Learn Bullet Journaling: Part 5 - Collections

Sometimes you’ll have tasks, or things you want to keep track of, that are related by a common theme or purpose. Collection pages are a great way of organizing these specific things!

These are category pages in your journal that cover a certain topic or problem. They can take the form of a tracker, log, or simply a list. It helps you organize your bullet journal better without worrying about the information getting too scattered.

People use these pages for a lot of things. You can keep track of books you want to read, fitness goals, how much time you spend online, and how your sleep schedule is going. They’re also used for self care and motivation, inspiring you to work and think about goals. They can be used as a reference for household things too - like chores, school, and bill payments.

Collections are a quick way to stay on track, a quick reference to things you want to do, without taking up the whole of your daily bullet journals.

You can dedicate part of your bullet journal to collection pages, or you can fill them in at the end of the current month you’re on. I create my pages as I need them - so they’re mixed in with my monthly and daily spreads. Do whatever works best for you!

If you’re looking for inspiration, the best place to check out is Pinterest. 

Some great things to search are:

“Bullet Journal Collections”
“Bullet Journal Tracker”
“Bullet Journal Idea”
“Bullet Journal Collection List”

You get the drift.

There’s thousands of great pages out there. Here are a few of my favorites I’ve come across recently, but I encourage you to look around and find more. There really are endless possibilities with bullet journaling!

Collection Pages I Use

I’ve experimented with a few different kinds of collection pages over the months I’ve been journaling. It’s helped me figure out what is really helpful for me to track. It has also let me know what I don’t necessarily need to log!

For example, I don’t need to use a page to track my fitness. I have worked out consistently for the past 5 years. It’s a well-established habit, so it’s not a good use of my free time to fill in the days I work out, what I did, and the times. 

However, it’s super useful for me to log household chores! My husband and I sometimes have a hard time distributing household work evenly. This lets us both see who is doing what on a daily basis. 

Here are two trackers that I use every month, which means I usually put them side by side. When I’m not working at the library, I’m working on my creative stuff. This involves painting, sketching, posting my images to social media, editing photos… you get the idea. It’s easy for me to feel like I’m not “doing enough” even though I’m working full time days at a different job already. Using a tracker set up in this format is an easy way for me to see that I’m spending my time efficiently.

This was my main inspiration. I found it on Pinterest. 

I start by making a header, writing the days in the month on the left hand side, hours on the top, and a solid line on the bottom. My April tracker started late because of COVID-19. Instead of trying to remember what I did earlier in the month, I just started a week late. Which is fine!

I added in a few quick doodles. I also put a guide in the bottom of the graph. It lists the different activities I need to do with my “art business”. 

I also began my monthly chore tracker on the other page. Again, I wrote the days of the month on the left. The top area is where I put the chores I want to keep track of, like doing the dishes, laundry, etc. I also put a legend on the bottom. Chores I do are filled in with lines, while my husband’s are completely shaded in black.

Here’s the final result. With my art tracker, I color coded the legend and filled in my activities for April 7. That was a simple day - I worked a full day, then painted for a few hours. If I do a few different activities in the day, I’ll just fill in the blocks of time and color code it. 

I finished drawing the grid in for the chore tracker, then colored it in to match the other page. I like having my spreads flow together!

Here are a few other tracker pages I use. I don’t need to redo these every month, so they’re in random spots of my journal. Since I make sure to record the page number they’re on in my index, they’re quick to find.

This is a reading tracker:

And this is how I keep track of shows I’m watching. I don’t watch TV regularly so I always forget which episode I’m on! 

Show Us Your Pages!

I hope this post has given you some fun ideas for collection pages you can put in your own journal! Remember to relax and just have fun with it. Don’t worry about tracking every part of your life. Think about what’s important to you, your goals, and what you want to work on.

If you’d like to share your own creations with us, please do! You can post them on our Facebook, share them on Instagram, or tweet us on Twitter.