📓starting a bullet journal that survives past week two

the setup order I wish someone had told me after two failed notebooks

Buy one notebook, not the perfect one. dotted, roughly A5, that's the only requirement

I bought three notebooks before starting once. brain dump, not a shopping project

Page 1-2: leave blank for the Index. you will need it, don't skip this

Next few pages: a Future Log, four to six months split into boxes

this catches the stuff too far out for a monthly, so it stops living in your head

Then your first Monthly Log: a simple date list down the left, tasks/events as they come up

rapid logging is the whole method, everything else is decoration on top of this

Start your Daily Log the same day, don't wait for a monday

First migration, end of week one: cross off what's done, migrate what's not to the next day or the monthly

this is where most people quit. an unmigrated task pile feels like failing, it isn't

Resist collections and trackers for at least two weeks

pinterest bujo spreads are a trap this early, they're why my first two attempts died. add ONE tracker once the daily log is a habit

Update the Index every time you start a new collection, not in a big batch later

If a page layout takes more than five minutes it's fighting the system, simplify it

Second monthly migration: this is the real test, most people who make it here keep going

Or start a list of your own. Free, it takes a minute.

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