25 bullet journal hacks yes please let's go if you have a journal that doesn't have a pen loop
but does have an elastic closure you can bring the elastic around the top right corner across the
front of the notebook diagonally and then over the bottom right corner then you can slide your pen
under the elastic either on the front of the journal or on the side sometimes we set up a
layout that only takes one page or accidentally skip a spread in our journals keep a reference
list in the front of your journal about these skipped pages so that anytime you need a spare
page for something you want to add in your journal you can use those pages up first migrating tasks
from one spread to another can sometimes take a while for example from your weekly spread to other
parts of your journal to make sure that you know whether your migration has been completed in full
or if there are still things to be dealt with on the layout include a tick box at the top of the
spread so that you can denote when you finished with the spread fully if you have a task that
has multiple parts or subtasks you can nest the subtasks by indenting them underneath the main
task this helps to keep all of the relevant tasks together and allows you to see the progress you're
making with that task I use this for tasks like laundry with the subtasks of wash dry and put
away the advice from the original bullet journal method is to put any new collections on a new page
but sometimes the collections we want to set up are pretty small or maybe we want to be
able to more easily reference the information without having to flick back through a bunch
of daily or weekly logs our hack for this is to keep micro collections or collections that
you want to reference in the future in the back of your journal so that they're easier to find
for collections that you know you'll want to move into your next journal
set them up as removable pages this can be done by setting up a collection on a spare piece of paper
either from the back of your journal or from a dot grid notepad and then putting it into your journal
with washi tape or slipping it into the back pocket this means that when it comes to migration
you just have to take the collection out of your current journal and put it into your next one
if you have reference materials that you're going to want to refer to for quite a long time or even
just longer than the life of one journal another tip is to set up a separate journal for these I
call mine my long-term collections journal and it holds things like swatch pages from my favourite
pens a master list of the monthly themes I want to do my apocalist or things I want to do before
the apocalypse and other collections that are referenced for years to come when ruling lines
in your journal sometimes we run the risk of over or under extending those lines while lines
that are too short aren't too much of a hassle lines that are too long can be pretty annoying
safeguard yourself against over-extending lines by marking the first and last dot that you want
to rule between so that you know where to stop your ruling counting grid spaces when you're
setting up your journal can be a bit of a chore instead use your ruler to count the grid spaces
my dot grid has spaces that are half a centimetre wide so to count the number of
spaces I just double the numbers from my ruler for example one centimetre means two dot grid spaces
so four centimetres means eight dot grid spaces if that kind of math isn't really your thing you can
make a grid spacing ruler for your journal out of one of the pages in the back of your journal just
cut away the side of the page write numbers in all of the boxes from top to bottom and you can also
mark in specific page divisions to make setting up faster for example on this one I have the vertical
page divisions for halves thirds and also for when I want seven sections for example when
I’m setting up a weekly spread this ruler isn't see-through though so you can make it double-sided
having vertical journal spacings on one side and the horizontal journal spacings on the other
another hack related to the grid spacing guide is to put it in the front of your journal as a
flip out this means that you'll be able to see it from any page in your journal other things that
can be put in as flip outs include your journal key colour codes and other reference materials
colour keys can be an excellent way to add context to your event and task lists for example you might
want to colour code your tasks by location then when you're in that space you can focus on those
tasks specifically it can also help you to see the balance of your tasks from different life areas
getting things lined up nice and straight is important to me and might be to you as well to
make sure that items with straight edges are kept straight on my pages I use the dot grid to help me
line them up just bring the straight edge of the item to be stuck in along a column or row of the
dot grid making sure that an equal amount of each dot is covered by that edge making clean and crisp
boxes of colour using marker pens doesn't have to be a hassle use washi tape to mask parts of
your page to get those crisp lines just place the washi tape down where you want the edge of
the boxes to be colour in that section of the page and then carefully pull up the washi tape
to make pages in your journal easier to reference or find when your journal is closed
put washi tape along the side of those pages thicker washi tape will work better for this
as you'll be able to more easily see them when your journal is closed another hack to help you
find pages in your journal is to use tabs these can be purchased as tab stickers or you can make
them out of any stickers or washi tape you might have just stick them on one side of your page and
then fold them around to the other making sure to leave a little bit hanging over the edge so
they're nice and easy to see and pull open to inverted or negative tabs also work for this
you can cut out tabs or little triangular sections out of pages that hold information about the same
project or thing this makes it easier to find all of the related content when your journal is closed
stuff-ups happen and sometimes we have an entire page that we don't want in our journals anymore
remove pages safely by cutting away the page a little further out than the spine then you can
stick down the remaining piece of the page with double-sided tape or washi tape this
means you're less likely to cut too close to the binding edge of your journal and make other pages
fall out the removed pages or parts of pages are excellent to keep for covering up smaller mistakes
you can store them in a box of scraps or in the back of your journal extra paper can be
used in your journal to make tip-ins and these can be used to add extra space to a layout
on this page there wasn't enough space for all of the items that were related to this collection
but the attached tip-in gives more space to write in more things our next two hacks or tips are for
those who don't really like the idea of taking scissors to their journals to make Dutch doors
the first tip is to use a tip-in to make the Dutch door this is especially good for horizontal Dutch
doors which would require you to cut away the page at the spine of your journal just measure
the tip in Dutch door to size and stick it to the spine-edge of the spread with washi tape
the next hack for making Dutch doors without scissors is to use the folded dodge door instead
these are a vertical Dutch door so just fold along the middle of the page you can either leave this
just creased so you can use all four segments of the page or you can stick one side to the other
to make a narrower page in your journal if you have a list of tasks that you need to do each week
but you don't want to write them out on every single weekly this is where you can use a Dutch
door to help you turn to either the first or last page of your weeklies in that month and write your
task list out along one of the outer edges of the spread I’m writing along the right hand side as
this is the last page of my weeklies then you just need to cut away the pages in that area to have
the list visible on each of the weekly pages I’ve also included little dots on each of the weekly
pages where I can check off having completed those tasks sometimes we want to take down messy notes
that we don't necessarily want to keep in our journals forever for these store some post-it
notes in your journal in an easy to reference space the inside or back cover of your journal
works well otherwise you could have a dedicated page in the middle of your journal for this
for our self-proclaimed non-artists or for people like me who just want an exact replica of an image
in their journals tracing images in notebooks with thicker paper can be a bit of a challenge you
can trace images into 160 gsm paper notebooks by colouring in the back of the image with a graphite
pencil temporarily securing the image right way up into the correct place in your journal
I’m using washi tape for this then go over the outlines of the image with either pencil or a pen
I prefer to use a coloured ballpoint pen for this so I can see the lines that I’ve gone over
while also not running the risk of having ink bleed through the image that I’m tracing
when you're done pull the image up to reveal the traced picture what hacks did we miss let
us know your hacks in the comments or if you're looking for more bullet journal tips and tricks
check out the playlists and videos we have on the screen here until next time bye