First and foremost, this is an unrivaled minimalist bullet journal setup guide.
Indeed, today I’m going to show you how to bullet journal like a minimalist.
So if you want to know:
- what makes your bullet journal minimalist
- what minimalism in bullet journaling means (hint: it isn’t always about creating black and white artsy stuff)
- how to start a simple journal
- how to set up your bujo for a more intentional life
- what bullet journal products to use
- the best minimalist bullet journal inspiration
Then keep reading.
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What Do You Need to Create Simple Bullet Journal Layouts
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Undoubtedly, here are my favorite ones I have stan for quite a long time.
As always, when I get this kind of question about the best bullet journal supplies, I like this quote:
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Theodore Roosevelt
In fact, all you need is a piece of paper and a pen.
However, if you’re a stationery nerd, you’ll appreciate more luxury bullet journal products.
Minimalist Bullet Journal Layout Ideas
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What Makes Your Bullet Journal Minimalist
Undoubtedly, there are two ways you can interpret what minimalism in the bullet journal means.
Aesthetic & Style
Firstly, the minimalist bullet journal comes with simple and clean structured spreads.
In most cases, it can be considered a bullet journal style with a neutral color palette, simple geometric lines, forms, shapes, and a lot of empty space.
For instance, you can:
- use a lot of white space or black and grey colors
- make awesome black-and-white art with a lot of details and fancy embellishments
- doodle some basic things like flowers or leaves with clean, black lines to make the spread feel minimalistic
Besides, as I was gathering minimalist bullet journal inspiration, I noticed one thing.
All bullet journalists, who are in love with a minimal style, have one thing in common.
Definitely, their handwriting is beyond amazing.
In my opinion, it’s a secret ingredient that levels up your bujo spread from mediocre to great.
So if you’re interested in keeping a bullet journal with a minimalist style, scroll down the page to the bottom.
You’ll find some amazing minimalist bullet journal spread inspiration.
Journaling for a More Intentional Life
Secondly, you keep your journal minimal because your bullet journal intentions are to:
- have a place where you can put all your thoughts, experiences
- become a better person
- improve your clarity and focus
- make your life organized with schedules and lists
- plan and follow your tasks
- keep you accountable for your goals
- journal for self-growth, self-improvement, or even meditation
- unleash your creativity
Also, creating a bullet journal with a minimal style doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
By the way, artistic bullet journals are more likely to scare many people away from bullet journaling.
Instead of growing this positive mindset and creating powerful habits, they get stressed up.
They think they have to put a lot of time and effort into keeping a bullet journal.
So either they’re overwhelmed with self-doubt or they focus solely on making bullet journal spreads aesthetically pleasant.
As the end result, they think that bullet journaling is time-consuming and unsustainable.
Generally, it doesn’t work.
Along with this, keep your bullet journal intentions in the back of your mind.
If you want to use your notebook as an art journal, there’s nothing wrong with it.
After all, it’s up to you what you include in your journal.
However, if artistic bullet journal spreads don’t work for you (although it’s so inspiring to look at them), I suggest ditching them, returning to bullet journal roots, and redoing your bullet journal system.
How to Set Up a Clear Bullet Journal
Generally, bullet journaling should be a quick and easy part of your routine.
If your bullet journal intention is to keep it strictly for productivity and self-growth, setting up a minimalist bullet journal doesn’t have to take more than 10 minutes.
What to Include in Your Planner
In order to keep your pages simple and intentional, you have to ask yourself one question.
Basically, ask yourself what are the most important things you want to focus on right now.
You need to create and customize your bujo that is well-tailored to your personality and lifestyle.
I think the most crucial part of this system
With this in mind, the next step you follow is to determine the most important pages you want to have in your bujo notebook.
Obviously, you can find many amazing minimalist bullet journal ideas on Pinterest.
But if they don’t fit your personality and lifestyle, what’s the point of spending time to create them?
Similar to decluttering your home, getting rid of unused bujo spreads makes your bujo life a lot easier.
Next, you create a minimalist bullet journal by drawing simple doodles, easy bujo headers, and other elements.
Definitely, you don’t focus on making a masterpiece.
Or even dive into very small details.
Quite the opposite, you keep your bujo spread clean and practical.
Simple Bujo Collections
Also, feel free to complete your bujo setup with collection pages.
For instance, you can include the following bullet journal page ideas:
- gratitude log
- meal planner
- review page
- brain dump
- goal page
- Level 10 Life
- self-care pages
- workout tracker
- habit tracker
- mood tracker
Although they’re simple, they can be used to improve your life significantly.
My Simple Bullet Journal Setup
Definitely, I consider myself a minimalist.
For me, minimalism is living with less.
Not only less stuff in my home but also less stuff in my head.
In fact, bullet journaling is my lifesaver.
For the most part, my approach to bujo is practical.
To demonstrate it, I’ll show you how I set my simple bullet journal.
As a rule, setting up a brand new bullet journal notebook starts with basic elements.
- future log (a great place to write down all important events, birthdays, appointments, etc)
Additionally, I added my most important yearly spreads like:
- Level 10 Life (for successful goal setting)
- blogging pages with stats, new ideas, and strategies (for business growth)
- cleaning schedule (to declutter my home regularly)
- books & podcast tracker (for self-improvement)
In case, you’d like to see my bujo spreads, here are my 2022 bullet journal with setups for 2021, 2020, and 2019 as well.
Then, as a full-time blogger and a full-time mama, who works from home, my minimalist bullet journal includes such pages:
- cover page (it helps to divide a bujo into months)
- monthly spread (for goals and current events)
- weekly spread (to plan next week ahead)
- weekly and accordingly monthly review (to see what I’ve done)
- habit tracker (to develop better habits)
- mood tracker (to get to know my emotions better)
- braindump (because writing keeps my mind clear)
- gratitude journal (to express my feelings)
- finance pages (to improve my financial health)
Without a doubt, bullet journaling is all about flexibility and freedom.
But, if I was allowed to create any rules, I’d say one thing.
It doesn’t matter how your notebook looks.
Minimalist Bullet Journal Cover Inspiration
Setting up simple planner pages can be as easy as it ever can be.
However, there’s a small chance you’re looking for something more spectacular.
And what’s more amazing than adding bullet journal monthly cover pages?
January Bullet Journal
Simple October Bullet Journal Cover
This October bullet journal cover includes pumpkin doodles, fall night elements, and a mini calendar.
All designs were created with black ink fineliner and an orange Zebra mildliner.
Minimalist Bullet Journal – Final Thoughts
Undoubtedly, one of the biggest assets of journaling is that there’s no set structure you have to follow.
Contrary to planners and other preprinted journals, you design your notebook to suit your needs.
However, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what will work best for you.
Although you can add anything you want to your bujo, it may lead you to get stressed.
Absolutely, it doesn’t matter how your notebook looks. As long as you see positive changes in your life, everything is just fine.
What’s Next? I Bet You Want To Read These Bullet Journal Guides:
Bullet Journal Tips You’ll Want To Know Before You Start
Bullet Journal Hacks That’ll Cut Your Set-Up Time A Half
How To Set Up Your First Bullet Journal
Easy Notebook Ideas – FAQ
In conclusion, here are the questions my readers most often ask me about the minimalist approach to the bullet journal method.
How Do You Make a Minimal Bullet Journal?
First and foremost, bullet journalling itself was created by Ryder Carroll as a simple time management tool.
In other words, to make a minimalistic bullet journal, choose a minimalist design with clean lines, simple spread ideas, and minimalist layouts.
Basically, all you need to do is focus more on how a minimalist bujo works rather than fancy decoration (however, adding some washi tape is always an option, blink, blink).
Again, keeping a clean look is a great way to streamline your daily tasks with ease.
Additionally, stick to a few different colors for a minimalist look.
How To Do a Bullet Journal for Improved Focus and Organization?
As I mentioned before, after seeing some great ideas for cute bujo pages, you may be tempted to set up all the pages at one time.
Although bullet journaling is a great creative outlet, it can be overwhelming.
So to avoid that type of situation, start by adding the following minimalist pages:
Index
Assign a page number to each spread so you make it easy to find a specific page quickly.
Future Log
Definitely, it’s the perfect spot for future plans such as events, birthdays, dates, etc.
Monthly Log
Also, a monthly log allows you to keep track of all your important tasks in one place.
Weekly Log
In addition to the monthly log, consider creating a new spread for your weekly calendar.
Surely, it’s a simple way to plan your tasks and activities for each day of the week in the current month.
After you spend some time with your minimalist bullet journal spreads, feel free to expand your notebook to other collections.
For example, I highly recommend adding the following minimalist bullet journal layouts:
To-Do List
Firstly, a to-do list is a perfect example of a simple single page you want to add as your next bujo page.
Indeed, it’s a great thing to organize specific tasks, making it easier to prioritize.
By the way, last year it was the only thing I created in my bullet journal.
Simple Habit Tracker
Sometimes working towards specific goals for the entire year can be difficult.
However, building new good habits that serve your personal goals is an easy way to make positive changes in your life each day of the week.
Undoubtedly, simple habit trackers allow you to establish daily routines and track progress, by keeping a structure to your daily activities.
Also, you feel accomplished after checking off the completed activities at the end of the day.
Indeed, it’s amazing how working with a simple tracker can immediately improve your mood.
Not to mention, your personal growth.
Meal Planning
Additionally, the best way to organize your meals is by setting up a meal planner as your next minimal bullet journal spread.
This simple design helps you to reduce the stress of deciding what to eat on all days of the week.
Do You Bullet Journal Every Day?
So when it comes to daily bullet journaling, I’d say that it depends.
In fact, different people use their journals for many different things.
By the way, if you’re looking for different ways to use your blank journal, here are a lot of ideas on how to fill an empty notebook.
Nevertheless, I need to admit that I don’t create any kind of a daily log or a daily schedule in my bujo.
Definitely, I prefer working with simple pages for the following week.
However, I use the following bullet journal spreads on a daily basis:
- weekly habit tracker
- to-do list
On the other hand, I use the following pages on a monthly basis:
- monthly overview
- future log
Does a Bullet Journal Really Work?
In general, a bullet journal can really work.
While it might take a little less time to set up, the real magic happens over a period of time.
Personally, I think it’s the best place to track your personal growth while still planning fun activities for the rest of the year.
With a lot of people sharing their experiences on social media or throughout blog posts, you can discover great places to improve your productivity and organization.
After all, if bullet journal works or not for you, it’s all in your hands and how you tailor it to suit your needs and preferences.
How Do You Bullet Journal When You’re Not Artistic?
Definitely, you can easily bullet journal and you don’t want to spend too much time on creating artistic spreads.
Just use a simple black pen and stick to a neutral color scheme.
Additionally, keep your layouts clean.
Basically, feel free to start with vertical lines to separate sections.
For example, write your to-do list on one side and a brain dump page on the opposite page.
Indeed, you don’t need beautiful minimalist spreads- the only thing you need is a clear system.
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