The New Year is coming and many people have get more organized on their list of to do’s. I am a planner. I do better when I have a few lists lying around. Groceries, things that have to be done today, things the kids need to learn, peoples clothes and shoe sizes etc. The problem was I ended up writing things down in many different places. I tried day planners. To bulky with tons of pages I never used. I might go a week without fillingt out a calendar. What a waste. Putting things into my phone or a memo stopped the natural flow of writing.

What to do, what to do? I always kept a basic memo notebook next to my bed and it would be filled with all sorts of crazy things. I decided I liked the idea of a notebook but how to make it work. I went to the internet and discovered the perfect system.

BULLET JOURNALING

Sounds simple a little crazy but the basic premise is you use a simple moleskin journal. What every type or size you want. They recommend dotted. You number each page at the bottom. Novel idea. Then get this….you make an Index at the front that tells you where everything is that you have written. No more searching for that new business idea or the address you need. It is all laid out. You just add to the index as the journal fills.

In my Index I have the following pages marked:

Year by month-for putting super important trips etc into a calendar type format pages 3-6

Kids weekly lesson schedule page 9

Page dedicated to heath consultations and concerns regarding my son page 10

Books,games and homeschool curriculum that comes up in conversations I want to try pages 11-12

Writing, research and blog post ideas page 13

Daily to do lists lots of empty pages here

Journaling area

Goals broken into 3 month, 1 year, 3 year and lifetime pages 81-81

Don’t Forget page 93 -things like friends husbands names, someones allergy etc.

Quotes I love that I hear or read page 85-90

Notes from conferences I attended pages 97-109

List of things that need to be done around the house and yard page 113

Christmas and Birthday gift ideas for family page 114

Family clothing sizes page 115

Wish list of things I want page 114

Family travel wish list pages 115-116

Personal Bucket list pages 117-118

Food storage rotation page 120

A stack of post it notes in the very back where I write out my grocery list

 

There is still so many glorious empty pages to fill. Perfectionists don’t freak out. If something random gets scribbled in the “Wrong Place” just make a note of it in the index. My non-crafty self decorated mine with scrapbook rubons and stickers and quotes I had lying around the house. I used it so much it started to fall apart(thus the checkered duct tape seen below) so I ended up making a cover for it out of some elastic and a piece of leather. I suggest if you are really loving this to do it right away.

First I cut a piece of leather to fit.

Then I poked 6 holes with an awl on my pocket knife.

Run an elastic through the two center holes and knot on the inside.

 

Run elastic down through two holes on the top then back up through the opposite side hole.

Using the same long elastic move to holes on the bottom and put the elastic down through then back up the opposite hole.

Leave the strings long then knot to use as book marks.

Secure your bullet journal inside by sliding the elastic into the center of the book. It can hold two bullet journals this way.

 

For even more thorough instructions visit http://bulletjournal.com and check out Pinterest.

You guys this has seriously changed my life. The way things flow, what I remember, what I ponder, the joy I have, and what I spend my time on. It is worth investigating.