I might have a little time here and there to do creative designs with my journal. But usually I just need it to help manage the day. What's the fastest way to manage a bullet journal? As with many things in life, it depends. Let me offer an overview of the Universal Journal ultra-streamlined style. The Universal Journal style intends to help you spend as little time as possible setting up and using your bullet journal. It's counter productive to get burned out on a tool that's supposed to help you avoid burning out. This graphic recaps the basics. Check out some other posts on the topic. Bullet Journal Ultra-Streamlined Efficient workflow Decluttering your Journal Streamlined Color Coding Printables Thanks for visiting Universal Journal. Got any minimalist ideas you'd like to share with the rest of us? Please comment here.

So you've got multiple pages devoted to one topic strewn about your journal. What's an easy way to keep track of all that? Threading. We're not talking about eyebrow threading here, this is the bullet journal system. The threading technique is a simple way to maintain your bullet journal. By "maintain" I mean keeping your stuff organized, but with as little time and effort as possible. Setting up is one thing, keeping it all organized is another. The Index, the primary way of organizing your entire journal, is meant to help you find what you are looking for in your journal. But having to flip back and forth between your Index and your dispersed content slows you down. Threading solves this problem. The bullet journal's originator, Ryder Carroll, produced a video explaining how threading works. He explains how to thread multiple pages within a journal and how to thread between notebooks. If you want more on bullet journal threading you should visit...

One journal or multiple journals at the same time? That's the question. Some people experiment with more than one journal to separate the different dimensions of their lives. Even the bullet journal originator, Ryder Carroll, has tried this (see below for his video). I like having a notebook with me, a real paper notebook. But I don't want to carry around more than one journal. Lugging around multiple items is problematic enough for someone trying adopt a minimalist lifestyle, but trying to remember which notebook has what information seems to defeat that purpose. So how else can one separate the different dimensions of life but do so in an easy, streamlined way? Color. I use three colors in my bullet journal. I tried keeping three different implements but that was contrary to my desire for minimalism. The cheap multi-color pens are easy enough to find but I'm not really a fan of those. They are not particularly attractive and are more bulky than I prefer. If I'm...

When setting up a new journal notebook, many people like a year-at-a-glance page with the full calendar. That's one of many excellent ideas for setting up a new notebook. And it's a lot of writing if you set up a calendar manually. But you don't have to. Most of us use some form of a future log. I find myself occasionally referencing a traditional calendar when planning for an event. It would be nice not to have to go outside my bullet journal to do this. I also like the idea of a year-at-a-glance page but I don't want to have to write out all that. To help improve efficiency in your bullet journal, check out these free calendar thumbnails. Download the free calendar printables for the current year. You can use a thumbnail size, medium , or large size. Print, cut, and paste as needed. With these three sizes you can probably use the calendar printouts any way you would normally use a hand written calendar. These thumbnails work great for testing out vari...

A little foresight can go a long way in setting up a new bullet journal. This is especially true of features, such as important pages, that you intend to return to frequently. When I set up a new notebook I leave 3 or 4 empty spreads upfront. After the Index and the Future Log, these empty spreads are for important pages I plan to frequently reference. These could be my blogging schedule, a passwords spread, a log for miscellaneous income, a business plan, birthday/anniversary lists, a Christmas list, a reading list, a reusable weekly spread , anything I might look back to regularly. With this approach I might still mark an important page if it comes up later in the journal, using washi tape or something (as shown in this video of 10 Bullet Journal Hacks ). But if I reserve a spot in the front of the notebook I don't have to mark a page. This way I get the advantage of easily finding an important page without having to manually do anything to the notebook itself. ...