Started bullet journaling 3 years ago and now I have 4 half-filled notebooks

I bought my first dotted notebook back in 2021 after seeing a YouTube video, and now I can't seem to stick with one layout for more than 3 months. Has anyone else struggled with jumping between different systems and ending up with a pile of abandoned journals?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_tessa13d ago

lmfao i feel so called out. i've got 3 half done bujos sitting on my shelf right now. one of them has a really cute april spread and then literally nothing after that because i decided i hated the layout i picked. another one i used for like 2 weeks as a "creative dump" before i realized i just wanted to doodle in my regular notebook. the last one has 4 pages of a habit tracker that never got filled in. classic me honestly.

grace_white13d ago

The thing is @the_tessa I noticed this pattern goes way beyond just notebooks. It's the same reason I have three different gym memberships I never use and a closet full of hobby supplies from things I was "totally going to get into." We all get that initial burst of excitement where we think THIS TIME the system will fix everything, but then the reality of daily maintenance hits. The BUJO thing is just one tiny example of a much bigger cycle where we chase the perfect setup instead of just doing the work. Our brains trick us into thinking the problem is the layout or the format, but really we just need to show up and pick one thing to stick with for longer than a month. It took me way too long to realize that half my abandoned journals weren't failures, they were just me being human and trying to find shortcuts to being organized.