Starting your first bullet journal can be scary. Recently, a friend of mine got inspired by the bullet journal revolution and decided to join ranks. What happened? Armed with bullet journal in hand, she came to me and said “I got one, now what do I do?”

Suddenly, I came to realise how overwhelming a new, blank bullet journal can be. It has to be perfect, right? Putting pen to paper for that very first time in our brand new notebook brings out all the perfectionism in us! Do you relate? How do your start your first bullet journal?

Well, here is how to get started..

First page = There are a few options for your first page. Some like to have an index page, which is like a contents page for the rest of the notebook. Although it seems like a good idea, and please go ahead with it, if you want, I personally don’t like it, because it means numbering each page of the notebook, which I feel gets in the way of my creations.

Another option is a key page, this is a list of symbols that you plan to use to represent actions in your lists (* means an event, ! means important task, etc, etc), the purpose of the page is to explain what your symbols are going to mean. I personally don’t use symbols like this, so again, another useless page for me.

If you want, you can like me just get straight into what you want your bullet journal to be. I personally am all about the creativity right from the start, my current bullet journal’s first page is a yearly cover page (keep reading, I’ll explain) but I started my first bullet journal with a quote page..

Next = After you have done your initial pages, it is time to start creating your personal diary. It involves working down = year..month..week. As I mentioned before, my journal has a yearly cover page, this is an arty page that introduces the year. I chose a theme (ferns) and I carried that theme through all the pages that involved yearly planning.

Now decide what planning pages you would like for yearly planning. Options are…overview page, future log, (this page allows you to keep note of events that may come up in future months) goals page, yearly tracker pages, etc, etc.

Next = Once you have included all your yearly planning pages, you can now move onto your monthly planning pages. Again, an option is a monthly cover page, but you don’t have to do one. Next, just include a calendar page, then any other monthly pages you would like.

Many bullet journalists decide on a monthly theme and do all monthly and weekly spreads using this theme. If you like that idea, but don’t know how to pick a theme, please see a previous post on the subject – How to choose a monthly theme. Some ideas for monthly spreads are.. calendar page, habit tracker, mood tracker, brain dump, gratitude page, goals page, etc, etc.

Finally = You can now get into your weekly planning. This can be whatever you want it to be. Many, including myself do a double page weekly spread using the monthly theme for art and creativity. Some like to keep it simple..write the date, and away you go with writing your tasks. Some have a lot more complicated systems, and this brings me to my final point.

A bullet journal diary is to work for you! For example, many, many people have mood trackers. I personally have moods that come and go quite quickly so I can’t decide what my mood was for the whole day. There is absolutely no point in me having a mood tracker. Really, it is important to create the diary that will work best for you.

Please only use this as a guideline, based on what many people do to start off their bullet journal. Please also keep in mind that a bullet journal does not have to be a diary only. I have about 4 bullet journals on the go, all with different purposes. (Yes, it’s a little extra.) The ideas here, were for creating your first bullet journal diary, but the options are really endless. You will see that, when you look to social media for inspiration. There is so much inspiration out there, so don’t be afraid to try things out in your bullet journal and see how it goes. Please let me know if there are any other bullet journaling tips you have, or would like to have..it’s a bullet journal tip exchange place here!! Lol

May you create the bullet journal of your dreams and have lots of fun doing it!!

While you are on the topic you may also like to read:

Finding YOUR personal Bujo style.

Or you may like to see a monthly bujo set available for download:

Monthly Jelly Fish Theme

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