There are a lot of reasons that people decide to become more organized. Whether you are struggling with stress, time management, health, a heavy workload, or balancing more than one responsibility at once, organizing can make life feel just a little more manageable. Anyone who knows me knows that bullet journaling is my favorite way to organize my days. 

I started bullet journaling for 3 reasons: when I do not write my schedule out I am TERRIBLE at time management, I love planners but it is hard to find one that accommodates everything I like to keep track of, and it is an opportunity for me to have a creative outlet on a daily basis. In addition to all of this, I have started using my bullet journal to keep track of the things I need to do for my health. Here are 9 things that I have learned about bullet journaling over the past 3 years:

1- Perfection is not the goal. If it is stressing you out, STOP or change your approach.

2- Decide what your goal is. Do you want to keep track of your schedule, or do you want to remember what happened each day? Do you want to have an ongoing art project, or do you need a running list of tasks? The beauty of bullet journaling is that you can completely personalize it to fit your needs.

3- Find a journal that makes the activity easy and exciting. I use a Leuchtturm1917 journal. The dotted ruling makes me feel like I have more creative freedom. The numbered pages make it easier to organize, and the amount of pages has made the book last several years. 

4- Think about what you like most about the planners you have had before. How did they look? What sections did they have? How can you recreate that? I always felt like I had wasted space in my planners, but personalizing bullet journals keeps me from having that problem.

5- Think about your goals for the month, and incorporate a way to track your progress. I use my journal to keep track of when I exercise, what I need to get from the store, among other things. Something that is really helpful to me (when it comes to health) is keeping track of where I am at in a medication. It is always a huge help when I have a reminder to get my medicine in my todo list that I already have to check for homework and other events. 

6- Use this as your chance to map out your day, and start off on the right foot.

7- Color Code! If you are a visual learner, color coding can help you remember the important things. It also can help you visualize the workload for each responsibility.

8- Use fun pens. There is no reason for this other than its fun 🙂 I love gel highlighters because they do not bleed through the pages. I also use the Zebra brand Mildliners because they have a bold side and a thin side. Another great thing is they do not smudge (which is important for the lefties out there).

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9- If you make a layout for each week, instead of each day, do that before Monday! It defeats the purpose of bullet journaling as an organizational tool if you cannot write out your tasks for the week because you haven’t made a layout yet!