The “One journal to rule them all”

TL:DR Bullet Journal is awesome. It’s simple, functional and versatile. Don’t be deterred by the beautiful/fancy bullet journals you see on Pinterest/Youtube. Do what works for you and start today!

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As mentioned in my ‘I got an iPad Pro’ post, one of the excuses justification I used for purchasing an iPad Pro was to use it as a digital bullet journal.

While I put in the effort to organise myself at work (because I get paid for it), over the years, I have really struggled with keeping a planner or journal to document or organise my personal life. I tend to go with flow and not set short term/long term goals. Or even if I do set them in the beginning of the year, 99% of the time, they get filed under the ‘Failed New Year’s resolution’ basket.

Given that I’m getting long in the tooth, I thought I should allocate more time to cultivate new productive habits instead binging Netflix and Korean Variety Shows. Thus began my search for the ’One journal to rule them all’ – that one journal which would transform me from a Master of Procrastination into a Productivity Junkie and allow me to finally carry out my evil master plan of taking over the world.

Enter Passion Planner…then exit left

The best planner I’ve used by far is the Passion Planner I got from a kickstarter campaign (Shout out to Angelia Trinidad for creating such a wonderful product). It had all the bells and whistles, and surprisingly, most of the goals I wrote down I achieved. I loved how it had a monthly self-reflection section where you can look back and reflect on what you’ve learned. I continued to buy it for me and the whole family for the next year despite the postage from US to Australia costing the same with the journal.

Unfortunately, the team temporarily shifted to a universal size in 2018, which didn’t fit our needs any longer. So I had to look for alternatives, which proved difficult because the other journals didn’t quite fit my needs. (Note: the Passion Planner team has brought back all three sizes in 2020! So will definitely buy the large one for my sister next year.)

Finding the One Journal to rule them all – Bullet Journal

So my search for the ‘One journal’ eventually brought me to the Bullet Journal, created by Ryder Carroll. A simple, to the point style of journaling that you can pick up easily and mold to your needs. The beauty of it is that you can do it in any notebook – most people probably find it easier to do it on grid or dotted paper so their creativity is not stifled, but the standard ruled notebooks works too. I used to do it in Moleskine notebooks, but eventually got lazy with drawing lines for the weekly spread (yes I’m that lazy). It ended with me not using the bullet journal, which completely defeated the purpose.

To overcome my laziness, I now use Good Notes 5 as my digital bullet journal. To minimize effort and any chances of me bailing on journaling, I use a combination of free templates to build my bullet journal. For weekly log – I use the free weekly log template from Lifeismessybutbrilliant.com – They have some amazing free templates and content on offer. For monthly/daily logs, goal setting etc – I use the free passion planner template. Yes, you can actually download the entire Passion Planner for FREE! The generous team also made other interesting inserts like habit tracker, calorie tracker, year in pixel etc. free, so be sure to check them out too.

So here’s a quick look of my current bullet journal (yeah I know my hand writing is ugly as sin). I will be writing more on why I chose Goodnotes 5 over Notability as my primary note-taking app so stay tuned folks!