I think in ink – sometimes

I spend a lot of time inside my own head. I have a good time there with myself. But sometimes I need to write.

I first heard about the bullet journal system while reading a web comic called Octopus Pie, made by Meredith Gahn. It’s a beautifully told and drawn story of a group of young people and I would strongly recommend everyone to read it, from start to finish. The entire thing is there on the site.
I was all the way down the rabbit hole of this glorious story when, in episode #973, a character called Marigold writes in some sort of handwritten planner. The spread had a monthly to-do list on one page and the days of the month listed on the other side where she inserts an important event. It’s just a tiny detail in the big picture of what’s going on in the story but it caught my eye. I read the comments to the episode and the second one says “of course Marigold has a bullet journal”
It struck me then, there was a concept here that I didn’t know about. Whatever it was that was so “of course” about Marigold – I had to know what it meant. A short search later and I was diving into sites and information about productivity and lists and calendars – about bullet journals.

I have been writing a sort-of diary for a very long time. Most of the time the entries have been purely creative, where I have written some sort of free-style stream-of-consciousness poem, like a polaroid of my feelings at that precise moment. Some of those poems have made it into song but most of them live a tiny little inky existence in my notebook archives.

I also write a ton of lists, but I never used to write them in my journal. Lists are great. Who doesn’t like lists? You can write lists about everything and anything. You get your thoughts and ideas onto paper, visible, tangible. You remember things better with lists. You can figure out preference, need, want, all by making a simple list.

I am no expert in the bullet journal system so I urge you to go to the official website to read about it if you don’t know what it is or how it works.

In my own short words.

The bullet journal was created by a man named Ryder Carroll. The system is a way to increase productivity. You write down your to-dos and tasks in bullet point, and you tick them when they’re done. It’s that simple but it’s also so much more. It’s a brain outside your head. It is a collection of lists. It is a diary. It is an agenda. It is a notebook of doodles.
It is pretty much whatever you want it to be, built on the base that – whatever works for you that’s the way to go.

A lot of people that start using the system seem to get anxious about making things pretty and about being artistic. There’s a plethora of inspiration that might feel intimidating for a beginner. But once you allow yourself to just be you and organise for your own personal needs, that’s when the magic begins.

My bujo (short for bullet journal) is whatever I need it to be. There’s an overview of the current month and week with lists of things that need to be done, there are diary entries, budget tracking, doodles of bugs, concert tickets, running trackers, writing and study schedules, meal plans, book reviews, drawings of mountains, knitting patterns… and so much more.

The mixture of freedom and structure, the organised entwined in the artistic.

I spend a lot of time inside my own head. But sometimes my thoughts are here on the screen, and some times they show up in black and blue ink.