think about it. in this world there are countless things to feel bad about, countless of things to fail at, and countless of things to be judged for. but your journal is not one of those things!!!
literally the only person it benefits is YOU. it is an insanely self-centered activity. unemployed? you do not need a work calendar spread in your bujo. you can make it focus more on your personal commitments. student? you can add as many or as few academic-related spreads as you want. hobby artist? you can dedicate your entire daily spread to just being about your projects. struggle with daily living? you can make routines and habits be 90% of your planning, and only give a small amount of space to tasks. do you have 8 billion things to schedule and attend to? the same applies.
you can (should) make your bullet journal completely and totally catered to YOU. there's tons of different ways to problem solve and personally i love coming up with my own layouts to solve issues in my life. i've spent hours fiddling with washi tape and scissors trying to pretty up the edges of a page, to just using highlighters to add some color, to trying out a spread that's purely black and white with just a few doodles because i'm in love with the more brutally minimalist aesthetics recently. you can literally do anything. i've just been simplifying my style recently because i have less time in my schedule compared to before.
you could go through a rough patch in your life and leave your august 2025 monthly spread deserted. you could leave that journal to collect dust on a shelf until 2027 and pick it up AND continue using it that same year, that same month, fuck you could start it up the same exact day!!! there's no rules! there's no pre-determined layout with dates already printed in that you need to follow! you don't need to pressure yourself to use it up like an agenda that's good for that year only and is useless in any other window of time.
i've been using the same weekly layout for 2 months now, and noticed i was getting really frustrated and itching to drop this journal and start a new one. but i didnt! i don't have to! i took stock of what was working, what wasn't, what i needed this journal to do for me, and was able to turn that into a new spread. it looked like shit, btw. i didn't use a ruler and made it in the middle of the night so it looks like ass. but then that just means next week, i can try again, and now i have something to look forward to because i enjoy refining these systems.
a bullet journal is something customized to your life. it can change with you, you can set it down and pick it back up again. you can make it as utilitarian or as decorated as you want. you can make it with a shit load of materials or a standard notebook and pen. plus, there's hundreds of videos of other people who also do this that you can take inspiration with from if you need it.
this is one of the few things in this world that is impossible to fail at. it is something entirely, completely, 100% just for you. you can't fail at bullet journaling, because it can mold to you. if you try it and didn't like it at all? you didn't fail at it either. you just likely have different needs that would be better met by a different tool that isn't bullet journaling.
organization and planning can be a topic that brings up endless guilt for people, but it doesn't have to be! try bullet journaling now...!!
