A bullet journal is an excellent productivity tool. It can help you track progress on goals, stay organized, remember important dates, and plan your meals for the week.
It’s a versatile journal with many options, but that versatility may lead to decision overload.
We’ve compiled an epic list of bullet journal ideas to help you get started. Embrace your creativity and get more done with your journal.
What is a Bullet Journal?
A bullet journal is a specific type of journal that has a grid of little light grey bullets. These bullets help you draw spreads, calendars, trackers, and other tools that help you stay on course.
How Do I Start a Bullet Journal?
Starting a bullet journal can be overwhelming. It’s a blank slate with endless possibilities.
First, you must decide why you want to bullet journal. Some do it to increase productivity, while others use it as a creative outlet. Some use it to remember all the critical tasks they need to achieve in their busy lives.
General Topics for Your Bullet Journal
Start with the basics. People use bullet journals to track a wide range of activities. Here are some of the most common.
- To-Do Lists
- Tasks, assignments, deadlines, chores, homework, etc.
- Calendars
- Schedules, appointments, meetings, important dates, etc.
- Health & Wellness
- Calories, meals, allergies, symptoms, exercise, etc.
- Finances
- Budgets, bills, debts, accounts, etc.
- Dreams
- Symbols, meanings, astrology, etc.
- Lists
- Grocery, household, school, etc.
- Planning
- Vacation, moving, events, etc.
- Goals
- Achievements, progress, etc.
- Anything that needs to be tracked, organized, or stored
Your bullet journal should be unique to your needs and desires. Choose the topics that are important to you, and ignore the things you don’t need.
Organizing Your Bullet Journal
After you decide on your general topic, it’s time to organize your journal. Most people use time-based spreads to keep track of their goals.
Weekly bullet journal spreads allow users to make a new page for each week, while monthly spreads provide a view of the month at a glance. Daily spreads enable users to track habits and to-do lists.
One of the best things about a bullet journal is its versatility. You can have a monthly spread followed by a daily or a weekly spread followed by monthly charts. There are thousands of ways to organize your journal.
Bullet Journal Ideas
Now that you have a general idea of topics and spreads, let’s dive into some inspirational bullet journal ideas to create your perfect journal.
Bullet Journal Spread Ideas
First, explore the best daily, weekly, and monthly bullet journal spread ideas.
Keep in mind spreads are just one way to organize your journal. You don’t need to use them if they don’t work for you.
Bullet Journal Daily Spread
A daily spread helps you keep track of specific tasks, goals, and ideas for any given day.
Here’s an example of a daily spread with space for events, tasks, and a time tracker.
Some users may want more versatility. You can create a daily spread that features to-do lists and important times, but also leaves room for gratitude, health checkers, habit trackers, and more.
Bullet Journal Weekly Spread
Weekly spreads are great ways to keep track of everything that you need for the week. There are so many varieties of weekly spreads for bullet journals that we have an entire post dedicated to them.
Here are a few of our favorites:
Minimalist Spread
The minimalist weekly spread is a simple, elegant spread that’s made to help you get through your week. Use this type of spread to keep track of the most important things you have to do each day of the week. The minimalist design keeps out any clutter so you can focus on only the most important tasks.
Planner Spread
The planner spread is similar to the minimalist spread but has more details and design elements. This is ideal for people who want to use their bullet journal as a planner, but want to add more flair and creativity.
Meal Planner Spread
You can also use weekly spreads to plan your meals for the week. This meal planning spread has a list of each day’s meal. It also includes available snacks, a grocery list, and a budget.
Bullet Journal Monthly Spread Ideas
A bullet journal monthly spread has less information on it but helps you plan out your entire month. Most folks use these to remember important dates, appointments, or meetings.
Here are some of our favorite monthly spreads for bullet journals.
Simple & Elegant
The simple spread lists your monthly goals, your most important tasks for the months, and even has space for the affirmation that you will set for the month. As a bonus, you get all the crucial information in a one-page spread, leaving the other side for any extra details or trackers you need.
Month-at-a-Glance
This month at a glance bullet journal spread is a quick guide to your month. It shows a simple calendar, has room for you to list important tasks of the month and has space for you to record important dates.
Creative Monthly Spreads
Monthly spreads can also be great tools to review your month and explore your creativity.
More Bullet Journal Ideas
Bullet journals aren’t just for scheduling or tracking important things by date. They offer so much more.
Spreads work well for those who use their bullet journal to keep track of their life in a structured way by day, week, or month, but there are plenty of other ways you can use a bullet journal.
Here we explore some of the fun and creative features you can add to your bullet journal.
Habit Trackers
Tracking habits helps you cultivate a healthy lifestyle, and your bullet journal can help. Use your journal to track your workouts, eating habits, sleeping habits, reading, and any other habit you’d like to develop.
This habit tracker helps you keep track of how many books you’ve read. You can replace books with nearly any other habit you want to build.
Bullet journals also offer the ability to track multiple habits at once. The example below shows cooking at home, journaling, reading, practicing music, and eating vegetables. You can tweak the fields to fit the habits you want to build.
You can also opt for a more organized habit tracker. Use colored pencils to easily see how you are doing at a glance.
There are hundreds of things you can track with a bullet journal. Here’s a short list:
- Media Consumed
- Journaling
- Words Written
- Steps
- Reading
- Wake up Time
- Chores
- Productivity
- Water Intake
- Stretching
Tracking Your Goals with a Bullet Journal
Bullet journals are also great tools for tracking your goals. You can use them to track progress or to lay out your plans for achieving your goals.
I love this bullet journal goal spread because it lists the overall goal in addition to big picture tasks needed to accomplish the goal. What a great way to track your SMART goals!
Bullet journals are wonderful tools for visualizing your goals. The below has space for you to write down your goals in various aspects of your life. It’s not as detailed as the previous example, but it allows you to visualize your goals at a glance.
Bullet journals are great for tracking yearly goals as well. This example from 2018 lists the creator’s professional and personal goals for the upcoming year and includes a short action plan as to how to achieve each goal.
You can track nearly every type of goal in your bullet journal. Here are some suggesstions:
- Financial Goals
- Savings, debt repayment
- Career Goals
- Identify the steps you need to take to move up the career ladder
- Side Hustle Goals
- Income goals and task accomplishments
- Homework Goals
- Reading, worksheets, time spent studying
- Project Goals
- Progress on project tasks
- Family Goals
- A tracker for everyone in your family’s individual goals
- A family planning tracker
Organize Your Life With a Bullet Journal
Bullet journals are great tools for productivity and organization. You can use it to organize every aspect of your life, from cleaning activities to decluttering, home improvement projects to day-to-day tasks.
Here’s one specific to keeping the house clean:
Bullet journals can help you remember the tasks on your to-do list:
There are hundreds of daily things and important projects you can keep organized with your bullet journal. Use it to keep accountability of:
- Grocery lists
- Home improvement projects
- Decluttering
- To-do lists
- Medication schedules
Health & Wellness Bullet Journal Ideas
Bullet journals can help you organize your health and wellness journey.
Here’s one allowing you to track your weight, doctor’s appointments, and general insurance information for the year.
This simple meal tracker helps you remember what you’ve eaten each day.
You can also track your workouts with your bullet journal. This example is a yearly workout tracker that’s color-coded by activity.
Did you think you could fit a whole year of workouts on one bullet journal page? What a fantastic way to showcase the versatility of bullet journals.
Those of us with health issues may find this symptom tracker appealing. There is room for a variety of different symptoms that might be experienced on any given day.
Here are tons of bullet journal ideas related to health & wellness. Use yours for:
- Meal Planning
- Meal Prepping
- Vegetable Servings
- Exercise Tracker
- Weight Loss Charts
- Food Journal
- Allergy Tracker
- Symptom Tracker
- Sleep Tracker
- Appointment Scheduler
- Medication Tracker
- Keeping track of HSA spending
Bullet Journal Ideas for Event Planning
A bullet journal is a fantastic resource for planning.
Although we typically see it used for daily, weekly, and monthly planning, it can also be used to plan one-time events, like weddings, birthdays, and vacations.
Check out this bullet journal spread that’s being used to plan a birthday.
This holiday planning spread helps you keep track of your budget, tasks, and ideas for special events.
There are also a wide range of bullet journal ideas to help you plan your next vacation. Some spreads include planning guides like what to pack and things to see, while others give room for flight, hotel, and other logistical information.
Bring your journal with you and use it to memorialize your trip as well.
Wedding planning is an enormous undertaking. Having a bullet journal specifically for all of your wedding planning needs is a must. You can use some pages as an overview of what needs to be done, and others for in-depth progress tracking of specific tasks and goals.
Here are three examples showing ways to use your bullet journal to plan your dream wedding.
You can use a bullet journal to plan any event or project it. Use it to plan:
- Weddings
- Vacations
- Birthday Parties
- Retirement Parties
- Anniversaries
- Work Projects
- Charity Events
Using Your Bullet Journal for Finances
A bullet journal can be a great tool for keeping track of your finances. You can track your weekly or monthly budget, discretionary spending, debt repayment and all of your financial goals all from the convenience of one journal.
Here are some ideas of how to use your bullet journal to keep your financial life in order.
Savings Trackers
This first example is just a page dedicated to various savings goals. It’s a simple, elegant way to keep your savings on track.
Color In Savings
Draw a shape like a money jar or piggy bank, and use color to track your goals.
Here’s an example with a jar:
Expense Tracker
Knowing where your money goes is essential to building a budget. Use your bullet journal to track daily, weekly, or monthly expenses.
Budgeting Tool
Here’s a spread that showcases how to use a bullet journal to keep your budget in check. It tracks all your bills, ensuring you’ve paid them on time.
Financial Tracking
You can use your bullet journal to track a wide variety of things in your financial life, from savings to loan repayment, budgets to grocery spending, and anything else you need to keep track of.
Bullet journaling can help you keep track of anything in your financial life. Here are some of the best money-related bullet journal ideas:
- Savings Goals
- Use a tracker or a piggy bank you can color in
- Debt Repayment
- Budgeting
- Credit Score Managment
- Retirement Planning
- Snowball/avalanche Method Tracking
- Stock Charting
- Tracking Pogress on Financial Goals
- Bill Payment Schedule
- Spending Trackers
- Money Challenges
Gratitude and Thankfulness
Bullet journals aren’t just for tracking things. They are also amazing tools to help you with gratitude, thankfulness, and self-development. You can use bullet journal spreads to remember affirmations, express gratitude, and showcase your love for yourself.
If you want to keep it simple, express gratitude with a list.
Here are some ways to get more creative with your gratitude or dedicate your bullet journal to self love.
Mood & Gratitude
The circular gratitude spread offers space to express gratitude while reflecting on your mood.
Daily Gratitude
A daily gratitude practice helps us appreciate the small things in life. Making a daily log forces you to make gratitude a habit.
Here are some additional bullet journal ideas for self love and gratitude:
- Self Care Tracker
- Set Intentions
- Record Positive Affirmations
- List Things You Love About Yourself
- Track Your Wellness Journal
Meditation or Spirituality
Gratitude bullet journal ideas go hand in hand with spreads related to meditation and spirituality. You can use your bullet journal to record thoughts you about your spiritual journey and help yourself learn to listen to your inner voice.
Meditation Tools
This spread is a simple circle that helps you track your mood after each meditation session.
You can also use your journal as a guide for meditation, as this user has.
Astrology Tracker
Astrology lovers can use their bullet journals to track their star signs and align their energy with the stars.
You can even use your bullet journal as a bible study guide.
Journaling can help you explore your spirituality. Use it to:
- Track astrology
- Record Prayers
- Remember and Analyze Dreams
- Use Introspection for Self-Discovery (journal prompts are great for this!)
- Track Meditations
- Take Spiritual Notes
- Plan Spiritual Holidays
- Record Tarot Readings
- Plan Church Events
- Guide Your Spiritual Journey
Creative Ideas for your Bullet Journal
A lot of people journal to embrace their creativity. Use your bullet journal as an art journal, as a way to experiment with perspective, or even to log your creative writing ideas.
Add Flair To Planners
One thing I love about bullet journals is that you can mix your creative side with your practical side.
Add seasonal flair to your planner, like this autumn-themed spread.
Learn to Draw
The grid in a bullet journal makes it a perfect tool for learning how to draw. Use your journal to learn the art of drawing, or doodle for fun when you are bored.
Enhance Your Creative Writing Skills
Bullet journals can also be used to help you with creative writing. Use it as a traditional journal to craft your story, or make guide sheets in your bullet journal for any aspect of storytelling.
Creativity comes in many forms. There are tons of ways to use your bullet journal to express your own creativity. Here are some ideas:
- Creative writing
- Doodles
- Learn to Draw
- Experiment with Perspective
- Plan your Next Art Project
- Design Characters
- Map Plots
- Brainstorm Ideas
- Track Supplies
- Art Journal
Unique Bullet Journal Ideas
My favorite thing about bullet journaling is that the possibilities are endless. Your only limit is your own imagination. It’s possible to combine an art journal with a habit tracker. Plan your month with one spread and use the next to design your novel. Incorporate your favorite themes into your planning with an artistic flair.
Here are some of my favorite unique bullet journal ideas that I’ve found on Pinterest:
I love that this page uses kittens and yarn to track moods!
Incorporate your favorite fictional universe into your bullet journal! I love this Harry Potter-themed journal.
Let your creativity run wild with cover pages for each monthly spread.
This user created a worry tree to help them overcome anxiety.
Create a personalized self care menu.
What Will You Do With Your Bullet Journal?
The possibilities are endless! How will you use your bullet journal?