A little bullet journal update today and a focus on what I’m using in my bujo!

It’s a fact that you don’t need anything fancy to bullet journal – just a pen and paper. For a stationery addict like myself though, I’ve obviously accumulated some tools over the past couple of months.

The first thing I wanted for my bullet journal was a better way to find my important pages – mainly my monthly trackers and dailies. I feel like I’m the only one that hates the ribbon on the Leuchtturm and mainly shove them to the back of my journal. I tried paperclips but the paper is so thin that I actually lightly tore a couple of pages. Next I moved onto reuseable tabs that I covered with a Planner Society tab to make it look prettier. I found that the stickyness came off if I was moving it pretty often so now I only have one on my yearly goals page. For my dailies I’ve picked up a beautiful ruler with a clip on the end from Fred Aldous.

The quality of this is fantastic – it’s really sturdy and it solves the issue of me needing a small metal ruler for my bujo. I had tried just a normal metal ruler but it annoyed me Because it’s nice and wide, it also doesn’t tear any of the pages. For everything else, I’m just going to washi the edges and see how that works for me. I was left with two options – washi and plastic page flags. As I don’t like writing on those page flags, I lumped for washi!

Lets talk about the Leuchtturm pen loop…

I bought it when I bought my bullet journal because that’s what you do, right? Sadly, I hate it. I wish I’d never stuck it to my planner! 

That Stabilo fineliner is the largest pen I can get in there. Most pens I use daily are gel pens or (now) Microns. None of those fit in that loop. Instead I have to clip the pen onto the loop and it looks ick. When I buy my next journal I won’t be having a pen loop!

Pens

Now’s probably a good time to talk about pens. Probably my biggest stationery weakness! I obviously use my Stabilos in my journal, but only to add some colours to my trackers.

I’d rather see a sea of different coloured dots that a whole black wall.

I was also a complete sheep and had to buy the pens that everyone uses with the bujo: Mildliners and Microns.

I’ve fallen in love with these pens. They’re beautiful to write with. The different widths mean I’ve always got the perfect size to create trackers, dailies or anything really. My only complaint is the thin lines are seemingly affected when using a pencil eraser. That means if I use a pencil first and go over it with the Micron I can’t really rub out  the pencil. I’ve only found this with the thinnest pen (005) so far.

My favourites for daily writing are probably 03 and 04 (although 04 I bought separately as it didn’t come in the pack).

I don’t do elaborate dailies and have got into a real groove with my planning now, using just the Microns and Mildliners.

So there’s my simple tools that I use in my bujo. I used the odd bit of washi here and there in my dailies, and maybe a few stickers in the beginning but generally I keep it really simple now. I’ve tried stamps and stencils but if they don’t go perfectly, I just get frustrated. Having a nice clean layout like the above makes me happier and definitely productive.

Have you got a minimalist bullet journal like mine and have other essential tools for it? Let me know in the comments below!

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