How To Finally Start A Bullet Journal & Declutter Your Overloaded Brain

If you've been looking for a way to get organized and, let's be honest, produce some good social media content in the process, you've undoubtedly heard about bullet journaling—the oddly beautiful system of organizing your thoughts, goals, and to-do's in a notebook according to an almost scientific system.

If you're unfamiliar with the BuJo method (as the cool kids call it), it can initially seem super overwhelming and complicated. But it doesn't have to be. And, as you'll soon learn, it's highly customizable.

Bullet journaling is an analog organizational system developed by designer Ryder Carroll in 2013, requiring nothing more than an empty notebook and a pen. The purpose: to track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future. "I needed a system flexible enough to handle whatever I threw at it and fast enough that it wouldn't get in the way," Ryder explains in his bullet journaling tutorial.

But what does this flexible system actually consist of? The building blocks (or sections) of a bullet journal are known as modules. These modules include a future log for big-picture or long-term planning, a monthly log that's sort of like a calendar with shorter-term tasks and goals, and a daily log for more immediate stuff. In the very beginning of your bullet journal, you create an index page that ties everything together so you can easily find what you need.

Logs the most crucial components of a bullet journal, where you organize your thoughts, to-do's, events, projects, and future goals.

Future log

The future log is where you write down any events that will occur in the months ahead such as birthdays, holidays, trips, meetings, and more. These should be things that are important but that don't need to be on your immediate radar just yet. Take a look at some examples of future logs here. As you'll notice, many people devote two spreads of their notebook to their future log for the year. Each spread is then divided into six sections (for a total of 12 sections), and in each section, you'll write down the month and events for that month.

Monthly log

Following your future log comes your first monthly log. The monthly log is where you'll be keeping track of all your current month's events, appointments, and tasks. The monthly log can be set up in a matter of minutes. Benz highly recommends waiting until the day before the month begins to create your monthly log since you never know how much space the rest of the current month will need.

Devote one notebook spread to your monthly log. Write down your dates and days of the week down the left-hand side and fill in any upcoming events and appointments that you know about at the beginning of the month. Then, as the month unfolds, you can log any little tidbits of things that happened each day, as well as add additional appointments as they come up. The right-hand side of the spread is for your monthly tasks and goals. These don't need to be in any particular order. Take a look at some examples of monthly logs here.

Daily log

After the monthly log spread come the daily log pages for that particular month. The daily logs or "dailies" are where the bullet journal system comes alive, and they likely resemble your current daily to-do lists. To create a daily log, write down the date at the top of the page. Then, over the course of the day, "rapid log" your various tasks, events, and notes as they occur. If you don't fill a page, simply start the next day's log right below it. Take a look at some creative examples of daily logs here.