My new obsession

I’ve always loved planning and journaling. Journaling more so than planning because of the free-form process of being able to just write my thoughts out on paper then shut the book and move about my day.

But recently I’ve been wanting to doodle and add stickers and quotes instead of simply writing. OK not that writing is “simply” anything! Writing is good for the soul and journaling is psychologically proven to help elevate the human mood by clearing out the brain of non-stop chatter.

I used one of my blank bullet journals that was sitting on my bookshelf and I did something different.

I started drawing patterns and using stickers in it! Then I started copying down quotes from Pinterest and notes from favourite podcasts and so on. This notebook as become what I call my everything anything book. There are no rules to what can go in it and I don’t wait for the right pen or the right time. I just use it and I allow myself to make a mess. It’s become my playground for experimenting with ideas in my life.

One month in and I am absolutely loving what bullet journaling has done for my mind. I feel freer and experience much greater clarity and I love being able to flip through the book for inspiration when I’m having a “bad” day. [“bad” day because very rarely is a day completely bad from start to finish but they do exist sometimes!].

Now typically bullet journaling is used as an alternative to having a calendar or planner. The idea is that you buy a bullet journal and set up your pages as you like. For example, you can draw a calendar on one page then set up daily pages where you write the date and your to-do list. Any notebook can become a bullet journal. Examples uses for bullet journal include: habit tracking, fitness tracking, goal planning, doodling and colouring in the page, writing affirmations etc. There are as many uses as there are people in the world. There is no wrong way to use a bullet journal. This is why I love it, there are so many varied ways to use one book!

The reason I like shop-bought bullet journals is that they come with numbered pages. I just know that if I buy a blank book and write in the page numbers that I’m going to duplicate page numbers somewhere. My type A personality can’t handle that level of mix ups! 

I also love being able to use a notebook then catalogue it using a blank page at the front. It’s my very own contents pages for my life and something about just feels so magical. There is something so satisfying about being to go back to a book and instantly flip to the right page because you know where everything is stored. If you’ve never used a bullet journal and created your own contents page I highly recommend it.

What are your thoughts on bullet journals and art journaling? Have you ever thought to try it? I’d be curious to know!

See you in the next post!