I’ve been using the bullet journal system since January 2016. Since I got into it before all the hype (#hipster), I didn’t have to deal with any of the pressure that Pinterest seems to put upon that this system has to be perfect and beautiful and pristine. It doesn’t. It’s made to work for you, and to work as you go along, rather than planning months and months in advance. I wrote an article in the past about why I love the bullet journal method (you can find that article here), but something that’s unique to the bullet journal system is its use of collections.
Collections are basically just spreads that aren’t based on your daily, weekly, or monthly/yearly life. They can be literally about anything: from practical things (like friends’ birthdays) to completely random (like writing a quote in pretty hand-lettering). One of the first spreads I ever made was a reading tracker, to help me visibly see my progress on my Goodreads reading challenge. Here’s a picture:
(last year’s spread) (this year’s spread: quite a bit different and bigger!)
For every time I start a book, I write the title in black felt tip marker in one of the empty book blocks. When I finish a book, I color that title in with a colored pencil, usually with a color that is prominent on the cover. As you can see, my setup is a bookcase, which was found from Pinterest because some of those collection ideas are really cute and awesome. I make more books than my reading goal, in the off chance that I actually go over my reading goal. I count the books to what my goal is, and make a little ribbon bookmark on the last book to show “Hey, you’ve made your goal!” or “This is how much you have left! You can do it!”.
I recently watched a bullet journal flip through video from one of my favorite BookTubers, ProblemsofaBookNerd. In it, she showed all her collections for the year, many of which were based on reading and BookTube (naturally, since she’s dedicated to uploading regularly and has thousands of followers). With my last bullet journal, I only had my reading bookcase tracker, but am now starting to create more: I have a book recommendations collection, full of all the books my friends recommend to me and who recommended them (and the date I finish the book); a log of all the books I’ve read, recording page counts, ratings, genres and more; I’m planning on doing a tracker to read/reread all of Rick Riordan’s books; and I want to do more based on Cece’s (the BookTuber) spreads.
Since I switched to being an English major, I really fell in love with reading again and found myself just always wanting to read something new. I currently am tracking myself reading five books: two for classes, one audiobook, one ebook, and one physical book I’ve been reading since winter break. If I’m bored, I just want to read something and dive into a new magical and fantastical world. Due to my hiked up reading activity, I’m finding my friends and girlfriend not being able to talk with me about these books I love, or not wanting to talk their ears off about my passion about these books. So being able to track my reading, and make colorful and creative (and/or practical) spreads to express my strong feelings about the written word? It’s amazing! I’m able to get my creative energy out–something I’m not always able to do without my bullet journal–and reflect on what I’ve read when no one around me is able to do so with me. Being able to fill out my reading log after I finish a spread is just as satisfying, if not more-so, as being able to color in a book in my bookcase collection.
If you’re an avid reader, or simply want to get yourself more organized on your own terms, I highly suggest using the bullet journal system. I’ve found so much pleasure and enjoyment through being able to use it for reading, my longest passion in life, and hope all readers out there can find the same enjoyment in it as well.