Am I the only one who spent 2 years writing the same collections over and over?

I started bullet journaling back in 2018 and for like the first two years I was rewriting my future log, monthly log, and habit tracker every single month from scratch. I thought that was just how you did it, you know? Then last spring I was at a coffee shop in Denver and this girl next to me had a bujo where she just kept the same weekly layout for like 6 months straight with tiny tweaks. I asked her about it and she looked at me like I had three heads and said, "You know you can just migrate the format, right?" That was the moment. I felt so dumb. I had been wasting like an hour every month redrawing boxes and headers when I could have just flipped the page. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized you were overcomplicating a simple system in your own head?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamesm3810d agoTop Commenter

The hour thing is a pretty big underestimate for most people, honestly. I had a similar phase where I was rewriting a full future log and all my monthly spreads at the start of every month. Took me like two and a half hours each time because I wanted everything to be perfect, same boxes, same colors, same everything. The part that got me was realizing you can just trace the page onto the next one if you want it exactly the same. Saves time and your hand from cramping up.

mary_martin229d ago

Oh gosh, yes. I did the exact same thing for almost a year and a half before I figured it out. I had this whole routine where I would redraw my habit tracker perfectly every month, making sure the grid lines matched up exactly, and I even had a specific pink highlighter for the weekends. One Sunday night I was on my third attempt because my lines were crooked and I just sat there thinking, "Why am I doing this to myself?" The girl in Denver was right, we just got so caught up in making it look nice that we forgot the whole point is to make our lives easier, not harder. I still laugh at how long it took me to realize I could just photocopy my own page.

raymitchell9d ago

James is right about the two and a half hours, I was being generous with the one hour because I didn't want to admit how much time I wasted on perfectly straight lines and matching pink highlighter weekends. Honestly, once I started just photocopying my weekly spread it saved me so much time I actually had energy to actually use my bujo instead of just making it.