If there’s one thing I’ve learned on Facebook, it’s that this “bullet journal” thing is popular.  I know a lot of people who use a bullet journal for their personal planner or to-do lists or just goal keeping.  I’ve always found it fascinating, but I also know I don’t have the time in my day to create my own personal planner each day/week/month (just give me a pre-made planner, thanks.  And I’ll likely barely use that too).  So it turned into one of those things that I like looking at pictures of when people share the bullet journal pages they create, and nothing more.

Until about a month ago.

I will fully blame Amazon and their constant need to recommend me products based on either my browsing history or wish lists.  Well, of COURSE they would show me bullet journal stuff, when I love journals and nice, colorful pen sets as a whole (and have a couple on my wish list).  And one day, a bullet journal set crossed my path (either due to my love of journals or it popped up on the Amazon daily deals, one of the two).  It consisted of a good-quality journal with lots of pages, a set of colorful pens, and several rolls of washi tape.

Pinterest is a dangerous place too, because that is where I started to get ideas of what I could use this new bullet journal set for: all my writing stuff.  Goals, word count trackers, novel drafting information, amongst other topics.  I debated waiting until the new year to start my new bullet journal for writing — but why wait?

Of course, my writing goals for 2020 list is…well, very blank right now.  But it’s there, and it will be filled with monthly goals, in the hopes that breaking things down a little more makes it all a little less overwhelming, especially while juggling motherhood and a day job.

I also decided to put together a “To Be Read” book list.  It currently consists of just the books in my personal library that I haven’t read yet (yes, I have a problem.  No, the length of this list isn’t stopping me from buying more new books before I read all these), but I assume I will start adding books I hear awesome recommendations for to the list too.

And then, of course, the first novel being drafted in this journal is my NaNo novel for this November!  I usually just have a whole new notebook for each novel I work on — and, to be fair, that might also continue alongside this bullet journal — but I figure, what better time to try a new way to do things than during NaNoWriMo?

There are 100 or more pages to this journal, so I’ve barely even made a dent in it.  But so far, I’m enjoying this, even if my writing-related bullet journal is far less artistic than the examples and inspiration on Pinterest.