Created: 2025-02-02
Last Updated: 2026-08-02
Stage: budding
My Bullet Journal Practice
This is a collection of notes about how I approach the practice of using the Bullet Journal Method to better manage and organize my life. I primarily see and use my bullet journal as a tool so I am much more interested in how it can help me and less interested in how it looks. If you are interested in looking at colorful, artistic notebook spreads, you will probably be disappointed in what I will share here. My notebooks are very simple and spartan. My philosophy is to try and reduce friction around using my notebook. If I feel like something is overly complicated or time consuming, then I am less likely to do it. Keeping things simple makes it easier for me consistently use my journal every day. Using my journal every day helps me to keep track of daily life and tasks, and serves as valuable feedback for self reflection and continuous improvement.
Tools
I use a large Moleskine classic dotted-grid notebook when I can get them at a reasonable price. One notebook typically lasts me three months. My pen of choice is the Pilot G-2 05 with gel ink. This combination gives me a smooth writing experience without ghosting, and I don’t have to live in fear of losing an expensive pen.
I“ve tried using a couple of different notebooks. The official Bullet Journal notebooks are very nice. They are comparable in quality to Moleskine notebooks and have helpful buides built into the pages that make it easier to evenly divide up a page. The downside to the official notebook is that they are a tad expensive. At the time of writing this, I can get Moleskine notebooks for $17 each, while the official notebook is nearly double that price at $32. I have also tried using the Pen+Gear notebook sold by Walmart. These retail for $12 each. They seem to work well enough, but it is clear that the quality of the paper and binding aren’t the same as the more expensive notebooks.
Everbook
For the past few years I have augmented my Bullet Journal with an Everbook. The Everbook is a leather folio, similar to a travelers wallet, that I use to bundle my longer-term project notes together. Most of my projects last 6-12 months, and copying all of those notes consumes a lot of time.
The Bullet Journal Method uses the recopying, called migration, as a forcing function to revaluate projects and determine if they still have value. I make it a part of my quarterly reflection rituals to review my Everbook and clean out any projects that are complete or are no longer relevant.
I would not recommend doing something like this for new Bullet Journal practitioners. I would only consider doing this once you have built up a solid understanding of the reflection rituals and developed the discipline of performing the rituals regularly.
Layout
I mostly use the basic layout and spreads as described in the “The Bullet Journal Method” book and Foundation Plan online course. The spreads I use the most are the monthly, weekly, and daily logs combined with the index and future log. Custom spreads are usually just topic or project specific lists that get their own entry in the index.
Journal - Daily Log
I primarily use the daily log as a record of my day. As events happen throughout the day, I record them in my daily log with the appropriate bullet. For example, if I attend a meeting at work and I get two tasks that come out of that meeting I would record the meeting itself as an event, and add the two tasks, I also practice a form of interstitial journaling where I record the start and completion times of most events and larger tasks, and I record a mood entry when I complete a task or event.
Reflection
I use reflections to close the circle between my documented intentions and what I did in the past week. I usually perform a reflection on a Friday or Saturday, and I use it to review the things that moved me toward or away my intentions. This helps to ensure that I’m prioritizing and working on the right projects and tasks, and that I’m not being distracted by things that aren’t related. If I find that I’m spending several weeks working on unrelated tasks, that’s a signal that I need to revisit my intentions and maybe update them. The big takeaway is to make sure you are gathering feedback through the reflection exercise and using that to inform your next steps.
Experiment
I want to experiment with combining my Bullet Journal practice with my Everbook. Instead of using a notebook, I will try using a bundle for my journal spreads. My goals with this experiment are to reduce wasted paper (unused pages in a notebook) and to reduce the number of places I store information. I will likely continue to use notebooks to develop some of my ideas, but those notebooks won’t be something I use on daily basis.
