Staying organised, one page at a time
By Khoo Sin Yee
Find out why more youths are keeping bullet journals as KHOO SIN YEE speaks to three youths who are taking a creative spin on journaling.
A bullet journal spread made by Heidi, inspired by lyrics from a BTS song. Photo courtesy of @scftyghiblies on Instagram.
Heidi Tan, 14, a Secondary Two student, intricately picks out a colour theme before she designs any journal spread, and chooses a matching base supply of stickers and washi tapes to go along with her chosen theme.
Heidi can spend up to two days working on her bullet journal spread before feeling satisfied with the outcome to share photos of it on Instagram. This artistic student is one of the many youths taking a creative spin on the organising system of bullet journaling.
The stationery-loving teenager first started bullet journaling in March 2019, after getting inspiration from her friend’s bullet journal. Today, she runs an Instagram account, @scftlyghiblies, dedicated to sharing photos of her well-designed bullet journal spreads.
Digital product designer, Ryder Carroll, developed the Bullet Journal Method in 2013 as a way to meet his personal needs for productivity and concentration. The system involves organising schedules, daily tasks and other personal goals in a single notebook.
Bullet journaling took off in 2017, with over millions of posts under the hashtag, #bulletjournal, on Instagram and Twitter. According to market statistics website, Statista, the Hobbies and Stationery Market segment in Singapore reached an estimate of 440 thousand users in 2019, an increase from the 330 thousand users in 2017.
“I have this habit where after a long period where I’ve been studying a lot, I’ll just sit down and bullet journal,” says Heidi, who used journaling as a way to unwind after a long and tiring day of studying for her geography test.
Bullet journaling is also used as a form of creative expression, with stationery such as coloured pens, calligraphy markers and washi tape being commonly used to personalise journal spreads.
“[Bullet journaling] provides me an outlet to express my own form of creativity that schools don’t usually provide,” says Lee Si Jia, 14, a Secondary Two student who uses bullet journaling to stay on track to achieve her goals while expressing her creative ideas.
Infographic by Khoo Sin Yee.
“At that point, I had this spur of motivation and I wanted to plan out my day consistently to maximise productivity,” says Si Jia as she explains how she started her journey in bullet journaling.
She now gets that same “spurt of motivation” from completing the to-do tasks for the day in her journal.
However, the large association of aesthetic designs that comes with bullet journaling has led to the common misconception that all bullet journals have to be aesthetically pleasing, an idea intimidating to some who are considering to try out this trend.
Results from a survey about bullet journaling conducted by KITSCH with 100 people showed that 46 per cent of respondents who do not keep a bullet journal say they are “not creative enough to make [the journal] aesthetic”.
This was a worry once shared by Bernice Lian, 16, a Secondary Four student who has been journaling since 2017.
Like Heidi, Bernice also uses Instagram as a platform for her to share the results of her minimalist-styled bullet journal spreads on a journaling account, @icebearnotes, on Instagram.
Caligraphy, decorative stickers and the use of colourful stationery are common elements found in most bullet journal spreads. Photo courtesy of @icebearnotes on Instagram.
Bernice once used to feel pressured about keeping her journal “nice” and “aesthetic” which made her feel worried about what others would think about her style of journaling. However, the encouragement she received from friends in the online bullet journaling community helped her overcome these worries.
“I’ve met a lot of nice people here and we usually [collaborate] with each other based on the types of spreads we want to make, so that’s what [definitely] keeps me going,” Bernice says.
Through Instagram, Bernice has formed friendships with other bullet journalers, bonding over their shared love for the hobby. Bernice shares how the advice and encouragement from her friends in the bullet journaling community helped her realise that “bullet journaling and showing it online is not just about impressing other people”.