it’s another post about bullet journaling, yay

hi there everyone! i’ve posted before about my love for the bullet journal system, and to this day, i still stand strong on that preference. but, i do agree that these days, there’s a certain expectation on how a studyblr’s bullet journal should look – littered with washi tapes, aesthetic print or cut outs, a lot of looping hand-lettering, various task type-coding techniques, etc.

this has, as some studyblrs have / voiced / out, put pressure on them. there’s also people who just drift out to just not do it anymore – it’s too much work, i spent too much time decorating it. it exhausted me.

that was not the point of bullet journals.

bullet journals were supposed to be an efficient and personalized way to organize your life – as ryder carroll, the creator of the system puts it, “an analog system for the digital age” – not something that would cause you to lose 30 minutes of your day to prettify it.

so i’m here to lay down COLD HARD FACTS (opinions???) on this issue.

1. there’s no ‘right’ way to bullet journal: there is also no wrong way to bullet journal. everything you do is right as long as it benefits you. you only write in black pen? you do you. feel more comfortable color-coding everything by its task type? that’s cool! feel as if an index is just a waste of your pages? that’s cool, too and also me, lmao. the point is whatever you do in your bullet journal is right. you are the one who decide what is good – not the stereotypical studyblr aesthetic.

2. your format doesn’t have to consistent from the time you made it: how my bullet journal looked back when i started it (january 2015, which is damn a long time ago) is wildly different compared to how it looks now.

spread from a year ago, around the time when i first started it. notice how much uneven space my entries took and that failed priority-star and wonky migration method, lmao

current bullet journal spread. i utilize post-its to keep track of my tasks, minimized the size of my handwriting, and use red ink to indicate priority tasks. my dating method has changed. my migration symbol is now on the side of the checkboxes. this has worked v well for me!

when i first started bullet journaling, i was still working on how i could format it. it was wonky and Not So Delicate, but i managed to find the one that worked best for me after a few months. it is okay to modify how your bullet journal is formatted after you’ve made it, over and over and over again. think using stars as priority markers don’t do any difference? maybe a priority color would help. discovered that you need at least a photo or image to keep you motivated, just after you decided you were not going to? put it back in! as long as your bujo works 4 u, it’s the most amazing one.

3. notes and recognition ≠ a good bullet journal: your bullet journal is not there to get two thousand notes, it’s there to keep your life on track. it’s used by you; not instead consumed by the hungry, feasting eyes of other studyblrs that coo at your photoset and move on with their lives.

4. it really doesn’t have to be pretty: it really doesn’t. seriously. i get bad handwriting days and everything i write in it turns into an abhorrent mess of ink – i have the urge to just tip-ex everything out, but it is, as always, a) time consuming, and b) a waste of my precious white-out. your highlighter bled to the other page? soldier on, as long as it doesn’t distract you. you have chicken scratch penmanship? why the hell not if it’s legible to you.

5. pick only one system of planners at a time: to save ur ass. i’m being serious. it doesn’t help when you have to juggle two planners and rewrite everything in the other one. it does not mean that you cannot switch out to another format for a while to suit your needs – especially for me, in around finals season, i need a more structured method to plan out my revision time. planner-switching is cool, just not at the same time. [war flashbacks]

6. and if bullet journals REALLY aren’t for you: hell yeah. you finally know what won’t work for you in terms of planners – that’s a huge feat to finally discover. THAT’S SUPER GREAT. i hope you find a planner system that does very very soon!!!! bullet journals are not the only planner system that works in this world.

i hope y’all gained motivation and also a new perspective on bullet journals after reading this. thank you for reading my first post! hmu any time if you have questions or suggestions.

(also check out @lingkarbelajar, an indonesian studyblr index-network my friends and i made!!!!! ✨✨✨)

goddamnit, i do defend this system too much