Today, I will be tackling the cover, reference, and index sections of my personal Bullet Journal. Let's get started!
Cover
The cover is the first stop of this Bullet Journal being your canvas. You can get a pre-decorated notebook that you fell in love with at that store you visited the other day; or you can get a notebook that you can decorate on your own (like mine). I purchased a pack of 4 or 5 MUJI plantation paper notebooks. The covers make for great customizing grounds. The MUJI store in Astor Place has a table set-up toward the cashiers that have these really cute stamps. Once you purchase the notebooks, you can then proceed to the stamping table and stamp your notebook to your heart’s content. It’s a good idea to put some type of contact information on the cover as well. I put mine along the bottom of the cover, which is what’s blacked out in the picture.
References
The reference page is the key to your Bullet Journal. This is where you keep track of your “bullet” denotations. Bullets are meant to help you discern the different things that can go into your journal. I suggest you leave a whole page empty for this because you are likely to come back and add or change the denotations. Here are mine:
As you can see, I have two different keys. I changed my key about 2 months ago. I started my Bullet Journal wanting everything color coordinated.
Each “bullet” had an assigned color. While it made for a very pretty Bullet Journal, it was not the most practical option for me. I did not have time to sit down and write out everything with that much care and attention every time I had to make a new bullet. The Bullet Journal needed to be something I could use in time crunches, too.
So, I opted for a monochromatic scheme.
This allowed me to be organized, precise, and efficient. I can still find my bullets easily. Writing everything by hand helps with remembering where I wrote them down and remembering where they actually are. Customizing the key is very easy.
task - This is a “to-do” box to add to your daily layout (which we will tackle Thursday).
event - This denotes an event. A meeting, date, premiere date, etc.
appointment - Doctor’s appointment, waxing, spa, etc
ideas, inspiration, quotes - Anything that passes through your mind or maybe something you heard that hit home with you.
notes - Things that you need to remember for that specific day.
deadline, due date - This is for any assignments that you may need to hand in at school or work. (There’s a reason I didn’t write “exam” here. I’ve made a whole new sign for that**.)
important - This denotes anything that may be important. It can be paired with any of a previous signals.
explore - This denotes something that I’d like to explore further. For example, if someone says a word that I don’t know, I could bullet the word with a question mark and come back to it later.
**exam/quiz/test - I put an arch to denote an exam, quiz, or test. I needed a different mark for that because I have a lot of them.
checkmark - shows that the task is completed
slash - shows that the task is underway, or incomplete
strikethrough arrow - shows the bullet was migrated to a later date
strikethrough - shows the bullet is now irrelevant
arrow - either put before or after the bullet, shows that this is an upcoming task or event. I use it to mean that the event is not in the current month, or a note.
circular arrow - this denotes something recurrent. If you have a set appointment every month, this would be good to use. Maybe you have some bills that need to get paid, this helps with that.
\ “list name” / - The slashes help me differentiate the lists in my Bullet Journal from my daily blocks
Index
The Index is your “table of contents”. This will help you keep further track of where everything is relatively located.
You can see here where I stopped doing the multi-colored thing, too. This is where you keep track of your months and your lists, and I’ve found it’s useful for special notes, too. Once I started my monochromatic scheme, it became a little harder to differentiate everything. So. I used a slash to point out lists, and dots to denote important notes. In other words, I used the same marks that I use for their bullets. Notice that my February doesn’t have an ending page. Leave those open-ended and fill them in once the month is done. This is part of the beauty of a bullet journal: space is not limited.
And that concludes today’s Bullet Journal Series post. You can visit the page for this series on my page.
Until tomorrow, lovelies!
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