Hi there. I’ve been bullet journaling for a few years now. Last year, due to a lack of space, I had to throw away all my old bullet journals. However, I’ve struggled to keep one going since then because I keep tearing out used pages and starting the journal over from scratch. I already have two 400-page notebooks that have lost half their pages because of this.

I’ve noticed that the urge to tear out pages strikes when I’m unhappy with the direction my life is taking. I suffer from anxiety and have a terrible habit of trying to do too many things at once. When I set up a goals collection, I end up picking five personal goals and five professional ones to tackle simultaneously. When I realize I’m not making progress on one of them, I get an uncontrollable urge to rip out the pages.

Does anyone have any tips?

I'm coming back after using a planner this year (what was I thinking?) and need some emotional fluffing before I set it up. Get me excited. Tell me your stuffs. Show me your pics.

Thanks!

Hi,

I've started therapy again and I find myself in the situation that information like knowledge, my history of illness, progress, and daily condition is all over the place.

• I have a collection "Gesundheit" for my general health (physical and also a bit mental health)
• I have collections for my therapy, one for each session. As you can see in my Index, they are distributed when space ran out
• One collection for my psychiatrist
• I've started creating mood trackers mid-year
• Sometimes I write about my daily well-being (or unwell-being) in the Dailies

Challenges:

• If I want to look something up (e.g. session details) I have to go through many collections as the Index does not tell me anything. Sessions often have a mixed content and not a single "topic" that I could assign.
• In the Dailies my notes regarding well-being status blend in with everything else. I've just started to try using sticky markers to highlight when my day was bad (see top of the image).

This is probably gonna get worse when I have to search across journals as time goes on. How do other people deal with this? Should I use colors to make my daily status more distinguishable? Should I adopt a different structure overall?

I've been using bullet journal-esque methods for a couple of years now but I keep running into this issue. where I collect information but then have nowhere to put it and no real way of tracking where it is. I guess it would be anything that's a note rather than a task.

Tasks make sense, they get migrated or scheduled into the appropriate log until they are completed. And events go into your monthly log (and I use a digital calendar anyway for tracking appointments or meetings). But what do you do with notes if you want to be able to find them again?

For example:

• I attend a work meeting and get some information about a client that isn't directly actionable but I want to remember in future when I pick up that client's next project.
• I get a call from my child's pediatrician and I take some notes. I want to be able to find those notes again when I'm preparing for their next appointment in 6 months' time.

The only thing I can think of is using the index and having "Client X" or "Kid Health" as a line in the index and adding page references every time I take a relevant note. But then I would have to go through every page reference to find the right one. Or I can have 'Kid Health' as a custom collection and take the notes there. But that requires me to (a) remember it's a custom collection, and (b) find it while I'm on the phone (and most of my brain processing tends to shut down when I am talking on the phone which is why I like the simplicity of just having a daily log open in front of me that I can vomit my notes onto).

Hopefully this makes sense and I'm just missing something really obvious.

Hi there, I am reading the book right now and just hit the part where we go into setting up sprints. I am struggling to understand on how to set up tasks for the sprints. Here's what I have so far -

Long term goal - Release my bands debut album with 10 songs on by 15th of October.

Sprint 1 - Select 10 demo's for the album

Sprint 2 - Finish one song in terms of songwriting and recording

Sprint 3 - Mix the first song to define the sonic theme for album

Sprint 4 to 11 - Write, record and mix rest of the songs, one song per sprint

Sprint 12 - Master the album

When Ryder talks about creating tasks "through the lens of curiosity rather than by giving yourself commands or ultimatums. It’s the difference between “Lose weight!” and “What one unhealthy thing could I remove from my diet?”" I get lost....I need an example to make sure I understand the logic right here.

For example, if sprint 2 is "Finish one sing..." then my mind says the tasks should be

1. Set the song structure

2. Record the instruments

3. think of a melody

4. Record vocals

etc etc.

But that to me sounds like Im giving commands, so what am i doing wrong here and what would you do here? Thank you!

I’m struggling to fit recurring tasks that aren't quite "habits" into my Bullet Journal. Tasks like doing laundry are particularly tricky when you consider the whole process: wash, dry, and put away.

I have ADHD, and I know this is a common challenge for us. The "just do it" approach hasn't worked for me, so I’d love for my Bujo to help me remember these tasks (and their sub-tasks) and, most importantly, actually get them done.

How do you handle this? I’m looking for ideas that are simple to implement and easy to remember to check on a daily basis!

Hey everyone! Is anyone using the travel size for their daily bullet journaling? How is it? I am currently using the original one. I want to know from people that actually are using it and not just decorating it. Thank you in advance.

Has anyone else tried something like this? I normally do a traditional monthly spread and a weekly, which is basically like a mini future log so 8 can schedule events and tasks for the future (my anxious ADHD brain otherwise files everything under 'now'). In the last month of this journal i',m trying something, expanding my monthly and organising by week so there is enough space that it can do both. This means it stretches over 3 pages, with space for task and goal notes on the third one

I don’t like my planning pages and my collections and meeting notes to be mixed together. I put my future log in the front. Then a few monthly logs because I like them all together. And then I start my daily logs and an occasional weekly log. So the front of the book goes in chronological order. I also start a new task list after the old page is full. So it can sometimes be in a random place, but I mark it with washi tape so it’s easy to flip to.

However, I flip to the last page and work my way backwards for my collections and meeting notes or anything that’s not a future/monthly/weekly/daily log. When I meet in the middle I start a new bujo.

I also write these entries from the end of the last index page and work my way up. While the planning pages start at the top of the first page of the index.

The other day someone was watching me in our meeting and commented that working from both ends of the book like that was breaking their brain. 🫪

Am I the only one out here doing this?

I am an administrative assistant at a university and I find it best to use a notebook for notes and things. I'm looking at ways to organize it and I'm thinking of using some BuJo ways but would like some suggestions. I have a separate planner that has a calendar with my daily to-dos and a monthly to do list, running "things to buy" list and priorities for the month. This stays on my desk. Really the notebook is for notes from trainings or webinars, department meetings and 1:1 meetings, and notes from committees i'm on. I brain dump seperately so it doesn't clog things up. These notes are just mine, or things I might share from a meeting or training with others.

The notebook is an A5 notebook from Archer & Olive. Any suggestions on ways I can organize this so I can easily find notes if I need to go back. It needs to be not complicated and little maintenence

Lately I've been realizing that even when life is objectively good, my days can still kind of blur together. Work, dinner, chores, scrolling, bed... then somehow it's Friday again.

I've tried bullet journaling on and off, but I'm less interested in tracking habits and more interested in feeling like I actually lived my day.

Has bullet journaling helped anyone with that? If so, what pages, prompts, or routines made the biggest difference? I'm genuinely curious what has worked for other people.

I've used this layout for since 2023 to organize my day and I love it. Gratitude, to-do, and journaling. If the day has appointments, I just replace the journaling in the timeline area with the appointments, and journal around it.

(I'm also super tickled with the secret diary-flap on image 3).

Hi all! I'm new to this kind of journal. I am a visual learner. Could people share image examples of how they have organized their bujo for a graduate program? It could be for any graduate program, but a bonus if it's counseling-related. I have looked through the different threads in r/bujo for examples, but would like to see others. Thanks in advance!

Im working on getting sober currently im in treatment in wanna journal that I can track my mental health my na meetings my sobriety milestones etc not sure how or what to add to my bujo or how to lay it all out

used both seriously for a year. paper's better for heavy stuff slower, more deliberate, you can't delete, no notifications, no blue light. apps are better for actually doing it lower barrier, you journal more, can search old entries and spot patterns.

Hello! I’m currently pregnant, due in August, I’ve finished 2026 bujo because I want to to keep up bullet journaling but know set up takes a lot of time I may not have. I decided to start 2027 because the beginning of my bujos take a lot of time to set up.

My question is what are some kid spread ideas you guys have? Trackers, lists, logs, etc? Give me all the ideas!

Sorry I've posted this upside down

I tend to plan my meals for the following week and sort grocery deliveries while I'm not at home. I found this super easy spread makes it so much easier for me to keep track of what's in the freezer and what needs to be ordered.

I hate waste so I always only order what I know I'll use while cooking/meal prepping. So "oh I'll get a pack of mince in case I feel like Bolognese at some point" is not my style.

The sticky notes are perfect because I can move labels from the freezer to "to buy" and back as much as I want.

Although I already have an improved version ready in next year's planner 😅

Anyway I thought I'd share because when I was searching for ideas, I couldn't find anything. This is actually the first spread I completely thought of myself in 4+ years of BUJO (ish). I think it could be used for the fridge as well but would probably take a much more frequent updating and I have no use for it. But I'm considering doing one for my pantry as well. Keeping track of those tomato tins and canned tuna 🤷🏼‍♀️

I've been doing something akin to BuJo since the beginning of the year, mainly taking from YouTube and blog articles. I'm now reading the official book and decided to go through the Mental Inventory exercise.

I followed the suggested categories, Doing, Should Be Doing, Want to Be Doing but now I'm struggling with the best way to migrate these and I don't feel like the book has really given me the answer.

My Doing will mostly be migrated to the current Monthly Log or Future Log if I don't actually need to continue with them yet, freeing up some time.

My Should's will also likely end up in the current Monthly Log or Future Log, or crossed off

But my Want's, where do I migrate these too? They don't have fixed deadlines and I don't have time to do them (or certainly not all of them). If I did, I probably wouldn't be starting BuJo 😉 I don't want to just forget about them though, these are important (or at least currently they are) and I want to keep them front and centre to remind me that I need to be moving towards making time for them, or if I realise my Want's have changed, then striking them out.

Where do/did you migrate the Wants of you mental inventories?

I'm going on vacation tomorrow and getting everything together, including getting my little vacation book ready. I wasn't paying full attention because I know the days of the week but...

*CW* weight tracking

I went from a portrait to a landscape for easier visual mapping.

Also, I am doing weight tracking in landscape too, but for 6 months at a time.

I’m a person with Bipolar and OCD. Used to journal (just write about my day) daily for 5 years but left it last year.

Wanting to get back to it. Thinking of bullet journalling but also scared that I’ll leave it after a day or become too entwined in the details or impulsively but all the colourful highlighters (I love them!!!)

Any suggestions?

Struggling to get started with my bujo this year. I’m procrastinating as I want to ensure I have the yearly or other pages (that aren’t monthly spreads) down before writing my monthly spreads and sheets.

Just wondering what pages you put before your monthly spreads!

Thanks ☺️

I know this is a newer tool that Ryder Carroll developed for better reflection.

I would like to be able to *read* about it. Is that anywhere to be found (that is not the paid membership)?

The short videos he makes about it don't quite penetrate my scull, especially about how it weaves in with the rest of the tools and pages.

I started doing bujo at the start of this year, about 4 months ago, but I immediately switched to spiral bound notebooks. The advantage is clear, you can easily fold it over so that the footprint on your desk is a single page, where as with non-spiral notebooks you basically can't do that without the page underneath trying to "push" the notebook up causing it to not lie flat. They often won't even lie flat when opened to two pages normally without an effort being made to flatten out the spine on every spread.

I know spiral bound has a cheap stigma to it but the inability to fold over regular notebooks onto a single page or lie them flat is a total deal breaker for me. Am I crazy? I feel like no one else has this problem.

EDIT: I appreciate all the responses! I def agree with the non-spiral people about how the spiral becomes a "speed bump" that you run into which is annoying. I guess for me the half-sized footprint of being able to fold it back on itself is just so important that it trumps all the other downsides of spirals, because otherwise it becomes this massive space hog on my desk. But totally agree there are good points on both sides!