r/BasicBulletJournals

I started journaling on January 1st (because of course). I did daily entries, like a diary. And a few habit trackers. Been going well up until mid March when I got super busy. I still want to continue though 😞. Any suggestions? I feel like I’m not the only one with this problem.

Hello there!

I've started my first journal about a month ago, and now I struggle with what should I do with the tasks, that I do throughout the day, but which were not planned?

Should I just write them down crossed-out right away? It feels weird. Also, later on I won't be able to discern them from actually "planned and done" tasks, which seems important (but maybe it's not)

For example, I may plan a couple of necessary tasks for the day in the morning, but of course I will be doing much more, and I'd like to fix that for future reflections

I know, that I can invent custom bullets for that, but before over-complicating stuff, I'd like to ask the community a piece of advice

How do you approach that? Or am I overthinking here?

I like my Bullet Journal ugly.

I'm journalling in the same spiral bound A4 notebook since 2024. By this point, I just want to see how much this thing physically lasts. I had to reinforce the cardboard from the cover because it was starting to break. Notebooks of this kind aren't meant to be used for several years.

I have huge gaps in the chronology, mind you. I never BuJoed a whole year. It's just bursts that last a couple of months. Mostly when I have a lot going on at the same time and need to sort some things out.

My favorite thing is that BuJo doesn't punish you for abandoning it and coming back later.

I'm that kind of neurodivergent where your mom gifts you a planner every year and now you have a pile of unused planners collecting dust and adding to pollution. The usual agenda is an example of a punishing kind of planner: If you drop it on April and resume it on August, you will have several empty months taking up space and making it clunky to use. All the pages have a date printed, so they are empty if you don't use the planner.

A lot of productivity tools have some punishment if you abandon them. If I stop using my habit tracker apps, I mess up a lot of graphs and pretty charts. Maybe I even get a bunch of annoying notifications. If I stop using logseq or obsidian for a couple of months, I forget what all those links, hashtags, file & folder structures mean (in fact, I had a hard time finding the folder in obsidian where this note should be stored). So coming back to them has a lot of friction.

Bullet Journal is simple or it isn't bullet journalling. Last month I logged was September '25. What do I have to do to resume it?

1. Turn the page
2. Start over as usual
3. Index

Future Spread for the rest of the year, monthly for April and back to the daily log. And I have two years worth of free spreads that I already made. I have a mental health emergency plan that I made in '24, for example. And a spread where I still keep some important online accounts information.

Writing April '26 is still as rewarding and comfy as writing September '25. What do I have this week? I watch a movie with mom. Later a psychologist appointment so they tell me whdt kind of neurodivergent I am.

This BuJo is like me: messy, improvised, inconstant, but compassionate, understanding, welcoming and happy to help.

Hate wasting the last chunk of my journal with 30 odd pages but I don’t want to split the month across two journals and I also want to archive it without having to dig it out for a collection so I can’t really think of a good use for it. Any thoughts?