MDK Journal

Bullet journaling is a simple system that you can learn in a few minutes and maintain without fuss. The best part: you don’t have to be perfect at bullet journaling for bullet journaling to improve your life.

The Leuchtturm 1917 Bullet Journal, sturdy and plain, is the notebook of choice of the bullet journal system’s inventor, Ryder Carroll.

It has index pages in the front so that you can easily add (and locate) all your custom pages. The pages are numbered and unlined, with a dot matrix that helps you make calendar pages, charts, boxes (and even lines). There is a gusseted pocket in the back where you can keep your ticket stub or business card collection.

How the System Works

Bullet journaling uses a plain notebook with numbered pages. The pages are not dated, so you have maximum flexibility. (You don’t have to start in January, for example. You can start now.) If you stop journaling for a few days (weeks) (months), your planner is not ruined. You just open your bullet journal to a fresh page and start back up again.  

The system teaches you how to migrate tasks forward so that you don’t forget them, which is a great stress reliever. Over time, the routine of writing tasks down, reviewing them, checking them off, and migrating them, helps you achieve a more orderly existence. It happens almost without effort, and certainly without making bullet journaling a cumbersome additional chore.

It’s Fun

Bullet journaling is not just about getting work done; it’s also fun. You can make pages to track almost anything, from the daily glass-of-water count, to books you’ve read (or want to read), to sweaters you want to knit (and how many yards of yarn they will require). Artistic types doodle and decorate their bullet journals, while others keep it bare bones. (Kay has two stitch markers taped into hers, in case of emergency.)

But the absolute best thing you can do with a bullet journal is to use it to help you make headway on big dreams and daydreams. A renovation or a novel, a cartoon or the first draft of a poem—you can make a page for anything, and keep adding as you go. The more you use your bullet journal, the more it becomes a record of your life, a keepsake, a touchstone.