We've all seen it.

We've all seen the pictures, the beautiful setups, the perfect spreads, a productivity powerhouse will solve all of your problems, cure your anxiety, make you laser focused and will give you the spider sense.

Is that right?

It seems a little too good to be true, mate.

Spoiler alert.

It is.

In this video, I'm going to point out the biggest of keeping my own journal.

But first, let's rewind a little.

It's 2018. 15-year-old Bartek is scrolling on Instagram when suddenly he sees a picture that would change his life forever.

It wasn't long till I fell deep into the rabbit hole of BuJo research.

My feed was soon flooded with weekly spreads, habit trackers, budget planners and coffee type spreads.

I learned everything there was about bullet journaling.

And when the time was right, I ordered my own notebook.

And that's when the frustration came in, because I expected to be able to replicate these beautiful setups right from the very start.

Newsflash, I wasn't.

Not at first, at least.

And to butcher a very pretty spread.

Yeah, that pissed me off.

But I am not one to give up too easily.

So after a few blunders, I finally came up with a setup that I thought would be perfect for me.

And guess what?

It worked.

I got more done.

I was way more organized.

I gained some clarity.

And the best benefit of them all, I think, is that my time actually slowed down to exactly the right pace.

It felt not too slow, not too fast, but right where it should be.

Plus, I got a shit ton of compliments for the Bujo itself.

But this is exactly where people make the biggest Bujo mistake.

And trust me, it took me four years, four years to figure this out.

Let me use a metaphor to exemplify this.

You've probably heard of van life, right?

But did you know that it actually started as a super cheap and easy gateway to adventure and travel?

You pop a mattress in your trunk and boom, you're ready to explore the world.

But with time, it actually became a competition of who can fit the most luxurious villa into a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.

And that is exactly what happened with Bujos.

The original concept was supposed to turn any notebook that you had lying around into a productivity tool that would truly help you organize your life.

A tool that is custom-made for you, easy to maintain, and most importantly, simple.

But there is nothing simple or low making it pretty.

Now, I'll get happily eaten in the comments for this, but I actually think that keeping a pretty Bujo and doing these beautiful spreads is counterproductive.

It is distracting you from getting things done rather than helping you get things done.

Before, I used to spend hours every month in order to create the perfect spreads.

The main focus was not to organize my life, but to look good doing it.

So naturally, there were months where I didn't exactly feel like setting up my spreads and that led to gaps in my journaling journey.

Now, I literally just use a highlighter to mark the day and get straight to the point.

I do still keep some pretty spreads just because I just like when things look good.

But first of all, they take me minutes to create, and second of all, I never sacrifice function for form.

Never.

And I used to do that all the time.

You need to journal more than usual on a day and need more space?

No problem, just stretch the day out.

You want to keep meeting notes in one place?

Go ahead, don't worry about keeping a beautiful spread.

Going on a trip where the Bujo might get wet?

Yeah, no, that's too far even for me.

But that still is the beauty and main point of Bujoing.

Flexibility.

You do not need to stick to the form that was given to you.

And these prom queen beautiful Bujo spreads, they just they just don't allow for that.

So my first tip, if you'd like to start a Bujo, is to keep it simple.

Do not stick to the form.

If something works for you, great, keep doing it.

But if something doesn't, just switch it up.

Don't worry about making it pretty.

The next crazy thing is bullet journal people very often actually forget to journal.

Bujos are not just for organization, they are for clarity.

They're called bullet journals for a reason.

And there is no better way to get clarity than writing your thoughts out.

And that's something I cannot recommend enough.

My routine is to journal each evening.

I write about whatever I feel like.

It doesn't have to anything fancy or complicated.

In fact, this is what most of my journal entries look like.

I went to school today.

Nothing interesting happened.

I'm wondering if I should drop out.

Anyway, I worked a little after that, went to the gym too, I think.

Then I spent some time with my friends.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Good night.

You see, nothing fancy at all.

After that, I grab prepare for what's coming the next day and I write down the tasks that I want to accomplish.

This helps massively with waking up and not knowing what to do every single day.

But do not skip the journaling part.

This is where most of the benefits actually come from.

You will understand better how you spend your time.

You will get to look back at what your younger self was thinking.

And that itself is invaluable.

One other thing I do in the evenings, and I think this is the most important part of all, is gratitude journaling.

Now, before this gets too cheesy, let me tell you, this is one of the most ROI habits that you can pick up.

Writing down what you're grateful for every single day is such a great step you can make towards lasting happiness for life.

Now, this simple exercise, it won't bring any benefits immediately.

But in the long term, it will truly, truly, truly have an impact on your fulfillment, happiness, and being able to appreciate the small things, even during bad days.

Before I leave you with all these already great tips, there is one more thing that I think way too many people overlook.

And that is the review.

And it doesn't matter whether monthly, weekly, or whatever.

What matters is that you do it regularly.

There is not much sense in having all these thoughts and insights written down if you don't actually look back at them and implement them in your own life.

And that is the review comes in.

I do it once every month and I ask myself four questions.

What worked?

What didn't?

What lessons did I learn?

And how did my habits go?

I sometimes switch up the last one for where did my time go?

And whenever I'm time tracking, I will just write down exactly what I did during the month.

I read through the journal entries of the month and I realize how little I managed to accomplish.

And then I promise to myself that I'm going to do better next month.

Do I actually?

Let me not comment on that.

As usual, a YouTube video can't ever cover any given topic completely.

So these are just some of the most important thoughts that I had over the past five years of journaling.

Don't make it pretty.

Write down your thoughts.

Be grateful and review.

If you'd like to see how I keep my iPhone set up minimalistic, click the video over here.