My 2018 bullet journal looks like a different person wrote it

I pulled out my first notebook from six years ago, a black Leuchtturm1917, and the difference is wild. Back then, every spread was a perfect, colorful piece of art that took hours. Now, my current journal is just rapid logging with a single black pen. The change happened after a busy month where I missed three weekly spreads in a row because I was too tired to draw them. Has anyone else shifted from artistic layouts to a more basic, functional system?

3 comments

3 Comments

xena_rivera632mo ago

Oh man, I feel this so hard. My 2015 journal was all watercolor washes and hand lettered quotes. It was beautiful but I just stopped opening it because it felt like a chore. What finally worked for me was buying a pack of basic dot grid notebooks and a single good pen. I told myself it was just for quick lists and brain dumps, no pressure. Now I actually write in it every day because it takes two minutes. The fancy stuff is for when I actually have free time, not for my daily to do list.

the_lucas2mo ago

Nice! @xena_rivera63, that makes total sense. So do you still do the fancy art stuff sometimes, or did you drop it completely?

nina_sullivan612mo ago

Watercolor washes for a daily planner? That's a level of commitment I can't even picture. Xena_rivera63 has the right idea, stripping it down to what actually gets used. The fancy notebook just becomes a guilt trip on paper.