What's in my Bullet Journal?

 Ahhhh, bullet journals...A creative and aesthetically pleasing way to organize your life. When I first learned of bullet journals about 3 years ago, I thought it was the answer to organizing all my jumbled thoughts and plans spinning around in my head. Not only that, but it gave me the opportunity to draw. I'm always trying to find time to practice drawing. It was like killing two birds with one stone (so I thought). Between Pinterest and YouTube, I had so many grandiose ideas of how I was going to make this work for me. At first I went the traditional route - a page or two for a monthly calendar, a few more pages for each week of that month, a goals page, coming up with a theme for that month, etc. It was A LOT of work but I kept trying to be successful with it. I even tried printing out bullet journal pages from online, trying to make it easier for myself.  I'd start, give it up, and then try again a couple months later. This cycle occurred about 3 or 4 times. 

My original "bullet journal." I found this at Dollar Tree.

Monthly Spread

Accomplishments list and Cover page 

Weekly Spread and Brain Dump box for ideas

Eventually I had to be honest with myself - I'm too lazy for this BuJo life. I still liked the idea of organizing and planning but I felt the traditional bullet journal was too much work and the reward was not worth the investment of time for me. I still use my BuJo but not in the way that it's intended. I'm currently using a dotted journal like this one. They come in a few different colors and are very affordable. I think I bought mine for less than $10. So what's in it you ask? Well, a little bit of everything. The beginning consist of some remnants of my traditional BuJo attempts.

Love this color! I need to jazz up the cover though...LOL

Still trying the monthly spread thing.

Fall Theme Cover Page

The start of me going rogue in my BuJo

Then it gets interesting...and random. As you'll turn the pages you'll see my notes from my bible study,  ideas on how to help my kids with school, art ideas, and blog post rough drafts (including this one). I have weekly to-do lists, notes from professional development classes. I don't even keep it in any type of order. I just turn to the next blank page and what ever my random thought is at the time gets dumped right there. A hardcore bullet "journaler" (I don't think this a word but you know who you are) would probably die from the shock and horror of how this BuJo is being used. 

I've tried for years to be strict about my organization but it literally feels like I'm forcing myself to be something I'm not. My art room is a total mess! My desk at  work us a chaotic disaster. My husband told me the other day, "That's the way you function." I think too many of us put so much pressure on ourselves to be a certain way because that's what society says you're supposed to be. As humans, we are not massed produced robots designed to function the same way. If we were, there would be so many of us, myself included, that would be shipped back to the manufacturer for reprogramming. I need the freedom to be free and not constantly bound up by rules. Bullet journaling is supposed to give you the opportunity to express your creativity while helping you to get organized. For me bullet journaling stunted my creativity. I was overly consumed with doing it right. I love my BuJo the way I use it now. It gives me creative freedom to write what ever I want and frees my mind of clutter. This allows me to not have to keep track of things mentally. I'll just write the idea down in my BuJo. This "free range" style may need to be "organized" a little better in the future. But for now it serves the purpose I need it to serve. 

Are you an avid bullet journal user? What do you think of my "free range" bullet journaling style?