How to Start a Bullet Journal with a Simple Layout

Have you searched the internet and seen all of the beautiful, elaborate bullet journal layouts? There are an unlimited number of ways that you can design your bullet journal pages, but don’t think that you have to be an artist or spend hours creating the “best” bullet journal layout. If you are artistic and want to draw beautiful pictures, then go for it! But, if you are not so artsy or you just don’t have a lot of time, then know that you can still use a bullet journal. I am going to show you how to start a bullet journal with a simple layout. You can design your bullet journal however you would like, but sometimes it’s nice to have some inspiration from someone who has already designed one.

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What exactly is a bullet journal?

A bullet journal is just a notebook or journal that you get to design from scratch.

Bullet journals help you stay organized by allowing you to plan or track anything!

Many people use a notebook with dots, but you can also use ones with lines, blank pages, or graphs.

Bullet journals can be loose paper in a binder, a bound book, a spiral bound book, a Filofax, or any other type of notebook.

You don’t have to have any fancy supplies to have a bullet journal.

Many people use their bullet journals as planners, but you can use it for whatever you would like.

Some people like to include lists and trackers to meet goals and keep track of habits and things they like.

The great thing about bullet journals is that they can be changed week to week if you want to add or get rid of items that you don’t use.

This is one of the reasons that they are more useful than a lot of planners.

You won’t waste pages of your bullet journal because you design it for your exact needs!

What supplies do I need for my bullet journal?

Honestly, you just need a notebook and a pen.

Everything else is completely optional.

I use a couple different tools, but I don’t use much.

Journals

I have tried two different types of notebooks.

The first was a 3-pack of journals from Target. I liked these because they were thin, and I liked being able to get 3 for a cheap price. The only thing I didn’t like about them was that they had lines instead of dots. Although, the lines are not very dark, so it turned out to not be that big of a deal.

The second notebook I bought was from Amazon, and I really like it as well. It is bigger in size, so I can get more on a page. It also has dots instead of lines, so that was a plus for me.

Pens & Markers

I use a Micron black pen to draw all the black lines in my bullet journals. I like this pen because it doesn’t bleed, and it does’t show through the pages very well.

You can purchase Micron pens in different colors with different sized tips.

The other tool I use is Paper Mate flair tip pens. These are what I use for the color portions of my bullet journals.

I like these pens because they come in a variety of colors and write well.

How to Start a Bullet Journal with a simple layout

Bullet journal layouts can be overwhelming to someone just starting out, so I am going to show you some of the different items that I have in my bullet journals.

I have 4 different bullet journals. One is for pages that I don’t update very often, another is for monthly calendars and habit trackers, and my other 2 are for weekly items.

You can put everything into one journal or use multiple notebooks. It really is up to you!

A lot of people have started using a binder style notebook so that they can have the flexibility to move around pages. It just depends on what you want to put in it.

Bullet Journal Index

I like to start each of my bullet journals with an index or table of contents.

Some people start their journals with a cover page that is really artsy, but I have never done this.

I usually put a heading at the top of the first page with the subject of the journal.

Then, I number all of my pages in the bottom corners. This is definitely optional, but it does make it easier to find pages that you’re looking for.

Depending on how thick your bullet journal is, you should leave 1 to 3 pages for your index.

Every time I add more to my bullet journal, I write down what the pages are in the index and then write down the page numbers next to it.

This is the index in my weekly logs bullet journal. In this journal I keep track of what I eat, how much sleep I get, how often I get headaches, and how much exercise I do.

Bullet Journal Weekly Layouts

Depending on what you want to write about every week, you can have different weekly layouts.

This is a weekly layout I have used to track food, water, sleep, skin care, and headaches.

The numbers on top of each black line are for tracking my hours of sleep.

The blue next to each day is for tracking water intake. Each square colored in with blue is 10 ounces of water.

Underneath each date, I track my headaches. The colors signify the intensity throughout the day, and the words underneath the colors are if I take any medicine for the headache.

The skin care sections are for keeping track of what my skin was like for each day, and then the dates that I did different skin care tasks like exfoliating, using a mask, cleaning my makeup brushes, etc.

I also included a “to do” list section that I could use for the week.

There is also a little calendar of the whole month.

Bullet Journal Calendars

If you are going to use your bullet journal for any type of planning, it is probably a good idea to have monthly calendars.

You can also have a general yearly calendar to use to keep track of dates.

This is an example of a monthly calendar two-page spread that I have.

I added a to do list and a cleaning schedule to my monthly calendar page.

This is my yearly calendar. I used a yellow highlighter to add some color to it.

Bullet Journal Weekly Tracking Logs

Depending on what you want to keep track of, you can make different weekly or monthly logs.

I like to track my sleep and water to make sure that I am getting enough of each every week.

Exercise is another thing that I like to track to make sure that I am being consistent and keeping up some type of fitness routine.

I also keep track of my headaches and the severity of them. This is to figure out exactly what triggers them and see if there is a pattern of when I get them.

Bullet Journal Monthly Logs

You can also have trackers that are monthly.

There are some items that I only need to track on a monthly basis because I don’t do them as often.

It is also nice to see some trackers in a monthly layout because you can compare items for the entire month instead of just weekly.

For each month, I have kept a skincare log where I track what I have done each day and each week.

This is my cleaning schedule for the whole year.

I have some parts that are every other week and some that are weekly.

You may also want to track your periods to help prepare for your next one.

I also started to keep track of how often I painted my nails. This is a good idea if you are trying to see how long your nail polish is actually lasting.