Classes are underway. Exams are popping up left and right. There are projects everywhere and I am having trouble keeping everything straight.

That’s why we use planners. But planners really only tell us what we have to do for class. In college, there are a lot of things that need to be done that have nothing to do with our classes: laundry, doctor’s appointments, work projects, sorority and fraternity meetings and more.

A bullet journal is a great way to keep all aspects of life organized in a fun and colorful manner.

Bullet journaling has taken off in the last few years. A lot of bloggers use bullet journals and have tutorials on how to make one. I’m going to start off with the basics.

What is a bullet journal?

A bullet journal is the cross between a journal and a planner. You build your bullet journal yourself, so you get to decide what’s in it and what you want to see. Essentially, it’s a customized daily planner.

How does the bullet journal work?

That’s up to you. Most bullet journals start out with an index, sort of like in a book. You write down the page numbers of your notebook that correspond with certain calendars. Say your February calendar starts on page 14. You just write February-14 in the index to keep track of where everything is.

The main point is that bullet journals are highly customizable. Some people do daily meal plans at the beginning of each week to keep track of ingredients, caloric intake and what groceries they’ll be needing. Others do monthly cleaning schedules to keep track of what needs to be cleaned when. All of these ideas can be written out throughout the bullet journal with page numbers for them kept in the index.

Usually there’s a monthly calendar at the beginning of each month. This is where you write dates, days of the week and any major assignments, work projects or cleaning projects that need to be done. Personally, I color-code mine. Pink is for due dates and tests, purple is for doctor’s appointments, pencil is laundry and cleaning projects, blue is work and black is holidays or birthdays. It gives me a visual way of finding what I’m looking for.

After the monthly pages usually come the daily pages. This can be done in a variety of ways. Some people have the days split into sections on a page, one week in one spread. Others give each day their own page. This really depends on your own preferences and how much you have to do in any given day. It also depends on how much you’re going to use your journal.

I use mine a lot and like to have one page per day. I keep the same color coordination across every page so that I don’t get confused. I would recommend doing the same.

Using a bullet journal can be a bit confusing at first, but it really does help organize your life. There are multiple resources online to help get you started, including bulletjournal.com.