Peace of Mind Organizing

My go-to Bullet Journal supplies

28 January 2025

In January 2022, after a two-week trial in a temporary journal, I started using the Bullet Journal method to keep track of my tasks, meeting notes and, really, my life. I blogged about it back then waxing rhapsodic and how it allowed me to be a little bit creative and, more importantly, it was very effective in keeping me sane during an extraordinarily difficult time.

I did not know in January 2022 that I would have to navigate moving my father into assisted living and, just three months later, his death. I didn’t know that my aunt (for whom I was POA) would have a massive stroke and end up in a nursing home for the rest of her life. (She passed away in 2024.) Taking care of the details for my father and my aunt took a great deal of effort and thanks to my trusty BuJo, I was able to have easy access to all the information.

In 2023 and 2024 I navigated some complex health issues for my husband. The doctors all seemed to love that I took copious notes in my journal during appointments and that I kept track of how my husband was feeling on a daily basis in my journal. In 2024 we decided to move into an apartment, do some home renovations, and sell our house. That all happened in a compressed time frame of five months from the time we saw the apartment to the time the house was sold. And in the midst of it my husband had a heart transplant. I wrote everything down in my BuJo and I literally don’t know that I would have been able to pull it all off without that journal.

I started writing a blog post today about how my Bullet Journal has evolved over the last three years but it started getting really long. So I decided to split it up into chunks. Today’s post is about the supplies I use for my Bullet Journal. In upcoming posts, I’ll cover the spreads I put in the beginning of each journal, the spreads that I repeat throughout a journal, how I keep track of tasks, how I take notes, my daily BuJo routine and what I don’t put in my Bullet Journal.

Here’s a photo of my current BuJo, taken on my desk this morning.

I’m just finishing up my 16th journal in three years and have settled into a pretty good set up that works for me. Here are the supplies I keep on hand and use in each journal.

• The journal itself. After a year of trying different journals, I settled on the Scribbles That Matter 120 GSM Dotted Journal – Pro. I love a dot grid and these dots aren’t too bold. I like the 120 gsm paper thickness—it’s just thick enough without making the journal too heavy to carry around comfortably. At roughly 7” × 10”, the B5 size is larger than the standard A5, but it’s my preference because for me it feels spacious and uncramped. It has a nice leather-like hard cover and opens flat and stays open. My only complaint about it (and I expressed this to the company) is that the page numbers are faint and hard to read in dim light. Also, the odd numbered page numbers are the left-hand page, which is just weird for me.

• The pen I use for writing text. I love, love, love the Pilot Frixion Synergy 05 clickable erasable pen with black gel ink. It writes smoothly, and has an extra fine point. But here’s the best part: It’s completely erasable—it uses a special thermosensitive ink that disappears when rubbed with the pen’s “eraser” because of the heat generated by the friction. (There’s no eraser dust!) And it’s refillable. Did I mention it writes smoothly?

• The highlighters I use for color accents. I use color throughout my Bullet Journal—each day is assigned a color to make it easy for me to keep track of when something was written. My two favorite types of highlighters for this purpose are Zebra Mildliners and the Sharpie S-Note Duo marker. Both pens have a broader chisel tip on one end and a finer tip on the other. (Mildliner also has a brush tip version with a finer tip on the other end.)

• White gel pen. I sometimes like to embellish the colors with white pen, as in the photo above. I like Sakura Gelly Roll white gel pens.

• Washi tape. I like using writable paper Washi tape from Jet Pens for headers on spreads. I also use perforated dated writable Washi tape to designate the date of each’s day entry. I stick to one design per month and change it up at the beginning of a month.

• The pen holster. I use two pens each day in my journal. One is for writing text and one for color coding. I like to keep them handy and easy to carry with me. This pen holster holds the two in place nicely. It was a game changer for me.

• Stickers for the cover. I place a new sticker on each journal. It usually has some sort of inspirational or motivational saying. I tend to buy them from Big Moods. I usually go straight to the Positivity Stickers section.

• Sliding pen pouch. I keep my highlighters on my desk top in this sliding pen pouch that stands up nicely and slides up and zips so I can take the collection with me.

The Bullet Journal method has worked so well for me that I want to blog in more detail about it and, perhaps, do videos. There’s a whole universe of BuJo videos out there that show incredibly beautiful (and seemingly unattainable) journals. I want to people to know that creating an attractive BuJo doesn’t have to difficult or time-consuming. Let me know if you’d be interested in seeing some BuJo videos from me!

Please keep an eye out for future BuJo posts!

Tagged with: bullet journal, productivity, task management

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