Study with Me: Effective Bullet Journaling Techniques, Habits, and Hacks To Be Successful, Productive, and Organized - With Special Strategies for Mathematics, Science, History, Languages, and More
112
Study with Me: Effective Bullet Journaling Techniques, Habits, and Hacks To Be Successful, Productive, and Organized - With Special Strategies for Mathematics, Science, History, Languages, and More
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Overview
- The basics of bullet journaling, and how to adapt them to your specific studying needs and goals
- Methods for organizing your time and scheduling
- Ideas for page and spread layouts for specific topics and how to set them up
- Plus: Dos and don’ts, hacks, and assorted tips for beginners
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781631597787 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Quarry Books |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2019 |
| Pages: | 112 |
| Sales rank: | 656,156 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.50(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Alyssa Jagan is Alyssa of@CraftySlimeCreator, which has been named one of the best slime accounts on Instagram. She is also the author of Ultimate Slime, which has been published in eleven languages, and the co-author of Study with Me, on how to use bullet journaling and time management techniques for successful studying, both published by Quarry Books. An 18-year-old college student and Toronto native, the popular Instagram slimer posts videos to her accounts every day, co-hosts the Slimey Sundays live podcast on Instagram with Erin Murphy of @SlimeonadeStand, and sells her products on her Etsy site, craftedbyalyssaj. In addition, Alyssa has been profiled by a variety of media outlets, including The New York Times, the Associated Press, The Globe and Mail, and the BBC.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Bullet Journaling 101
It's often said that the first step of a journey is the hardest, and this is definitely true for bullet journaling. For those new to this journaling style, the wide range of possibilities can seem overwhelming. Simply starting the first spread can be the hardest part.
This chapter provides an overview of supplies and offers strategies for brainstorming spread ideas, choosing and creating planning setups, and creating additional setups that complement those initial choices.
When you start your bullet journal, you don't need to be perfect on the first try. This chapter provides guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules — there are no requirements in bullet journaling, and what you enjoy in your journal will depend on your preferences. Allow your- self to experiment with numerous setups, mess up, and make adjustments.
Welcome to the world of bullet journaling!
WHAT IS BULLET JOURNALING?
Bullet journaling is a task-based form of journaling. It's a highly efficient way of planning your life and taking notes. Many areas of our lives are based on technology, but there are many benefits to handwriting your schedule and notes in something like a bullet journal (often shortened to "bujo").
There are many reasons why you may want to use a bullet journal:
• You like being organized and completing your work on time.
• You enjoy taking physical notes.
• You're constantly making various to-do lists.
• You're obsessed with gorgeous stationery (washi tape, stickers, brush pens, etc.).
• You love setting goals for yourself and reflecting on them.
• You like journaling, but just can't seem to find the right fit for you.
• You'd like to have time to do things you're passionate about.
• If one or more of these apply to you, a bullet journal would be perfect for you.
There are three main avenues a bullet journal can take: you can use it for creativity, school, or personal planning (or any combination of these). You can exclusively use your bullet journal for creativity, for example, and focus more on lifestyle pages that use spreads such as habit trackers (see pages 86–88). You can also use your bullet journal mainly for school and taking notes, all of which is detailed in chapter 2 (page 25). If you're using your bullet journal for personal planning, you'll usually be making planners, which you can find on pages 26–35. You could combine, for instance, personal planning and school to take notes as well as plan your life, as you would in an agenda. Or, you could combine school and creativity if you want to incorporate artwork and doodles into your bullet journal. In fact, you could combine all three — creativity, school, and personal planning — if you so desire.
The beauty of the bullet journal is that it's completely customizable. You can control everything about the book and make it as intricate or as simple as you'd like. -is may seem daunting, and you may feel overwhelmed and unsure about where to start. But that's exactly what we'll be helping you with in this book. We provide examples and tips for what you can do to customize your bullet journal and give you everything you need to start. Once you're comfortable with your bullet journal, we encourage you to experiment beyond the basics we provide in this book and truly make your journal your own, in whatever way works best for you.
GETTING STARTED ...
1 | Gather Your Supplies
You can check page 18 for a more comprehensive supplies guide, but you'll just need a notebook and pencil to set up the bare bones of your bullet journal.
2 | Brainstorm Ideas for Spreads
The basic and most functional necessities for your journal are a table of contents and yearly, monthly, weekly, and/or daily planner setups for tracking events and tasks.
Beyond this framework, the possibilities are endless! There are many beautiful spreads to be found on social media, which can be great for inspiration but can also seem unattainable and overwhelming. It's easy to get caught up in the perfectly groomed planners you see online, but comparing your artistic skills to others' is a dangerous game. Your journal can be as minimal or decorative as you want! Keep in mind that the purpose of a bullet journal is to organize your life, not to make a perfect Instagram photo.
Throughout this book, we'll break down a plethora of ideas, ranging from study planning to exercise tracking. In addition to the suggestions we provide, you can create a Pinterest board or Instagram collection to save spreads you're interested in trying.
Once you have a general idea of which spreads and trackers suit your lifestyle needs and planning style, it's time to drill down to specific details.
3 | Choose & Create Planning Setups
You can create planning setups for a year, six months, one month, a week, a day, an hour ... you name it! Choose one, a few, or all of them. There's no one-size-fits-all solution; your choice depends on your personal planning style. Think about the following:
• What type of planners have you used before bullet journaling? What did you like or dislike about them?
• Do you prefer setting long-term goals or taking things day by day? Maybe it's both — you don't have to fall only into one of those two camps. Using multiple setups is a great option.
• How detailed are your plans, usually? Do you tend to have weeklong objectives, or do you plan your days down the minute?
Planning setups can also include additional trackers, such as sleep logs, meal plans, and habit trackers. Based on your brainstorming list, incorporate a few as you wish. However, if you're new to journaling, I would caution against jumping into the deep end with an exorbitant number of trackers. It seems fun to track every aspect of your life, but it's much easier to get into the habit of journaling when you start with just a few trackers that take less time and mental energy to fill out.
4 | Create Additional Setups
Once again, refer back to your brainstorming list and try out a couple of spreads. Don't limit your- self to copying others' ideas exactly; tweak them to suit your lifestyle. At the same time, there's nothing wrong with copying — it's fine to see if others' layout ideas will work for you. Just don't claim that you came up with them!
As you try different trackers and setups, reflect on what works for you and what doesn't. Does your planning setup give you too much empty space or not enough? Do you enjoy filling out a certain tracker or do you avoid it? Don't waste your time with a setup you don't enjoy; change or replace the areas that need improvement. Customization is the core of the flexibility of the bullet journal system, so make the most of it!
THE TOOLS OF THE ORIGINAL BULLET JOURNAL
The bullet journal system was originally created by American digital product designer Ryder Carroll. You can find a full guide to Carroll's system on bulletjournal.com, but bullet journaling has no strict rules — rather, the original guidelines serve as a starting point for each bullet journaler to create a personalized planning system. In this section, we'll give an overview of the planning tools that make up the original bullet journal system, and how you can modify them to make them your own.
Bullets
The base of the bullet journal is, well, the bullet! There are three different types of bullets: an open circle for an event, a dot for a task, and a dash for a note. You don't necessarily have to stick to these original pairings — for example, I personally use an open circle for a task, an open square for an event, and a dash for a note. However, the descriptions that follow use the original shapes as references.
Next to each bullet symbol, write your task, event, or note. Each should be a concise fragment rather than a long sentence or statement.
Task bullets can be marked in several ways to signify the status of the task. Draw an X through a dot to mark it as completed, or cross out the entire line if you decide the task is no longer necessary. If a task is incomplete at the end of the day and you want to schedule it for another day, draw an arrow to mark that you are "migrating" the task. What this means is that you've either scheduled it into another planning spread, such as the future log or monthly log, or moved it to the next day.
You can also mix and match different types of bullets by using them as subpoints underneath another bullet. For example, you can have an event bullet with note bullets underneath that describe the location and dress code. Additionally, you can add signifiers to prioritize certain bullets. In the original system, an asterisk is used to flag certain bullets as top priorities. An alternative strategy I use is ranking bullets in order of priority by writing a small number next to each one.
Index
The index, also known as the table of contents, is a map of your journal. If you're looking for a certain spread, you can quickly scan this list and immediately find the corresponding page rather than flipping through your entire journal. However, your table of contents can only fulfill its purpose if you regularly add new entries. Whenever you create a new spread, remember to record its location in the table of contents. You can find more tips and tricks about page numbering and using a table of contents on page 22 (Tips & Tricks).
Future Log & Monthly Logs
A future log is a planner setup for an entire year or more. Most journalers locate it toward the front of the bullet journal because, in general, you'll only set it up one time at the beginning of the year. Monthly logs are planner setups for one month at a time, and these can be interspersed throughout your bullet journal. These are usually set up one at a time at the beginning of each month.
Both of these setups use the aforementioned bullet system. For more information about methods of organization for yearly, monthly, and weekly planners, check out chapter 2 (page 25).
Daily Log
You can place a daily log wherever you need it, which will usually be on the first blank spread following your monthly and future logs. This section is where you write down your daily bullets, which are the tasks you need to tackle and the events occurring that day.
If you have leftover tasks from the previous day, mark them as migrated and rewrite them on the current daily log — don't just refer to daily logs from the past as your current to-do list. Besides keeping your task list collectively organized in one spot, rewriting will encourage you to reflect on whether a task is important enough to rewrite. at extra effort barrier will make you reconsider whether an action is truly necessary. By subtly nudging you to curate your to-do list, the bullet journal system allows you to cut the clutter and instead focus on what matters.
For more tips about daily planning, see page 32.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED
Bullet journaling is a highly customizable system, so take these as suggestions for tools you may find useful rather than strict requirements.
Journal
The notebook you journal in can be anything from a spiral-ring notebook to a luxurious journal or something in between. The most important thing is that it should be large enough to fit all of the content you want on each spread while also being small enough to be portable and easy to store. Most bullet journals are between the sizes A6 (10.5 by 14.8 cm/4.1 by 5.8 inches) and B5 (17.6 by 25 cm/6.9 by 9.8 inches). To facilitate the preservation of your journals, you may want to consider a journal with archival-quality paper.
Additionally, think about whether you want pages that are blank, lined, grid, dot-grid, or another rule type. Each has pros and cons. A blank notebook allows for more freedom and reduces visual clutter but gives little guidance in keeping lines and columns straight. A grid notebook is at the opposite end of both spectrums — it offers many guidelines but can look cluttered. Personally, I find a dot-grid notebook provides the best balance. It has the guiding marks of a grid but looks cleaner and doesn't feel as strict or limiting.
You may also want to pay attention to paper weight, cover type, and additional features such as preprinted page numbers, but these aren't quite as important as the size or rule.
Black Pen
A humble black pen can accomplish almost anything, from writing down tasks to creating setups and more. You'll be using it a lot, so invest in a high-quality writing tool. You don't want to waste time and effort on a pen that won't write!
This doesn't mean you need a $2,000 fountain pen, but do your research and find something that suits your needs. Look through specifications and reviews to select one with a tip size, ink type, and body shape that fit your preferences. These factors will determine most of your writing experience. As with the paper in your journal, you may also consider a pen with archival-quality ink to make your journal last.
Pencil & Eraser
These tools are used to sketch your layouts and drawings before making them permanent with ink. They're especially useful for more complicated drawings or designs, to prevent making a mistake that can't be erased.
Colorful Markers or Pens
If you want to draw or add colored accents, colorful markers or pens are a must. Options can range from standard markers to highlighters to gel pens. Generally, markers are better for coloring large areas, while pens are better for writing and doing detailed drawings.
Brush Pens
Brush pens can be used both to color and to create calligraphy. (You can find a guide to calligraphy and more detailed information about calligraphy materials on page 96.) Choosing your brush pen will also require research into the many options available. Two of the most important characteristics to consider are the tip size, which determines how large your letters will be, and the flexibility. A firmer tip is easier to control, which is ideal for beginners, while a flexible tip allows for a more expressive range of line variation.
Washi Tape & Stickers
If you're not inclined to doodle, you can still add some cute visuals and colorful touches with washi tape and stickers. These can be found all over the Internet and in stationery stores in any design under the sun.
Page Flags or Bookmarks
Some journals come with ribbons to use as page markers, but yours may not have one. Or, even if it does, you may have quite a few spreads that you flip to on a daily basis — such as a daily habit tracker or monthly calendar — in which case you will need markers for all of them.
TIPS & TRICKS
These tried-and-true tricks will help you avoid common beginner mistakes, making your journaling process more streamlined.
Use a White Pen to Fix Mistakes
A white pen can be a helpful tool for drawing and headers, but it's especially useful for fixing mistakes. It's like a very precise correction-fluid pen. If a mistake is too big to cover with the small tip of a white pen, you can color over the entire slip-up with a dark-colored marker. Then, write on top of the rectangle with a white pen. Now it looks intentional!
Glue Pages Together
Sometimes you make an error so drastic the page is unsalvageable. Don't rip it out, as that could damage your journal's binding. Instead, you can glue the two facing pages together. Once glued, they'll function as if the offending pages never existed at all — you'll just have a smooth flip from one beautiful spread to another.
Number Your Pages
If your notebook with is preprinted with page numbers, you're in luck! If not, adding page numbers is essential for tracking your spreads in the table of contents. One way to save time is to number every other page, writing either only even numbers or only odd numbers. This way, you cut your writing time in half, and you can still see a page number on every spread.
Don't worry if you accidentally miss a page when writing numbers. One option is to glue the facing pages together, as previously described. You could also add a fraction page number. It doesn't quite make sense to call something page number 28.5, but it still tells you where the page is — between 28 and 29!
Plan Your Table of Contents
A table of contents usually starts at the beginning of the journal, and you'll have to make your best guess of how many pages you'll need to use. If you don't want to predict the number of pages needed, you can start your table of contents from the back, with the first page of the table of contents being the last page of the notebook. As you fill your journal with spreads from the front toward the back, fill in the table of contents moving from the back toward the front. This ensures that when these two sides meet, the table of contents will be exactly as long as necessary.
Count Your Squares
If you have a grid or dot-grid notebook, take the time to count how many squares there are on each dimension and note this on the front page of your journal. Then, when you need to divide your spread into a certain number of sections, you can refer to this information instead of recounting every single time.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Study with Me"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Jasmine Shao and Alyssa Jagan.
Excerpted by permission of The Quarto Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface by Jasmine Shao, 008,
1,
Bullet Journaling 101, 011,
What Is Bullet Journaling? 014 Getting Started, 012,
The Tools of the Original Bullet Journal 018 What You'll Need, 016,
Tips & Tricks, 022,
2,
Organize Your Life, 025,
Yearly Planners, 026,
Monthly Planners, 028,
Weekly Planners, 030,
Daily Planners, 032,
Planners for Studying 036 Managing Your Time 038 Algebra, 034,
Geometry & Trigonometry 044 Precalculus, 040,
Calculus, 046,
Statistics, 048,
Foreign Languages, 050,
Language Arts, 056,
History, 060,
Economics, 066,
Earth Sciences, 068,
Environmental Science, 070,
Biology, 072,
Chemistry, 074,
Physics, 076,
Online Courses, 078,
Music, Arts & Other Electives 084 Health & Fitness, 080,
Growing with Goals 090 Personal Journaling, 086,
3,
Beautifying Your Bullet Journal, 095,
Developing & Improving Your Handwriting, 096,
Lettering for Titles 104 Doodles, 098,
Creating & Incorporating Artwork, 106,
Resources, 108,
Acknowledgments, 109,
About the Authors, 110,
Index, 112,
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