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Top 5 BuJo Ideas in 2016

A lot of truly wonderful things are happening in the lovely Bullet Journal world. A great deal of it is thanks to the many talented Bullet Journalists out there. As a thank you, we rounded up the most popular ideas out there to celebrate the inventive minds that grace our wonderful community.
It’s no surprise that the power of the Bullet Journal is that it’s based in a physical notebook and therefore easy to flip the page and write down anything you’d like. This freedom inspires writing down absolutely anything to your heart’s content. Among the most popular thing to write down in Bullet Journals is tracking things, so we’ll begin there.

Tracking

Monthly Log Tracker 

We begin with none other than the Bullet Journal® inventor himself, Ryder Carroll.Earlier this year he shared a clever addition to the Monthly Log by adding a minimal tracker. Ryder Carroll Bullet Journal Monthly Log Ryder Carroll

Daily Log Tracker

To make it easier to remember to write down what he’s grateful for and log his food, Ryder introduced us to a simple tracker for the Daily Log. 

Ryder Carroll

Monthly Tracker

This is an idea that’s been around for decades and has made its way to the Bullet Journal world due to its immense usefulness. This idea works to track habits you’re trying to build or keep track of tasks you’d rather not rewrite daily. It also works if you’re looking to do a certain habit or task on certain days by indicating the days with a dot in the box or a square outline. To reduce pressure on yourself from doing this many things daily, Kara of Boho Berry suggests to think of it as “when was the last time I did this” instead. 

@boho.berry

If you want to spice up your tracking with different styles, try out one of the many designed by Dee of Decade Thirty. 

decadethirty.com

Bookcase Reading Log

With the love of paper comes the love of reading. One idea that emerged is the bookcase reading log. When you finish reading a book, color it in and over time you get to see all the books you’ve read. I wish I knew who to credit for the idea, it suddenly popped up everywhere I looked. 

@thebulletjournaladdict

@timi_kincsesfuzet

@that_journal

Popcorn Movies

Stefania came up with this adorable idea for a visual movies to watch collection. 

@its.steph

TV Show Tracker

Anika created this magnificently simple tv show tracker and it is an easy way for Bullet Journalists to stay up to date with their favorite shows.

@andthechoices

Weekly Log

The Weekly Log is very popular in the Bullet Journal because it allows you to see the whole week at a glance with the information that matters to you. The great thing about designing your own weeklies in the Bullet Journal is that you have a lot of blank space to work with and the ability to flip the page and create a collection with anything you need to write down.

The freedom to express yourself in this wonderful notebook system and the gift of being able to create the exact thing you need is a very empowering element of the Bullet Journal. You’re not stuck with someone else’s design, you can modify or invent an idea to work for you. Here’s a beautifully simple week on a spread. 

@feebujo

Room for day and time-based events along with room to write down to-do’s, housework, meals, work, and a small weekly tracker.

@boho.berry

From reading the back of the official Bullet Journal, here is my rendition of what I thought a Bullet Journal Weekly Log might look like as a simple running list along with an addition of a mini calendar with events underneath. 

@tinyrayofsunshine

Simple vertical days with a few choice categories underneath. Great graphs and a habit tracker that looks like a crossword add useful fun to this colorful spread. 

@natnatattacks

The rolling week is a week at a glance to the side and dailies to the side. This makes it easy to have your week in view while also being able to use up as much room as needed each day.

@bujo.auslife

The ever popular Dutch door where you fold a page in the middle to store extra information for the week. 

@the.nerd.in.disguise

This running list I’ve seen come up time and again over the past few years. This is a beautifully colorful version by Yu. The way it works is by adding the columns for the days of the week and assigning tasks to the day. If it’s recurring, add boxes to that day. If migrated, draw a box to the next day you’ve assigned the task to get done.

@bluelahe

Reflection

Gratitude

To help you log your gratitude daily, Ryder designed this simple gratitude log with brackets for the daily log to write in first thing every day. Starting your day off with what you’re grateful for will help you set the tone for the day. 

Ryder Carroll

If you like the idea of logging what you’re grateful for and want to see them all in one place, the gratitude log is an idea I lovingly shared with the Bullet Journal community and it’s become a mainstay in many Bullet Journals in many different forms. It’s a great way to instantly perk you up. This is one of those fun examples of an idea shared that’s been adapted by other Bullet Journalists in a way that works for them.

I had initially shared it with 3 things to log a day across 3 pages and then Kara from Boho Berry condensed it down a spread with 2 things to log a day and that’s been a popular adaptation. Since then, many have tweaked the idea in all sorts of fun ways, I have also toyed with adding sketches and keeping it as a simple list to add as many things to it whenever I remember to update it. 

@tinyrayofsunshine

@bujo.auslife

@heartistic.jess

Review & Planning for next month

Last year, Ryder recommendeddoing a review to think about things that worked, things to leave behind, and things to try out. In addition to these, I like to brainstorm the ideas I want to try out with small visuals. These ideas caught on like wildfire to help many Bullet Journalists pause and reflect at the end of each month. 

@craftyenginerd

Journaling

There are many ways to incorporate journaling into your Bullet Journal. You can write a note in your Daily Log or flip to a spread and write out some thoughts. You could take up the practice ofMorning Pages where you write 3 pages of stream of consciousness first thing every morning or you could be more casual and journal whenever you need to get some thoughts out.

@tinyrayofsunshine

Memories

Brought to the Bullet Journal world by Kacheri of Passion Themed Life, the memories log is a sweet and simple way to log precious moments that happened throughout the month. 

@creative.pine.apple

Future Log

Ryder’s Method

The original Future Log Ryder devised is a super simple method to corral future events. 

Ryder Carroll

Alastair Method

A clever adaptation by Alastair to rapid log events and indicate which month it falls under. 

Alastair Johnson

Calendex

The slightly complex yet highly creative method by Eddy allows you to write down an event on whichever page you’re currently at and then write down the page number in the Calendex so when that day comes, you can easily flip to the page that will give you more information about that event.

Eddy Hope

Vertical months

This is a clean and simple way to visualize the months and events with a mini calendar. @journalspiration

Timeline

There are a couple main popular versions: the vertical and horizontal timelines.

Vertical

I love the stream of inspiration in this series of vertical timelines and I’m excited to be able to share with you how Bullet Journalists build and enhance each other’s ideas and make this entire system better all the while appreciating each other and giving credit for their inspiration even if their version looks different.

Dee of Decade Thirty shared this idea for a time ladder to assign events and notes to the left side of the page and tasks on the right.

 

Dee

 

Ursala took inspiration from another Bullet Journalist,María, to add little elements such as the sunrise and checking off boxes in her timeline for the Pomodoro Method.

@honeyrozes

Cristina drew inspiration from both Dee and Ursala to connect her tasks to time slots and added letters to indicate certain tasks such as lunch, chores, and dinner.

@shilen.qc

Susie was inspired by Ursala and Cristina and added her idea of a line swooping around the time related to the event it’s connected to.

@susiebjournal

Wasn’t that fun? I love seeing how ideas get further and further adapted and the kindness between Bullet Journalists to credit who they were inspired by. It’s a very lovely thing to see people appreciating one another and giving each other shout-outs. I’m very grateful to be part of such a supportive and loving group of thinkers.

Horizontal

The horizontal timeline I first saw long ago from one of the Bullet Journal communities. One of the popular ways to use this timeline is by assigning a color code to the times. Here, Kara assigned a color to certain times and then connected the tasks with the corresponding color in brackets to make it easy to glance at which tasks should be worked on during that time slot. 

@boho.berry

Here’s an idea to have the ability to plan out when to do things and have another bar underneath to log how long that event actually took. This way you’re able to improve your time management skills by planning better in the future since you’ll be more aware of how long things actually take. 

@tinyrayofsunshine

There’s also this popular time tracker collection to log what you did after the fact.

@logthatlife

____ I hope you enjoyed this beautiful visual celebration of the many talented Bullet Journalists out there! Thank you for a wonderful year!

About the Author:

Kim Alvarez is the creative behind Tinyrayofsunshine.com, where she writes about the Bullet Journal, productivity, planning, and other creative pursuits. She runs a sunshiney Etsy shop with stationery goods that will bring a smile to your face at tinyrayofsunshine.etsy.com
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21 Responses

Kat Day

Kat Day

May 15, 2017

The parallel time ladders done by @bujoginger should be added to this list!

Jae

Jae

May 15, 2017

I’m obsessed with this round-up of ideas! Thanks for sharing this, Kim! I’ve discovered a lot of new BuJo peeps to follow on Instagram! :D

Trine Lykke

Trine Lykke

May 15, 2017

Lovely ideas <3

Dave G

Dave G

May 15, 2017

I work with a large number of specific technical details and rules for the products we sell and the processes we use. I devote the last several pages of my journal to permanent lists of rules / details and include in the list specific references to where the rule is found (including the name of the specification, revision level of the specification and page/paragraph within the specification). I then note in my index the data included in my reference tables. When the journal is full, I perform a review and migration for the useful lists to the new journal. I carry my journal EVERYWHERE, so if a question arises I have an easy and quick reference.
My rule for inclusion into the permanent reference list is a) the second time that I am asked a question and have to research the answer, I put a note in the list and b) anything that I instinctively answer wrongly, I put a note in the journal.

Beth Richardson

Beth Richardson

May 15, 2017

I LOVE this. What a great resource. I hope you do one of these again at the end of next year. <3

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Thank you, Beth! Happy you enjoyed it :) Can’t wait to see the top ideas next year so I can do another one of these!

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Back atcha! (;

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Happy to hear that, Jae! Yess, so many lovely minds out there :)

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Thanks for sharing, Dave! :) Fun to hear how you’re using it!

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Hmm, I think that’s actually by @penpapersoul, in fact @bujoginger credits her in this post :) https://www.instagram.com/p/BMyx6vth1_G/

Kat Day

Kat Day

May 15, 2017

Oh nice catch! All the same, I think they are a nice addition.

Eric Beaty

Eric Beaty

May 15, 2017

Amazing ideas! I’ll have to start using some of these in my own planner/journal. There’s just something about unplugging, getting off to yourself, and reflecting with simple pen and paper.

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Very true, Eric! Unplugging is so essential to getting in touch with yourself and your own thoughts. :)

Lyssy

Lyssy

May 15, 2017

Thank you for putting this post together, Kim! The running list associated with days is something I’ll have to try next week! It looks awesome (:

Kim Alvarez

Kim Alvarez

May 15, 2017

Hi Lyssy! How are you doing? Isn’t that such a fun idea? It’s fun seeing how much it’s spread, I remember I had been thinking of something like this around this time last year and then someone here on this blog commented their version and now it’s trickled into the minds of more creatives to bring it to full bloom :) Crazy how ideas work and how they arrive in many different minds around the same time!

Smealiea

Smealiea

May 15, 2017

Hi can you provide more details about the key/legend in the Running List shown? I presume the blue shaded boxes indicate completion, what does the split box mean? What about the blue line – is it just to connect it to the text? Thanks.

notsoaveragemama

notsoaveragemama

May 15, 2017

Thanks for the great ideas!

Violetdaffodils

Violetdaffodils

May 15, 2017

Wow these are wonderful! So creative :D Thanks for sharing :) VioletDaffodils

xx
Lillian

Lillian

May 15, 2017

Wow! Genius! The creative people that came up with all these ideas are genius! I love the ‘Books to read’ Idea and I LOVE THIS BLOG! I only just recently discovered bujo and have fallen in love with the concept! Anything that combines organization, creativity, and planning just takes me! It is all so wonderfully overwheming. Thank you for these awesome ideas! I’m definitely going to be starting a bullet journal for this new year!
Theoccupiedoptimist.com

janeblundellart

janeblundellart

May 15, 2017

There are so many great ideas associated with the bullet journal but the most difficult for me is the whole year planning with this write-as-you-go system. I need to be able to place specific future events in the right date at the right time – in the traditional diary form. So I create my journal/notebook each year, drawing up the full diary week by week, with a double planning page between each month. The weekly spreads have 8 equal spaces – one for each day of the week and the 8th starts the week with the list of goals for that week. (Why won’t the manufactured diaries have this planning space – and the same space for Saturday and Sunday as the rest of the days of the week).
The back of the book then has all the space for other notes and lists, indexed of course. I use the original symbols to annotate the lists and tasks for the day, but having the pre-written diary is essential for me to combine my paper diary and notebook into one workable system, year by year.

Monica Nieckula

Monica Nieckula

May 15, 2017

I love your ideas! I just started biller journaling this year and would love some feedback. I’ve posted my February spreads for bujo inspiration and to track my progress. https://thekitchensinkk.com/2017/02/13/february-bujoing/

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