The #1 Mistake You Are Making In Your Bullet Journal

Are you making this GIANT bullet journal mistake? Read this before you open your journal next!

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Don’t you love it when bloggers make sweeping comments like this as if they know everything? Anyway, in todays post, I wanted to break down the #1 bullet journal mistake I see people making in their books. I am in a couple different groups on facebook dedicated to bullet journaling and some of the questions that I see coming up are so sad! I felt like this problem needed to be addressed!

The mistake is not the #aesthetic movement either.

I am not going to bash the people who enjoy making beautiful spreads. You do you boo. Actually that leads me into the second biggest mistake that I see:

The Second Biggest Bullet Journal Mistake

Making your bullet journal look a way that isn’t authentic to you to a point where you don’t enjoy doing it.

Goes both ways: too artistic or not enough.

Either way make sure that your filling your bullet journal FOR YOU.

The MOST important thing that can happen if you want to be successful in bullet journaling is that you USE it on a regular basis. My goal for you is that you sit down once or twice a day EXCITED to check in with your bullet journal.

Or better yet, you take it with you everywhere you go. You feel pride and happiness when you open it up.

Now this can go two different ways:

Trying too hard to make your journal look aesthetic
Trying too hard to be minimalist

If creating weekly spreads that are artistic and full of drawings stresses you out, then don’t do that!

If creating weekly spreads that are artistic is an outlet for you that you look forward to then you need to be doing that!

Either way, having a bullet journal shouldn’t be stressful. It is a tool to be used within your life. Use it in whatever way that best serves YOU!

This brings me to:

The #1 Biggest Bullet Journal Mistake

Is that you are forgetting about the journal part of a bullet journal.

I have a love hate relationship with to do lists. Making them makes me feel productive but I actually hate checking them and checking things off. (Please let me know if I’m not alone on this!)

So what will happen is that I open my bullet journal each morning, write down some to do lists, close the book, walk away and accomplish NOTHING!

Seriously guys. That’s a little embarrassing to say but its the truth.

Then I had an epiphany, the bullet journal isn’t meant to just be used for to do lists and appointment reminders. It is also a journal.

There is countless studies done on the benefits of journaling but I’ll tell you what it does for me.

I get to remember the best part of each day. I also get to work out what I actually need to get done that day, instead of spouting off a few things from the top of my memory.

How Do I Include Journaling To My Bullet Journal Without Messing Up My Weekly Spreads?

Well, first of all, I don’t have weekly spreads in my book. I only use rolling dailies. Who knows, maybe this will change one day but I love the fact that I get to take up as much or as little space as I want each day. Wherever on the page one day ends, I will start the next the following day.

This also takes stress off of me that I don’t need to create a whole spread ahead of time.

Under that daily I will include:

my number one goal for that day
any events or appointments for the day. Where they are and at what time.
My to do list that will help me accomplish that ONE goal
Open space for jotting notes, writing memories and anything else that needs to get out of my head and onto paper.

By allowing myself to journal, I am a much less stressed person. I trust that the information is onto the page so I no longer need to keep obsessing over everything.

For example, my goal today was to write a new blog post (this one so yay me!) but this morning I realized how messy and cluttered the house was feeling. I would like to do some decluttering this week. So instead of making that a to do item for today, I put it into a little brain dump type box on the page that I called “week thoughts”.

My week thoughts are things that if I have time this week, I would like to do but I won’t feel bad or guilty if I don’t.