How to set up bullet journal for college students
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- WHY YOU SHOULD USE A BULLET JOURNAL FOR COLLEGE
- BULLET JOURNAL SET UP FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
FINAL THOUGHTS
INTRODUCTION
n this post, you’ll see how to set up a bullet journal for college so that you can make the most of this exciting time in your life! Lets face it, college isn’t always fun. There is constant pressure to get good grades, take part in extracurriculars, look for a job.. the list is endless! Trying to juggle all of this at once AND have fun with your friends and explore yourself can be overwhelming and stressful.
By planning your time properly and keeping things organized, you can reduce your stress levels and have a wonderful time in college. And having a college bullet journal can help you do that. Bullet journaling is a powerful technique that can be used to improve your life and it is incredibly useful to you as a college student.
WHY YOU SHOULD USE A BULLET JOURNAL FOR COLLEGE
1. Helps you become more productive
When you use a bullet journal, you automatically stay away from digital devices and the constant distractions that come along with them. Reduced distractions and more focus equal increased productivity. Many bullet journals spreads help you manage your time more effectively which in turn makes you more productive.
2. You can stay more organized
By making different spreads, you can keep track of all the important things without a lot of effort. No more browsing through different books, emails and apps to get what you’re looking for! You can easily track things like your exam scores and get a better idea of what you’ve done so far and what you need to do.
A bullet journal is a great solution to keep everything organized in one place. If you’re not into using a physical journal, you can check out digital tools like Notion. Notion offers many free templates, which mimic different bullet journal spreads so it’s easy to apply all this digitally using Notion.
3. You become more self-aware
By using a bullet journal, you can learn more about your strengths and weaknesses, when you are the most productive. Keeping track of your habits and skills helps you become more self-aware so you can optimally utilize your time and energy in the best possible way.
4. Helps you reduce stress levels
Using a bullet journal can reduce your stress levels. Creating to-do lists, setting goals and writing important things and planning in advance can reduce your anxiety. Having this structure and routine can decrease your stress. Physically seeing these things written down reduces the burden in your mind and frees up your brain space. It also gives you a chance to take a break and tackle these things when you’re in a better state of mind. You can also use your bullet journal for reflective journaling, which can also be extremely therapeutic.
5. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on it
Bullet journal uses a technique called rapid logging. Rapid logging involves tracking your life in concise bulleted lists. in this technique, you write your entries as an event, a task or a note. Unlike a personal diary or a journal, you don’t need to write about every aspect of your day. So a bullet journal is perfect for busy college students like you!
6. Keeps you accountable
Having a bullet journal helps you stick to your habits. The different trackers in your journal keep you accountable and follow your habits more strictly. Your grade trackers. study trackers. all serve as a means of keeping you accountable to yourself.
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BULLET JOURNAL SET UP FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
Now that you know the benefits of using a bullet journal, are you excited to start your own bullet journal for college? Keep reading below to know how you can create a really useful bullet journal setup for college.
Btw, you can find 22 really useful spreads for college students here.
My college bullet journal setup includes the following spreads:
- Semester Overview
- Timetable
- Weekly Log
- Study Log
- Grade Tracker
- Budget Tracker
1. semester overview
This is how I start my college bullet journal. Having a semester overview page at the start of the bullet journal gives you an idea of the different things you have to do and want to achieve in that semester. You can expand it to create an overview for the entire college year if you wish.
You can include a brief overview of your semester schedule and your goals for the semester. This can comprise of academic goals – like publishing your research paper, completing a certification course or getting a certain CGPA, personal development goals like exercising every day or reading new books or college-related goals like being a member of your favorite sports team in college or heading the student organization.
Whatever your goals are, make sure you write them down along with the tentative timelines. Make sure you spread out your goals over the entire year or semester. Because if you’ve planned too many things in a short time span, you run the risk of feeling burnt out.
This spread will help keep you accountable and also motivate you when you feel like giving up. Because imagine how AMAZING it would feel to achieve all these things at the end of the year?! And even if you don’t achieve the, Read this post to see college goal ideas, whether they be academic goals, financial goals, self-development goals or health goals, to level up your life in 2022.
2. timetable
The second spread that I include in my college bullet journal is a timetable spread. This is an easy way to keep everything organized. Especially with online classes, the timings can get confusing so instead of scrambling around looking for the class timings, you can just refer to this page.
It’s a pretty basic spread; you just write down the days and time slots in a table and fill in your subjects accordingly. You can choose to add different details like the course code, and the classroom. ‘
A quick hack for you: If your school or college is just getting started, write the subjects on sticky notes. That way if the course timing changes, which does tend to happen early on in the semester or if you decide to drop the subject, you won’t mess up your page. 😀
3. weekly log
As a student, it is very important to plan your week. In your weekly log, you can write your main goals for the week and break them down into actionable tasks. You can then write those tasks on your to-do lists for each day.
You can make boxes for each day of the week and write down your daily tasks and also important events in those boxes.
4. study log
It’s also a great idea to keep a study log. In college, you have so many different subjects to study. So it’s important to have a study plan in place to get good grades. You can make different trackers for your subjects and write down the names of all the topics and subtopics you need to cover. Then, you just fill the relevant box whenever you study the subject. It’s that easy but doing this will help you see the bigger picture – everything that you have completed and everything you need to get done in just one glance.
Other than the marks aspect, a study log can save a lot of your time and help you become more productive. If you have your own study timetable, you’ll spend lesser time deciding what you want to study. And because you’ll keep track of your study progress, you’ll get a better idea of when you need to study more and when you can relax. You can then spend the extra time you have doing the things that you love. It’s a win-win situation!
Pro tip: While making this spread, do take into account other things that are important to you, whether it be sports or working on your own ideas. Yes, studies are important, but spending time exploring and doing the things that you love is just as important when you’re in college!
5. grade tracker
This is another spread that you should include in your college bullet journal. With multiple exams and assignments for every subject, it can be easy to forget your marks or grades.
You can make different sections for assignments and tests and write the weight of grades and actual grades next to them. With this tracker, you’ll be able to see which subjects you’re acing, and which subjects you need to put more work into.
There are all sorts of different graphs available which you can use to track your grades. I mentioned the most basic tracker ie in table form. But you can customize it according to your needs.
6. budget tracker
Monthly budgeting is a really important thing but also a difficult thing for many students. Most of us run on tight budgets so it’s very important to keep track of your money. That’s why you should definitely include this spread in your college bullet journal.
You can read more about why it’s important for college students to learn to budget and invest early.
You don’t need to create anything fancy, just a simple table where you can note down your income and expenses will do the job. But if you have any financial or investment goals, make sure you write those here. You can also set spending limits for yourself.
I like to make different sections, for example, for food, entertainment, college-related expenses, etc. and set an ideal spending amount for each category, Then I write my expenses under each category, That way it’s easier for me to make sure I’m not overspending on a particular category and I can also review if there are any places where I can cut back on my spending. You can also add visual trackers and graphs if you think that’ll help you.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In this post, you saw how to set up and use a bullet journal for college students. it might seem a bit intimidating at first, but once you start using it, it becomes so much easier. And it’ll save you a lot of time and energy and increase your productivity as well. It’s a great investment of your time to start using one today!
As I mentioned earlier, these are just the basics of a college bullet journal setup. You can always go over and beyond this and add graphs, trackers, and designs. Everyone is different so find out what works the best for you and just do that. It’s more important to actually use your bullet journal regularly if you want to gain benefits from it. So make sure you don’t overcomplicate it with so many details that you don’t feel like using it at all.
Here is a list of many more bullet journal spreads for college students so you can choose to include some of these as well.
I hope this post helps you to set up a bullet journal for college. How long have you been bullet journaling or are you a complete beginner? Let me know in the comments below!
It’s hard to find well-informed people about this subject, but you seem like you
know what you’re talking about! Thanks
Hi, thanks a lot 🙂 I’ve been journaling for a while now and I find it really helpful. Glad you liked it, have a great day! 😀