Practice Mindfulness with Your Bullet Journal

When you are trying to practice self-care and self-improvement, you have been 
probably heard of two pieces advice – practice mindfulness, and start using a journal.
Why are these often included in the list of tips? Because of how useful they are! Not 
only can you be more mindful on a daily basis and use a traditional type of journal for 
helping improve your life one step at a time, but you can combine them and utilize the 
unique benefits of a bullet journal.

In the next few pages, you will learn all about bullet journaling, mindfulness, and how to 
combine them to help become the person you want to be. Take your time, absorb this 
information, and think of how you can utilize these tips in your own life.

1. Why Mindfulness?

Before looking at how to combine mindfulness and your bullet journal, it helps to first 
understand a little bit more about being more mindful, what it means, and how it works. 
This might seem a little confusing in the beginning, but there are many benefits for your 
mental and physical health, so it is worth it for everyone to learn more about the mindful 
practice.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is simple – you are focusing on living only in the present. What you focus 
on is the here and now, whether that is what you are eating, thinking about, doing, or 
focusing on. You learn how to appreciate what is happening at this very moment instead 
of dwelling on the past or worrying too much about the future. 

You want to use mindfulness to become more in tuned with yourself and be aware of 
your feelings and thoughts at all times, instead of just pushing them aside to focus on 
other things. It can really help you become a more self-aware person that expresses 
gratitude and lives a more fulfilling existence.

It Improves Your Self-Awareness

The first reason you should start practicing mindfulness, especially with your bullet 
journal, is that it can help you to really find that self-awareness you are looking for. This 
is an important part of any self-improvement journey, allowing you to look deep in your 
subconscious, figure out where your thoughts and feelings are coming from, and reflect 
on them as much as possible. 

You Can Reduce Anxiety

Mindfulness has also shown to be very successful at helping to relieve anxiety. For 
many people, anxiety and panic attacks come from overthinking or being fearful of 
certain situations. You can actually stop a panic attack dead in its track with enough 
practice by using mindfulness. 

Typically, if you start feeling the signs of a panic attack coming on, you would start 
telling yourself where you are, that it is only your anxiety, that you are fine and in a safe 
place, and with enough practice, this can help to calm you down enough to where the 
panic doesn’t escalate from there.

It Helps Improve Your Memory Function

This might be one of the more surprising benefits of mindfulness. You can actually 
boost your memory function and concentration by practicing mindfulness. This is a 
benefit of doing it daily, on a regular basis, and preferably multiple times a day. 
The more you really focus and concentrate on things and feelings throughout the day, 
the easier it becomes to recall them later on. You are training your brain to hold onto 
memories for longer periods of time, which can help in many different facets of your life.

2. Quick Introduction to Bullet Journaling

Now that you understand a little more about mindfulness and how it can be effective at 
improving your life, let’s discuss the bullet journal. Perhaps you aren’t sure what this 
type of journal is, or are just a little confused about why it would help you with 
mindfulness.

Here is a brief introduction about bullet journals:

The bullet journal is a type of journal and planner that will allow you to simplify and 
organize your life. It is complex in how much you can do with it, but you can make it 
very simple when you are using it for mindfulness. 

With a bullet journal, you have different sections dedicated to calendars, planners, task 
lists, journaling, and anything else you want to include. To understand it best, it is good 
to look online at what other people are doing with their bullet journals.

When Did Bullet Journals Start?

While many people have jotted down notes in a way similar to how people use their 
bullet journals today, there was never really a way to describe it. However, around 
2013, Ryder Carroll officially invented the bullet journal and began sharing his ideas 
with the world.

He was a digital product designer who live in New York, and had trouble keeping up 
with his own demanding lifestyle. He would use many of the practices you see used in 
the bullet journal, and decided others might also benefit from it.

It is important to note that you can turn the bullet journal into anything you want, but in 
the following sections we will talk about using it specifically for mindfulness and 
developing a healthier mindset for a healthier life.

3. How a Bullet Journal Helps

Now for the part you want to know – how exactly do you practice mindfulness with your 
bullet journal? The reason the bullet journal can be so useful is because it allows you to 
not just organize your life, but really focus on each part of your life, which is going to be 
the core of mindfulness

Practicing Mindfulness One Page at a Time

As we discussed previously, mindfulness is all about living in the moment. You are 
really practicing a lot of self-awareness by understanding your thoughts, feelings, and 
experiences in any given moment. This can be anything from being at work to reading a 
book or just eating a meal. You are appreciating the moment, studying it, and living 
deep within it, instead of just mindlessly going from task to task.

When you practice mindfulness with a bullet journal, each page and section of that 
journal is allowing you to focus more on what you are writing about. For example, if you 
have a section dedicated to short-term and long-term goals, you are not just going to list 
them and move on, but look at each goal, and really study it. Focus on it. Create a plan 
to achieve it.

The Different Ways of Using Mindfulness

Another important aspect of using the bullet journal is that it can provide a lot of different 
ways to use it for mindfulness. This will depend on you and what your main goals are. 
Maybe you are trying to lose weight and you feel that your mindset is keeping you from 
it. You can start not only practicing mindfulness during each meal to eat more intuitively 
to get away from emotional eating, but you can record your food in the bullet journal 
which is going to help you focus on it even more. 

As we move on, think about the different ways a bullet journal can benefit you as it 
applies to mindfulness. Make a list of reasons WHY you need to be more mindful in 
your life, and might discover some different ways the bullet journal can be useful to you.


4. Guide to Being More Mindful with a Bullet Journal

At this point, you have a better understanding of what mindfulness is, how it works, and 
how it can benefit you. You also now have a good idea of using the bullet journal, but 
we want to give you some more details. 

The following tips and suggestions will offer a more in-depth look to using your bullet 
journal for mindfulness and creating a positive mindset moving forward in your life. This 
is going to be very useful for self-improvement and personal growth.

Start with a Minimal Bullet Journal

If you don’t yet have a bullet journal you want to use, then this is a good idea to start 
with a very simple one. You don’t need to worry about all the different pages and 
sections other people focus on, but instead only include sections specifically designed 
to help with your self-improvement journey.

The first thing to remember when setting it up is that you want more free and empty 
pages for writing, note-taking, and sketches. These are going to be used for 
mindfulness and will really allow you to use it both as a traditional journal and a bullet 
journal.

Many bullet journals are only for rapid logging and lists and calendars, but for the sake 
of mindfulness, you want more free pages throughout the journal to jot down longer 
sections of notes. This allows you to live more mindfully and express your thoughts and 
feelings for better self-reflection.

Use Calendar Pages and Lists to Your Advantage

Since you are using a bullet journal instead of a traditional journal for your mindfulness 
journey, you are still going to have some pages dedicated to rapid logging. Calendar 
pages and lists can also be really helpful for this. It will allow you to reflect on your goals 
and tasks that need to be done, without causing added stress because you might miss 
something.

This is typically where it turns into a planner and a journal. How does this help with 
being more mindful? If you are able to look at your calendar for the week or month and 
know exactly what needs to be done and when, you are able to free your mind from the 
stress of thinking you need to get more done during any particular moment. This allows 
you to relax a little more and be mindful of what is happening in any given moment.

As you begin using the bullet journal more, you will really understand how beneficial this 
can actually be. You will also be able to have simple tracker pages, so if you want to 
record your feelings, fears, or worries at any given moment, you can do so quickly and 
easily with the bullet journal sections.


More Recommended Sections

Depending on the size of your journal and what your personal preferences are, there 
are some other sections that can also be useful for the purpose of being more mindful 
and changing your mindset to be more positive. Here are a few sections to try to include 
if you can:

Daily affirmations – If you can only fit in one more section in your bullet journal, this 
should definitely be it. Affirmations are phrases or sentences that help you feel positive 
and inspired. They can really help you to become more mindful and train your mind to 
be positive on a regular basis. These can be affirmations you make up yourself or that 
you find elsewhere.

Inspirational quotes – Don’t forget about your inspirational quotes! Have a collection of 
quotes that help you feel inspired to a better person, change the way you think about 
certain things, and really just be a happy, fulfilled person all around. Here are some 
quotes to get you started:

“The Pessimist Sees Difficulty In Every Opportunity. The Optimist Sees Opportunity 
In Every Difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

“We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated.” – Maya Angelou


“Whether You Think You Can Or Think You Can’t, You’re Right.” – Henry Ford
Inspiring people or things – Is there someone or something in your life that always 
inspires you to be better? If so, write it down! Talk about that person, discuss the event 
that changed your perspective. This can be an ongoing list that you continue adding to 
when you find new things, people, or situations that you believe will help you on your 
journey to being a more mindful person.

Creating a Mindfulness Layout

The last bit of advice for your mindful bullet journal is to choose a mindfulness layout 
specifically meant for this purpose. You can use this layout on multiple pages that is 
going to ask you to describe what is happening right now. Write down the date, then list 
what you are feeling, what you are thinking about, how the day is going, describing each 
sensation and each thought. It is a great tool to be used in your journal.



