One of my goals for this year was to reduce the number of planners I was using.  I’m down from 6 to 4, so yay!  Unfortunately, one of the planners I’ve decided to abandon this year is my Bullet Journal.

I love the idea of the Bullet Journal – having everything all in one place is ideal for me, I thought.  What I’ve come to realize is that I’m a functional planner, not a decor or artistic planner.  I use my planner(s) to keep my life organized.  If they’re also pretty, that’s a bonus, but not a need.  Which is how Bullet Journals started – as a functional planner.

These days, all the Bullet Journals you see are the ones where amazingly artistic people have spent what must be hours slaving over gorgeous spreads.  I don’t want to spend that kind of time – writing the same calendar over and over and over, drawing (in my case, poorly) decorations, etc.

If I spent the time to draw this movie tracker, I wouldn’t have any time to watch the movies!  Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest are chock-full of spread ideas like this for making your BuJo beautiful.

And that’s great.  Nothing wrong with decorating your BuJo, if that’s what makes you happy.  Me?  I’d rather buy a preprinted planner and create stickers to make it useful (and pretty).  I wanted to stick with the BuJo, I really did.

But after several months of gritting my teeth and forcing myself to use it, I decided it wasn’t worth the headache and guilt for me.  I spent more time avoiding it than I did using it, which defeated the whole purpose.

Someday maybe I’ll use it again.  But for now, I’m sticking with what works – and that is not using the Bullet Journal.  A lesson to remember – if it doesn’t work for you, leave it and move on.  Now I’m free to concentrate on other things.