It's official. I am a convert. Digital planners, goodnotes and ipads are the way forward.
I was a huge fan of bullet journals when they came out a few years ago. HUGE fan. I had a leuchtturm, I had all the pens, the zebra mildliners, the washi tape.... I was in heaven.
It didn't last.
Bullet journals aren't for everyone for a number of reasons.
What is good about bullet journalling:
Being able to define your own layout
I either write a lot or I write nothing, and traditional paper planners only give you a strict format and a tiny space per day to get your head on paper. I used my bullet journal to help me recover from severe burnout by focussing on my mental and emotional wellbeing more than on my to do list.
My bullet journal allowed me to take stock of my life using tools like the Level 10 Life Wheel and habit trackers. It also provided space for affirmations and gratitude in a way that suited the way my brain worked. Creative and logical brains do not work in the same way, and unfortunately, planners available in stores are often geared towards (and likely made by) very linear-thinking Type-A individuals, which I am not.
I also liked having a creative outlet. Bullet journals can be a fun way to express yourself creatively. As a designer, it is essential to be able to create things just for fun in order to keep your soul and sanity, so you don’t burn out. When the only thing you create is stuff for other people that meets their requirements, it’s often more stressful and boring than it is fun, and creative in the truest sense.
What is not great about bullet journalling
While I initially looked forward to getting my fancy pens out and doing my monthly spreads, the novelty soon wore off. It quickly became a pain in the arse chore every month that took ages, and I ended up dreading it. Because I couldn't be bothered to lay my bullet journal out nicely some months, I didn't use my planner; then the wheels came off, and my habits and goals went out of the window as well, because I had depended on my planner to keep me on track with them.
The perfectionism. Oh god the perfectionism. The annoyance I'd feel when I'd spent ages on a layout and then a pen leaked, or I made a mistake, or my ruler dragged ink across the page and lumpy tippex issues. I couldn't even rip the pages out either because they were numbered and that would mess up my index system. Laying out my spreads was not the mindful creative process I had envisioned it being - it was just an anxiety provoking frustrating stressfest. I have an amazingly talented friend who is a professional artist. She loved the idea of a bullet journal but she was so overcome by perfectionism paralysis that she never actually started one. I can only imagine the paralysis people have who are insecure about their artistic & handwriting skills.
While nobody overtly stated 'your spreads have to be perfect' or 'you must have this pen set', we all know the comparison game on the internet is insidious and fierce. The standards set by the bullet journal community to have perfect handwriting, beautiful illustrations, expensive pens etc is quite overwhelming. For many people who don't consider themselves gifted artists, or who don't have the budgets to be spending £14 on a notebook and £4 on one single felt tip pen, it is also incredibly intimidating and excluding.
As someone who is naturally rebellious and very independent thinking I'm not easily suckered into trends and crowd following. However, the bullet journalistas hit me in a weak spot I didn't know I had: the stationery magpie 'nads. The more I thought about it and realised how many of my choices were being led by the bullet journal community, the more offputting I found it and the more I began distancing myself from it.
The sheer volume of unnecessary crap I accumulated that I only bought because of bullet journalling posts on instagram is not even funny: Pastel highlighters, crayola markers (which I hadn't bought since I was in primary school and hadn't missed having for 30 years), ultra-fine micron pens that became unusable if you left the cap off for more than a minute, the washi tape that just shredded when you tried to get it off the roll.... Not to mention the physical space that storing all this shit took up in my room. If you've read my post on my desk situation, you will know how tiny my space is, how multifunctional it has to be, and how little unnecessary crap I actually have space for.
I stopped journalling for a couple of years, but really missed the checking-in-with-myself aspect. Goal setting etc at the beginning of the year just wasn't a thing I did without it and I missed that too, because I achieve so much more when I am able to get clear on my goals and have a system in place to keep focussed on them.
Then I got an ipad, and discovered that digital planners were a thing on goodnotes and everything changed.
Why digital planners on ipad are better than bullet journals
You can still be creative, but without any of the perfectionism stress. Digital planners still let you create custom layouts if you choose, but there are also a ton of digital planner templates available online. You don't have to draw the whole thing out manually every single month, so keeping it going is no longer a chore! You could still have your favourite bullet journal spreads like L10 Life and habit trackers, and if you make a mistake it doesn't matter - you can just erase it without any tippex dramas. You can still draw in procreate and import it over to GoodNotes.
It's even more customisable than the paper planner because template planners have hyperlinked navigations. From a maker's point of view you can literally connect pages with a click of a button, and from a users point of view it's as easy as clicking through a website providing the structure and user experience has been carefully thought through by the designer.
If you want to insert an extra page because you ran out of space or want to have a list or something, you absolutely can without having to use one ounce of glue and ingenuity.
You still even have the analog feeling of writing while using the apple pencil, especially with using a paper-feel screen cover like this one from Bellemond
I can do so much more with a digital planner than I ever could with a bullet journal. I would never go back
At the risk of sounding like a representative for GoodNotes (I'm not, just a rabid fan), with an app like that it makes the entire process SO easy and enjoyable!
I can import pictures from my camera roll into my calendar, I can have moodboards from pinterest searches, and big bold colours that don't leak through the page. I can have multiple notebooks that take up zero physical space. I can draw straight lines without needing a ruler, I don't have to worry about smudging, I can use multiple pen widths and colours and digital washi tape and stickers, and make things look pretty without having a drawer so full of accessories I couldn't close it. It saves a ton of plastic waste when you consider the number of pens and tippex and all the packaging that comes with them that all end up in the bin. All I needed was an apple pencil an ipad, and goodnotes (which is free). My mind was blown.
The only problem for me was that I couldn't find any digital planners that I liked the design of, or that worked with my brain. So, I thought to myself 'Self... you're a graphic designer.... if people on the internet who are not graphic designers can make these things, how hard can it possibly be to make your own?'.
So I made my own. It took me bloody ages and there was a lot of trialling, thought, planning and cursing involved and more coffee than I should be allowed in a day, but I'm really proud of what I made. Check out my post on it here! or have a look at my Etsy shop
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