By Abby Bordeau ('22)
Using a planner is one thing, but Bullet Journaling is a whole new form of it. The Bullet Journal is a new coordinated notebook system. It retains anything someone wants to keep track of in an orderly yet creative fashion. In short, it is an elaborate way of making to-do lists.
Creator Rydell Carroll said that a Bullet Journal is meant “to help [someone] track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future.”
The Bullet Journal is a very broad yet specific organizer. It can be a sketchbook, an agenda, and much more. People can also use gridded or plain paper. All someone needs to start a Bullet Journal is a notebook and a pen or pencil.
Freshman Aashiyana Ahamed said, “I’ve always been interested in organizing and planning, so I guess that’s kind of where [my start of Bullet Journaling] came from."
There are four significant parts to a Bullet Journal: the index, the collections, the rapid-logging, and the migration.
Indexing is how someone can construct entries in the Bullet Journal. It organizes the page numbers of a Bullet Journal and plays the role of the key in a textbook.
There is a topic for each page in a Bullet Journal. These are called collections. The three important components of collections are the future log, the monthly log, and the daily log. The future log consists of events one writes down that will happen in the coming months. The monthly log bears two categories: the calendar page and the task page.
The calendar page’s purpose is to track crucial moments someone has each day in the month. The task page includes assignments someone wants to get done in a month and also projects completed from previous months.
Tinyrayofsunshine.com explained, “The daily log is the heart of the bullet journal.”
Evidently, this part of the Bullet Journal is used every day and all throughout each day. Someone can record tasks, events, and notes while they happen. This is also called rapid logging.
Rapid logging is a way of keeping tasks organized in an efficient manner. It consists of marks that are put next to each task. The marks symbolize specific ideas. For example, a bullet point represents a new task and an “x” represents a completed task. This is where migration comes in.
Migration is the action of bringing incomplete tasks to a separate collection in the new month’s log. This is done at the end of each month when evaluating which tasks someone still wants to complete.
There are many perks of this organizational system. Bullet Journaling is unlimitedly personalized, meaning there are a wide variety of ways someone can interpret it.
Ahamed continued, “I like how you can really make it your own. It’s not structured like a planner.”
Freshman Adriana Ramirez remarked, “It lets me be creative. I like creating and writing in different fonts,” and added, “I’ve noticed that I’ve been more organized than I was before.”
The Bullet Journal is visibly coordinated.
Wellandgood.com said, “Simply having one space where I tracked [everything] really kept me from feeling like I was always forgetting [something].”
Bullet Journaling has quickly gained popularity.
According to statistics analysis npd.com, there has been an 18% increase in sales of notebooks and writing supplies in 2018 since 2017.
“Over the past year, U.S. consumers have spent nearly $210 million at retail for unruled spiral, composition, graphing, and other notebooks,” the website stated.
Additionally, there are almost 200,000 posts on Instagram with the hashtag “bulletjournal”. There are also a couple hundred Pinterest tutorials on Bullet Journaling.
Ahamed agreed, “I think part of [the increase in popularity] is definitely because of social media and Instagram and making it look pretty.”
As a matter of fact, the new system is very popular in millennials. This is because they generally have a need for control based on the evolution of society.
Vox.com said, “Generation X just grew up in a context where housing was much more affordable and jobs were more long term.”
They explained how effortless it is to deny the difference in millennials and their parents, though there is much more stress placed on the new generation. The Bullet Journal is a small part of their lives that can stay completely organized.
“It provides a different outlet,” said Ahamed.
This modern system of note-taking is the perfect balance of practicality and originality along with the organization the new generation strives for.