists, a mindfulness journal is where you can wind down, reflect, and appreciate all that happened in a day. To know more, check out The Mindfulness Journal that features daily writing prompts designed to increase your appreciation for the present moment.
What is Bullet Journaling?
To put it succinctly as possible, bullet journaling is a method of organization and journaling that keeps tracks of just about anything you desire using bullet points and shorthand.
The writing is minimal, but the execution of bullet journals can be quite fancy, or quite simple and minimalist, depending on your personal needs and desires.
The original idea of bullet journals was created by a digital product designer named Ryan Carroll. Carroll states that bullet journals are, “to help you track the past, organize the present, and plan the future.
To find out more about what bullet journaling is all about, I suggest you check out the Bullet Journal website and/or check out the official bullet journaling video. These are both great introductions on the basic concepts of bullet journaling as well as good refreshers if you already have some idea of what bullet journaling is all about.
Links to Related Articles & Research
What I Love about Bullet Journaling
There is a lot to like about bullet journaling. However, there are two main things I love about the process.
1. Bullet journaling is dead simple.
While people can get quite carried away with creative bullet journal ideas, at its core bullet journaling is amazingly simple.
All you need to start bullet journaling is a pen/pencil and some sort of notebook. You don’t need any of the fancy pens, expensive notebooks, stickers, or any of that stuff. You just need the time, the desire, and those simple items.
Easy.
2. I love way bullet journaling helps you keep many lists organized.
I like lists. I like to make them. I like to keep them. I like to track them.
Bullet journaling gives me a nice method of organizing, planning, and reflecting on many of my favorite lists. Many of which I will share with you in the upcoming section on cool bullet journal ideas.
It is great for setting goals and tracking these goals to completion. In other words, a great method to help you get things done. Something that I love
In the rest of this article, I will share many of the bullet journal ideas you can use to create cool lists in your own bullet journal.
Many of these bullet journal ideas are fairly simple, but they show the adaptability of the bullet journal concept.
Cool Bullet Journal Ideas for Every Journal
When you are making a bullet journal, there are often going to be some common ideas to add to your journal. Below are six of these basic common ideas for bullet journaling:
- Week at a glance
- Bullet journal “key” page
- Quotes page
- Social media password tracker
- Life milestones
- Brain dump
These bullet journal ideas are simple, but hopefully, you see how they can add up to some great ideas for the core of a bullet journal.
Healthy Living Bullet Journal Ideas
Most of us could live healthier lives.
Many of us start out with great intentions when it comes to healthy living. We desire to exercise more, eat healthier, drink more water, get better sleep, etc.
The problem is not one of desire, but one execution.
People often start these good habits like gangbusters. Doing the “right thing” for a healthy lifestyle, day-in, and day-out for a week or two. Then life happens and the new good habit falls by the wayside.
One of the reasons this happens is because of a lack of real tracking.
That is where these healthy living ideas to add to your bullet journals come into play. Simply track the execution of the habits below (or any other healthy habit). Remember that the idea is not to be perfect, but to try to develop more days “doing” the habit than days that you do not.
This form of bullet journal tracking will give you a realist idea of how you are doing with your healthy routines.
Here are some healthy lifestyle bullet journal ideas:
- Water consumption
- Home exercise routine
- Food log
- Daily supplements log
- Strength training page
- Weight loss log
- Gym routine
- Daily steps
- Activity tracker
- Daily mood
- Flossing
- Sleep quality
- Sleep time
- Workouts completed
- Migraine tracking
- Daily meds log
- Flexibility/stretching/yoga tracking
- Exercise log
- Migraines/ailments tracking
- “Junk food” tracker
Work/Business Bullet Journal Ideas
In some ways, bullet journals were made to help out with your “business” plans and organization. Bullet journaling is the perfect format for tracking numerous work processes.
Here are just a few of the business/work-related bullet journal ideas you can track:
- To-do list
- DONE list
- Call schedule
- Task list
- Conference schedules
- List of leads
- “Special day” tracking for employees/coworkers
- Pomodoro tracking
- Project deadlines
- Brainstorming ideas
- Hours worked
- Short Term Goals
- Long term goals
- Project lists
- Contact list
- Office supply list
- SMART goal sheets
- Contingency plans
- Vision board
Personal Life Bullet Journal Ideas
I don’t know about you, but I am always forgetting little things I need in my personal life. Things like picking up some milk from the store. Or my in-laws birthdays seem to slip my mind.
This is where little “personal life” lists for bullet journals can come in really handy.
Here are some “personal life” bullet journal ideas to make sure you remember the little things that matter in your personal life:
- Bucket list
- Medical info
- Prescription list
- Movies to watch
- Restaurants to try
- Daily “Me time”
- Dates to remember
- Places to see
- New skills to learn
- Countries and places to visit
- Passwords list
- Relationship goals
- Dentist/doctor appointments
- “No TV” days tracking
- Podcasts to try listening to
- Called parent/family/friend to connect
- Music list
- TV shows to try
- Social media task list
- Social media time tracking
- Books to read
- Important birthdays
- Phone backups completed
- List of favorite websites
Home Life Bullet Journal Ideas
“Home life” bullet journal ideas could easily be a subsection of the personal life ideas listed above. The concept is very similar.
This list of ideas is a bit more focused on the “tasks” involved with keeping your home life running smoothly:
- Cleaning task list
- Cleaning schedule
- Home improvement projects
- Cleaning supplies checklist
- Shopping list
- Meal ideas
- Cooking task list
- Vehicle maintenance log
- Household management checklist
- Garden/yard chores
- “Honey-do” list ideas
Self Improvement Bullet Journal Ideas
As I write this, New Year is quickly approaching and people are already thinking about “life changes”, “resolutions” and general improvements for the new year.
If you want pure “bang for the buck” the best resolution for the new year is to learn something new every day.
When you make this commitment (and stick to it) your life will be improved in thousands of small ways you cannot predict, as you continue to grow, learn and change in small ways.
To do this you need to set a firm time everyday, or it won’t get done. In this time (30-90 minutes) you commit to reading a new (nonfiction) book. Or watching a TED talk. Or researching something that interests you. The important part is not what you learn, but that you make a habit of learning these new things every single day.
Below are many more bullet journal ideas you can use to track aspects of your personal life and possibly make changes for the better.
- Habit tracking
- Gratitude journal
- “I love me” list
- Habit triggers to avoid
- New Year’s “resolutions”
- Personal mission statement
- Self care planning (physical)
- Self care planning (mental)
- Bad habits to get rid of
- Things to be thankful for
- Daily affirmations
- Evening routine ideas
- Morning routine ideas
Bullet Journal Ideas for Financial Tracking
Most people know the importance of keeping a budget, limiting expenses and paying all your bills on time.
We understand the importance of these things, but like other good habits, it is easier to know what you need to do than to keep track of the things that need to be done on the regular basis necessary.
This is why the following financial tracking bullet journal lists can be such a cool idea:
- Budget log
- Monthly bills
- No spend days
- Tax-deductible expenses
- Investment idea log
- Investment tracking
- Things to buy in bulk
- Grocery budget
- Cash envelope system tracking
- Ideas to save money
- Coupon tracking
- Expense tracking
Bullet journaling is the perfect format for tracking numerous work processes.
Crafts and Hobbies Bullet Journal Ideas
To be honest I did not come up with many ideas for bullet journaling in this section because I actually think the best place to track THESE ideas is on Pinterest.
But if you have a bullet journal where you clip and add pictures, this can be a great way to do it. Add in pictures of the DIY projects or ideas you want to try into your journals and keep a track there of what you want to do “someday” and what you have accomplished.
Here are some crafts and hobbies bullet journal ideas to try:
- Hobbies to try
- DIY ideas
- DIY project idea “someday” list
- Craft supplies list
- Top websites related to your hobby/craft
College/School Bullet Journal Ideas
Like business/work bullet journal ideas, the college/school ideas seem tailor-made to be used in this form of journaling.
There are many great education-related things you can track with your bullet journals.
Here are a few college or school bullet journal ideas:
- Daily study log
- Project progress chart
- Project notes
- Study hours
- Study schedules
- Test/quiz dates
- Assignment progress tracker
- After school activity tracker
- Grade tracker
- School supplies checklist
Parenting Bullet Journal Ideas
It takes a lot to keep a kid educated, happy, and healthy. Being a work-at-home dad, I get to deal with all the day-to-day obligations for our son. Keeping track of some of the things in my bullet journal makes the process a little bit easier.
Here are a few parenting ideas for tracking in bullet journals:
- Kids daily schedule
- Kids activities
- Ideas of things to do with kids
- Snack ideas for kids
- Kids essential info
- Book for kids to read
- Craft ideas for kids
- Merit/demerit list for kids
- Kids chore chart
- Things your child says
- Daily time spent with kids
Travel Bullet Journal Ideas
I love to travel.
I take 3-4 trips a year for business conferences and 2-3 trips a year for pleasure.
All this travel means that I have worked these trips down to a science. I keep bullet journal lists of what I need to do before, during, and after flights. Checklists of what I need to bring. Plus some lists of what I have done/accomplished on my trips.
These bullet journal ideas make the process of travel a little bit easier (and certainly more efficient):
- Pre-travel check-list (flights, hotels, rental info)
- Packing list
- Trip itinerary
- Travel check sheet
- Vacation ideas
- Camping prep. list
- States visited /dates
- Countries visited/dates
Final Thoughts on Bullet Journal Ideas
Well, that’s 139 bullet journal ideas. (133 specific ideas + 6 basic ideas) That should be more than enough for any bullet journal aficionados.
The secret to doing these bullet journal lists is to try every single idea shared here but to pick-and-chose the ideas that sound like good lists to make/track to you and your life.
I am sure there are many more great bullet journal ideas out there. IN the comment section below, I would love it if you would share your personal favorite ideas from this list. PLUS any ideas you can think of that I did not mention.
If you are interested in learning how to find meaning in the daily grind, I recommend you check out The Mindfulness Journal. It contains actionable writing prompts designed to develop your mindfulness of the daily events in your life.
And if you want more journaling resources, check out these blog posts:
Thanks for your time. Have fun journaling!
