As I said in my last bullet journal (bujo) post, they are completely customization and you can use them anyway you want. That being said, there are a few sections that are pretty standard in every bujo.
First up, the index.
As you can see, this is exactly what you would expect form an index. This step is not to be skipped, especially if you include anything besides a calendar in your bujo. Your index is where you can find all your random information. It is also helpful if you run out of room on any page and need to continue your thoughts on a second, non-consecutive page. You can easily find all this information if you've written down where to find it on your index.
The next common section is some type of calendar at a glance and/or future log.
Already, there are so many different ways to document this. Some people choose to make this two separate sections as well. For this first book, I chose to just create a future log so that I had somewhere to write down important dates and special events. As if you don't already have enough choices, some people also choose to split this off even more and create special pages just for birthdays, or other specific calendars depending on what your life schedule is like.
From here, bullet journals really start to show their personality. For the planner aspect of a bujo, there is usually some form of a monthly layout. These can range anywhere from a straight forward calendar of boxes to a list of days where either and all options in between may or may not include goals, tasks, expenses, mini trackers, etc. Although I like recording some of that information, I haven't included as part of a monthly spread. At least not yet, as I can always change my layout every month if I decided to try something different. So far, I have used this type of layout for my monthly layout.
Most bullet journals continue to break down after the monthly layout to a weekly spread and/or a daily log. You can do a simple search on google, pinterest, or instagram and join facebook groups to see different layouts, but in my book, I sort of merge the weekly and daily.
If you're looking for a place to journal daily activities, I would suggest keeping a weekly and separate daily pages.
Before leaving the idea of using a bullet journal as a planner, here are the other pages that I include each month. My monthly meal planner.
My mood tracker.
And a habit tracker.
I'm only in my third month of using the mood and habit trackers, but I like it so far, even though I'm still changing how they look.
The final section of almost every bullet journal is collections. These collections are anything you choose to include in your bujo besides your calendar. Seriously, anything! Common collections include tracking books, movies and TV shows (to read/watch or have read/watch.)
Of course, you can include any collection you'd like, but here are a few that I have included so far in my bujo.
My Whole30 journey.
Blog topics of a link-up I participate in, since I got tired of looking this up every other week.
A workout schedule.
A running log.
There are so many other ideas that I have wanted to include, but I haven't taken the time to include yet. Although I have many mistakes and failed pages in my bujo, I still overthink almost everything I include. So, even though I could theoretically quickly jot down all these ideas, I haven't done it yet since I want them all to look pretty. Yes, I know this kind of defeats the purpose, but I also find making the pretty pages a little therapeutic. Not to mention how accomplished and happy I feel after completing a pretty spread.
If this sounds helpful and fun for you, take these standard sections and make them your own.
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