Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. Welcome to this class. My name is Mary in, and I'm a freelance artists from Germany. I do professional a graphic work for companies all around the world, and I also teach art students in design and digital painting. One of my favorite ways to bring some structure into my hectic day and organize my life is with a bullet journal. This little book not only serves as my planner and calendar, but also, as the title says is a journal and contains all my thoughts and ideas and much, much more in this class. I want to show you how you can set up your own bullet journal and how to use it for your own individual needs. This class comes out at the beginning off January 2019 which, of course, is a new year and a perfect starting point for your bullet journal. But whenever you're watching this clause, you can start your bullet journal. Every day is a new opportunity, not just every year
2. Essential Tools: I want to start off by showing you the tools that you will need for your journal and some optional stuff you can use but don't have to. I will also link everything in the class description so you can order all the tools online and start your journal ASAP. First the notebook. I used the Lost Tomb 1917 with the dotted grit, which is one of the most popular notebooks for Bullet. You're running out there. There are many options in all sizes, but this one in a five is perfect to just throw into my purse and carry around while the pages aren't too small. Next a pencil and then a razor. I have my fancy pencil by for workers. Still, which I got for Christmas, which we will use to make rough sketches off the journal pages. The razor is nothing special. Next, I want you to grab a ruler for the straight lines. Some people are really good at doing frames and lines without a ruler just by freehand. But that's not me. Next up we have my two most important ink pens won in Sierra 20.4 millimeters and one in Sierra 10.2 millimeters. The brand is not really important. I got mine on Wish and replace them very regularly as a write a lot by hand. Next up is a black brush pen or calligraphy pen, and it's by the brand tumble, which is very popular for him. Lettering and bull. Eternally, I also have a black 5.0 brush plan for adding to fill out any bigger areas and another calligraphy pen with a very soft brush to. As for color pens, I have this brush pen set with 12 colors. I got this one very cheap on Amazon.
3. Bonus Tools: now for the tools you don't really need, but you might want to get because they make full, eternally, more fun and creative. Ah, stab, pet and jail steps. A ghoul roller, A white roller. I have to, for some reason file clips, page markers, stickers, washi tape which tape rolls, weaken, useful decoration and other useful things a white pen and sisters.
4. Making a plan: gents are. If you like to start a bullet journal, you love planning just like me and with everything else with a bullet journal before the execution comes the planning. I basically took two whole days around Christmas to plan out my journal to write down what pages I'd like to include and to do with them on a four paper here are not being precious at all. I just scribbled on, and basically you wrote down every idea I had and also made live sketches off the pages I wanted to design. Some ended up in the journal, and so I scrapped later. So, yeah, for me, it was really useful to make this plan before. The way you approach this, which may seem intimidating at first, is you think about your journal. In three categories, the 1st 1 is yearly, the 2nd 1 is monthly, and the 3rd 1 is quickly. For example, I want to set my goals for 2019 in my bullet German. That would be a yearly spread. I also want to check my habits on a monthly basis to make sure I reach those goals that would be a monthly spread and I want, of course, to have my daily to do list that would be part of the weekly spread. So every time I thought off a new page, I put them into the according category, which made it way easier to sort through the pages I wanted to create. In my journal, I will explain each one off the pages in the upcoming lessons.
5. Name, index and key: first, it's important for me to say that you can set up the sequence and design off your pages anyway you want There are no strict rules in full eternally. Any time you don't like something I'm doing, you can definitely modify it to your liking. So I start out by redesigning the first page off Ebola Journal, where you would put your name and address in case it got lost. I did not like the look of it so much, so I cut out a piece off brown paper and put my information there in my own decide instantly, making it my bullet. - I also used some all those cold stickers and a little bit of washing tape for decoration. The next ist in next page. Depending on your notebook, you might already have one printed in there like I do, or you may need to draw one yourself. Point is, this is a place where you write numbers off the pages and according page names, so you can find them faster. I will leave this blank for now and come back to later. When I finished my set up. Next comes the key page, where I defined symbols I will use throughout my journal. Some people use many, many symbols. I only use a few and always the same, so I don't get confused. This is part of making your journal a protective help in your life, so it cannot be too complicated. Oh.
6. Cover Page: Here comes the cover page for 2019 which you could make this minimalistic or extra wagon as you wanted to be. I wanted mine to be pretty simple with the cursive writing inside the negative space. But as you can see, the black brush pin blood through the page, and this pretty much ruined my idea. So I had to get creative on Die something used the same technique as on the address page or name page, and ripped another piece of the brown paper, stuck it on there. And now I got a little bit more intricate than I wanted to be with the stickers of the washing tape, Paula to turn out fine. These kind of mistakes sometimes force you to get creative and find solutions. Any time you make a mistake, you could fix it in your journal.
7. The Year at a glance: This single page spread is for sure, one that took very long since I had to do 12 many calendars by hand, and by the end of it, my hand waas cramping really hard. But it's very much worth to have this in the beginning. Off your book. This is clearly a spread under the yearly category. Remember, we talked about the categories. I have no further tips on this page except use your computer calendar to make sure you don't make any mistakes with the days of the week and also draw those little calendars out by Pennsy to avoid redoing it over. Because while you can, of course, fix mistakes on this page in particular, it's a pain to do it all over, so try to get it right on the first try. The correct spacing off course is important to you to fit it all on one page, so I will tell you exactly how I did it. I put the name off the month in one row than the days off the week in the next room, and then I left out five rows for each week. After that, I left to blank spaces and put the next month. Then again, two blanks basis put the next months and so on, and it should all fit on the picture.
8. Review and Looking forward to: one important purpose of a bullet journal, at least for me, is goal setting and making a game plan to reach those goals. So these two yearly spreads are, for one, reviewing my last year in a creative and fun way and to looking forward to the New Year's. He runs on getting hyped up for it. Those pages are useful to me, but also highly creative and fun. I'm only setting them up for now, and I'm going to fill them in later.
9. Setting your goals: the next double page is the one for my yearly goals. I put them in nine categories. Travel, home, finances, fitness, business, learning, arc, relationships and spiritually. That might be an overkill, but I have learned that I need to really break down my goals to achieve them. I also put a little motivational quote on the site. You don't have to make the gold page in this way. You could just make columns or simple list. It's completely up to you.
10. Future log: My next three pages are again pretty much a pain to create because of all the little calendars. But this future log is one of the most useful spreads in the journal. By the way, a phone a step for little calendars on Amazon and ordered it. It has not arrived yet, So I have to do this by hand. But I will link it in the class description so you don't have to do this all the hand. You can just easily stand your little calendars on here, but back to the future. Look, this is basically to plan events that are far ahead, so you can compacted monthly and review what will happen during the next 30 days. I would want even which I know what will happen right in there, which is my wedding on August the 10th. On the bottom, I put a little legend for each color I plan on using for birthdays, holidays, events or teaching days, and when to change my breath control, you can see even this future look, you can make it as personal and individual as you like
11. Resolutions: for 2019. I want to differentiate between goals and resolutions. My goals, which I put on one of the previous breads, are smart, which means specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time boat. While my resolutions are just things that I will try to change about myself on a day to day basis, for example, the resolution be creative with everything. It's not really a goal, but more a reminder to tackle my challenges in a creative way. A goal would be more on the lines off. Lose five kilograms until May. The first or something like that. I chose 19 resolutions for each year of the new millennium.
12. Year in pixels: here's a page I'm still not too sure about. But I included it because many people like it and I find it highly creative. The year in pixels. I also found it funny, because for my job, I do mostly pixel art. So this really resonated with me. The idea is to have one square for each day of the year and color it in the mood you felt that day. I just have my doubts that I will be really good with filling this in, and it might therefore be a page wasted. But I'm not too hard on myself when that happens, and we're just maybe not included in my next bullet journal, if it turns out and know to be that helpful.
13. Great questions: this page I reused from my 2000 and 17 bullet journal. It's also more of a personal reminder. When I had a rough day or struggled with my work, then I can read through these questions and remind myself why a pull through your questions can be the same are completely different. You see how I alternate between these fun pages and more useful spreads?
14. We do!: So as I mentioned, 2019 will be the year I'm going to get married to Mary Fiance. So in my yearly spreads, I had to include a wedding planning spread. I'm pretty low key about wedding funding. So two pages are more than enough for my ideas. I think while some brides even have their own wedding bullet journal, I decorated this page with a nice flower, some cursive writing. And while I want my other pages to be a little more minimalistic, this one can be really romantic. I also included a little weight loss tracker on the bottom left to be more motivated and work on my fitness onto the wedding date arrives.
15. Brain dump: next up is a brain dump age with various friends were ideas, potential projects, scare share classes. I want to film or take ideas for my Etsy shop. Etcetera, etcetera. Here, anything goes for decoration. I printed out an illustration off a brain matching the theme of the spread and stuck it on there.
16. Things I want to check out: this bread is divided into four categories. Movies, TV shows, books and games. Each time someone recommends something to me, it goes on to this page. You can, of course, also put music as a category or food or places to make this page a little bit more fun. I did some time, flower or planned illustrations that are very simple to draw, but instantly make the page more beautiful.
17. Youtube video ideas: This is a page that is only useful if you are a YouTube creator like me, because here I will put all my ideas for upcoming videos, a digital decoration with the icons on the bottom and the YouTube local on the top.
18. January spread: we have now arrived at the monthly section off the journal. This is the cover page for the January plan. A part of my journal. I put a vertical illustrations off some snowdrop flowers and cut it out on the border. We need this cover page. I put a little commander, which will be easy to see because of the way the top pages cut. Well, this is one of the more teachable moments off this class, because this is when I realized that I completely messed up the backside off this page because when I cut out, half of the page, also cut out huffed off the other page. Which makes sense. In hindsight, it's not that much of a problem. I just went back in and redesigned the whole spread with my pencil, and now it works on 1.5 pages. On this page goes my monthly calendar, which is a pain to draw, I have to admit, but its really useful. So I put up with it on the bottom, right. There is a little box for some focus words off the month like happiness, fasting, workout, etcetera. So whenever I look at this page, I can see my focus for the month. I also put a social tracker on there which you might or might not need. I just like to track the numbers off my YouTube subscribers and Instagram followers on the first and last day of the month. So I conceive there some growth on the bottom of the page is one off my favorite parts of my bullet journal, the Accountability Tracker, Our habit Trekker. This is how it works. There is a box for each day off the month and for each habit I'd like to track on the left . I put a little symbol for each of the habits I want to track, like fasting, being up before seven, working out flossing. And each day when I keep my habit, I will make a little duct to market. This will keep me accountable and motivate me to really stick to my habits. This have a tracker ties in directly to my goal page because the way you reach your goals. ISS, with little daily habits
19. Weeklyspread: Now we're almost done with our set up. I'm setting up my weekly spreads for the weeks off January here. It's important for me to have enough room on each off those days for to do lists as I want to keep them in there. The only other thing I put in my quickly spreads is my water tracker on the top right, which I'm notoriously better filling out almost as bad as not drinking enough water. Well, maybe this will motivate me to see right there every day I do. It is five times and almost lost my mind because it is a lot of work. So if you wouldn't really use a weekly spread as much, I recommend leaving it out here. It was important to draw with a pencil beforehand because I made taunts off mistakes with the days of the week for some elitism. For each header, I used my step head and stands just for fun to see how this works. I ended on page 33 for now, and I'm now going back to the Lexx to fill our pages in numbers
20. Back to the index : to fill out the index. I go back to each individual page, look up the page number and fill out the name on the front list. If your own notebook does not come with pre printed page numbers, remember to write them on the bottom so you can fill out your index easier.
21. Flip through: Now it's time to flip through the finish pages and look back on set up. We just did with my pole eternal. It starts with the index, which we filled out last and then go straight to the key with the symbols and going to use on a daily basis. The cover page with the cut of brown paper looks pretty fancy, and the year at a glance is very useful. My review and looking forward to our waiting to be filled out. Soon I went back to my goals page, printed out some galaxy paper and put it over all the mistakes I made because I was so unhappy and now it looks really cool. My future log already started to be filled out, and I already know this will be very useful to me. You're in pixels. I made a tiny mistake, but I already filled up three days. My great questions is a great page to go back to. I'm excited to fill out my wedding planning page, and it already started with some points. My brain dump age will be very useful for all the ideas I have. Things I want to check out is pretty self explanatory but the huge of video ideas page you can really use in your own individual way for photo shooting ideas for art ideas however you like. This is the finish generally spread with the little poem I printed out and put their and the finished drawing off the flowers, the color inner and the habit tracker on the bottom on the right at all. Also put my top three goals and I started to fill out my have a tracker. Now we come to the most important part the weekly spread. I marked it with this cute goal page marker and I have started to fill it out with my daily tasks. I also like the Water Tracker. It already helped me to drink a little bit more water over those few days. Now I realized on the bottom right, There will always be a little space for a time to do list, which is useful for weekly tasks. And this is the last page. The next part of the bullet journal will be where I set up my February spread, which will probably be up on my YouTube channel. If you're interested, you can check that out by the end of the month of January
22. FAQ: for the end of this Clara's, I want to answer. Some frequently asked questions about bullet. Your knowing the 1st 1 is I'm not good at hand. Lettering or handwriting. Can I still create a bullet journal? And the answers off course you can. I suck It had lettering. I've never done a hand lettering course, which is, by the way, one of my goals for 2019. So off course you can. The way you improve your handwriting is the way you improve anything and everything you do . It's practice. So basically, if you see your bullet journal as practice to get back into handwriting to get back into more often analog way of working, get a little bit away from the screen, then it's perfect for you. The second frequently asked question of Ebola journaling iss. I have no money. I cannot afford those fancy pens and fancy Washington and fancy stuff. Can I still suitable the journal? And the answer is again, Ofcourse, yes, you can, as you can see. Most off the pages, I said, are just on with a black brush friend or a black pen. And the journal itself was around maybe 20 years. I'm sure there are cheaper options, so please don't get broken while trying too great a bullet journal I over the time board more and more equipment, I'd like to say for my office for painting for drawing, which I can also useful bullet you're running. It doesn't mean you have to spend 500 euros before you couldn't even start. Not at all. As I said, I'm going to link some products in the class description s so you can start right away. The third frequently asked question about bullet journaling is I'm not creative. I cannot draw. I have no ideas. Can I still sort of were legit? I'm guessing you already know the answer because yes. So for me, it's definitely a creative outlet. Well, a journaling. But it's not where put my best artwork or where I put a lot of time into the doodles. It's just for letting your creativity flow. And it's also, of course, a good way to practice your drawing. Don't feel intimidated by the amazing spreads you see online because I was too. In the beginning, your political is yours alone and the way you make it, it's perfect. And beautiful. The last frequently asked questions. I want answers. Does Pulitzer nothing really have you with productivity? Yes and no. So off course bullet journaling takes a lot of time out of the day if you make it this really intricate work of art that some people do, I like to make mine a little bit more minimalistic this year for justice. Reason. I want to have a tool that makes me more productive. That's why I do. Those long quickly spreads with my to do lists, and I did less off. What books did you read or what movies did you watch and this kind of stuff? Because I just I'm not really interested in putting that down. You can make it as much of a productive tool as you want on do. You can spend as much time on it as you want, but what I want to say is a bullet journal is no magic want that will dramatically help you reach your goals. You still have to put in the work. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I will comment on each and every question you have
Prof. Marion Plank, Game Artist & Professor
