Well hi there! I bet if you ended up here you’re thinking of starting a Bullet Journal and are trying to figure out how exactly to do that. This post tells the story of how I came to the BuJo Method, and this ones talks about setting up my first journal. I encourage you to check them both out since they offer different things. Thanks for checking out my corner of the internet!

Back in 2016 I discovered this neat new planner style called a Bullet Journal. I became obsessed; I read everything about it I could and devoured Pinterest boards of beautiful artistic spreads. I was in love, and convinced this was the system for me.

There was only one problem.

I couldn’t draw.

But did I let my self-doubt and nerves get the best of me?

Absolutely yes.

Bet you thought this was gonna be a great triumphant tale of conquering my insecurities and achieving my dreams! Well, it kinda is, but definitely not right away. I was too scared. It’s that simple. I was too scared to start my own Bullet Journal and possibly mess it up and not be very good at it and a whole host of other reasons I gave myself for not trying.

Know what?

You can’t be "not good" at journaling. If you are trying to keep a journaling practice then you are good at it. It doesn’t need to be pretty, it doesn’t need to be insightful; you don’t need to have an intense reality TV level epiphany every night while you scribble away. Just showing up is being good enough. But I didn’t know that yet.

Instead I jumped into the Happy Planner. It was great! I mean, looks at this set-up, how could I resist? I had so much fun embellishing with stickers I purchased that matched and it was all coordinated and thematic, and I really did love it (unfortunately I lost those pages during our last renovation, so no pics of that).

At first it was amazing, but after a while I found myself adding in more and more blank pages to my notebook to give me space for lists and braindumps and planning special projects and all kinds of things that didn’t quite work with the planner I had. Plus, I wasn’t doing any art.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the Happy Planner and for a while was regularly tempted to jump ship and take that up again. My big problem with them is that it wasn’t quite flexible enough for what I use it for, and I love having the chance to practice my illustration and lettering each month. But let me make something perfectly clear. You do not need to be an artist to have a bullet journal. You do not need to be a calligrapher to have a bullet journal. You do not need to have any sort of aesthetic at all. Don’t know the difference between vermillion and scarlet? Who cares? (Well, I do, but only cause colour is my entire jam.)

I need you to listen carefully and hear me.

ANYBODY can do this. Anyone at all.

It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be fancy, and it doesn’t need to be seen by anyone else on earth.

It took me SIX years to learn this myself, so please please don’t waste that time like I did. That’s right, six YEARS. So, back to my story. I used the Happy Planner for several years, and it was great. And then I went to grad school and used my school planner and for the next two years did basically nothing that wasn’t school because, well, grad school.  

I got a planner in 2020 excited to jump back in after a break and then the pandemic hit and I suddenly found I had gone several MORE years without starting the journal of my dreams. Please enjoy this actual photo of one of the only pages from that year's planner with anything on it. I tracked my doctor's appotinments and that is literally it.

So in the summer of 2021 I took a deep breath, bought the cheapest dotted notebook I could find, and set up to tackle this thing. And know what? I was STILL terrified. I stared at this notebook I had picked up for less than ten dollars and worried about ruining it.

Eventually I turned to the very last page and started colouring in little squares with my different markers. I was still pretty nervous but kept going and soon I had a happy two-page spread full of bright colours and evidence of beautiful tools and I was hooked. Before I knew it I was filling page after page with beautiful, personal, meaningful words and images (more about that soon!). It was transformative. I spent an entire day working on this, and then the next as well. I was HOOKED.

Don't worry about the broken spine here. The notebook was not the highest quality and I flipped back and forth in it a LOT. I filled the whole thing up in just five months and I used it HARD.

Since then I have been doing it continuously. Sometimes it’s pretty and sometimes it’s practical and on the best months it’s actually both.

And remember how I said you don’t have to share your journal with anybody? That’s true. I choose to share mine because I wish I had seen more beginner-type pages when I was starting out, and also because I had just completed the Happy Ever Crafter’s Calligraphy Challenge where you are encouraged to share your daily progress. At the time my Instagram was something like 14 friends and I thought “why not?” It has helped me be accountable and feel braver, but absolutely is not a part of the deal and not something you need to do at all, ever, if you don’t want to. (If you do want to that’s awesome too! Tag me, I’d love to see your work! But you don’t HAVE to share.)

So that’s the story of how I (very, very) slowly got out of my own way and discovered a practice that brings me so much joy, calm, and direction. Next up I’ll talk about my first spreads and why I found them such a great starting place.