Looking back at my first bullet journal setup from 2018 | Bullet Journaling

Blair Burns · 2026-03-16T07:10:05.472324+00:00

I probably wasted about $75 on a fancy leather cover and a set of expensive, smudgy brush pens before I realized my old composition notebook and a single black pen worked just as well for actually getting things done.

the_ben5mo ago

Ugh, preach. All the fancy gear just gets in the way.

9

ryan_smith375mo ago

Man, that hits close to home. My first setup had all the fancy stuff too, and it just made me not want to touch it in case I messed it up. There's a real freedom in going back to basics with a simple notebook. You figure out what actually works for you after the shiny new thing feeling wears off.

6

graymiller5mo ago

My 2018 setup had that same leather cover, but I actually found the brush pens were fine if you let them dry for a full minute. The real waste for me was the $30 stencil set I never opened.

2