If you follow me on Instagram, then you may have noticed that I'm rather partial to bullet journalling. If you're new to bullet journalling I have written a couple of posts on it in the past (although these are super old and I'm in the process of updating them), but to get you up to speed, you can head here to see how to get started.
Anyway, one thing that I love about the flexibility of a bullet journal is that you can use it to keep track of whatever you want. It's your journal and is set up however you want it to be, which gives you the freedom to use it in whatever way brings value or meaning into your life.
For that reason, I think bullet journalling offers opportunity to work alongside various health and wellbeing focused practices.
HABIT TRACKING
If you're trying to work new activities into your daily and weekly habits or are keen to see how often you're managing to engage in health and wellbeing promoting activities then habit trackers are a great place to start. They're totally flexible and you can keep track of as many or as little habits as you like.
I personally find having a visual list of things that I intend to engage in can encourage me to do them that little bit more (although this doesn't always work). I feel it offers an opportunity to keep yourself accountable, but also to be honest with yourself in relation to how often you actually participate in something.
Plus if you want to get all fancy, you can seriously jazz them up by making pretty patterns within your tracker (this is clearly for people like me who have far too much time on their hands!).
I have a whole board dedicated to habit trackers over on my Pinterest which you can peruse for some inspiration!
MOOD TRACKING
For me, being aware of my mood and emotions is an important part of practising self care and compassion. Mood trackers allow you to keep a log of how you were feeling on a particular day which might then allow you to make links with how you feel and what you do (particularly if you're habit tracking alongside this).
There are lots of different, creative ways to track your moods, ranging from a simple chart to prettier geometric designs to the slightly more complex but beautiful mood mandala.
GRATITUDE LOG
One thing that has been shown to help in improving wellbeing and quality of life is practising gratitude. The bullet journal allows you to capture this in visual form in a variety of ways, for example through pictures, collecting mementos and written daily gratitude lists. I personally like to try to write a line or two a day of the things I'm grateful for. I find this a very grounding task that encourages me to reflect on the positives in my day, even if the day itself hasn't been the best.
MEAL PLANNING
If you're trying to make more positive food choices as part of improving your health and wellbeing, then your bullet journal can be used to either plan meals or track what you're eating and drinking. This doesn't necessarily have to be a separate tracker, and could easily be worked into your habit tracker or daily/weekly spreads. I personally work a menu into my weekly spreads (although admittedly this is more for organisational/preventing food waste purposes), alongside logging my water intake on my habit tracker.
EXPRESSING CREATIVITY
Bullet journals are a great way to let your creativity flow. It's a space to create your own rules and try new things. We all saw the huge boom in the use of colouring books for promoting mindfulness and wellbeing, well a bullet journal can be your own personal colouring book, but you create the designs too. Engaging in creative activity has been linked to improved problem solving and coping skills. For me a bullet journal is a perfect blank slate, and if you don't like something, then you just do it different next time - it's no biggie.
Let's start a conversation:
If you use a bullet journal, what's your favourite way to journal for health and wellbeing? And if you don't use a bullet journal, is this something you'd consider in order to bring more focus on promoting positive wellbeing in your life? Why not leave your thoughts below, or drop me a tweet @_hellojordan
Bullet journals are a great way to let your creativity flow. It's a space to create your own rules and try new things. We all saw the huge boom in the use of colouring books for promoting mindfulness and wellbeing, well a bullet journal can be your own personal colouring book, but you create the designs too. Engaging in creative activity has been linked to improved problem solving and coping skills. For me a bullet journal is a perfect blank slate, and if you don't like something, then you just do it different next time - it's no biggie.
Let's start a conversation:
If you use a bullet journal, what's your favourite way to journal for health and wellbeing? And if you don't use a bullet journal, is this something you'd consider in order to bring more focus on promoting positive wellbeing in your life? Why not leave your thoughts below, or drop me a tweet @_hellojordan