Hit 500 pages in my bullet journal and honestly it's a mess

I was flipping through my old journals last night and counted up 500 pages of spreads I'd made over the last 3 years. That number shocked me because I never thought I'd stick with this system for that long. The thing is, half those pages are failed layouts or collections I abandoned after a week. My monthly log from June 2023 still has a grocery list from July 2022 in the margin (I missed the page when flipping back). Does anyone else have a pile of half-used journals they can't bring themselves to throw out?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma_perry15d ago

That number really sinks in when you realize it's three years of daily habit tracking and project planning. But here's what I'm wondering - when you look back at those abandoned spreads, do you see them as failures or just natural experiments that told you what didn't work? Because for me, those half-used pages are proof I was trying to find my groove, not that I was doing it wrong. My question is this: would you rather have a perfectly consistent journal or one that shows the real messy process of figuring things out? There's something honest about those grocery lists and forgotten collections.

jesse_burns815d ago

My buddy Ryan tried bullet journaling for about 6 months back in 2021. He had this whole color coded tracker for his water intake and workout schedule but gave up halfway through February. Last time I was at his place I saw the journal sitting on his coffee table with a coffee ring on the cover and the rest of the pages blank. He told me he keeps it there because the little bit he did helped him remember to drink more water even if he never finished the rest. Said it was like a weird trophy for trying something new.