I finally have an hour alone! I can write! But should I read the book for my book group? Answer that email? Write my publisher with a question? Send out that new query? What should I do first?

Have you wondered how to get organized as a writer?

This was me until I saw an email inviting all Writers Grotto members to a lunch session on how to be more organized in your writing life. Frankly, I’ve always been pretty organized except for my messy desk with piles of papers, but I was curious to hear what organization looked like to other writers. 

Presenters Susan Ito and Beth Winegarner kept talking about BuJo, as in:

“I wrote it in my BuJo.”

“I track it in my BuJo.”

“What,” I had to ask, “is a BuJo?”

“Bullet Journal,” someone said. “It’s an essentially blank book with a dot grid on each page. 

“You should come to our next meeting,” another member offered, “where we set up our journals for each month.”

At that meeting, I learned that a bullet journal, or BuJo, is a cross between “a planner, diary, notebook, to-do list, and sketchbook,” as Ryder Carroll explains in his germinal work The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. I would add scrapbook to that definitional list. And I learned that a vast literature of books, websites, even YouTube videos exist, devoted to these journals that can be whatever the user wants or needs.

My first BuJo was a 5 ½ x 7 ½-inch dot-grid notebook in pretty turquoise with two ribbon bookmarks and a pocket in the back cover. I liked holding it. It seemed full of possibility. It didn’t have the constraint of lined or graph paper, but it was more inviting than a completely blank page. 

At the BuJo meeting I attended, members offered colored markers, washi tape, and stickers. “I’m not artistic,” I told them. I admired the calligraphy and designs my companions used to create bullet journal pages for the coming month, weeks, and days. 

One member explained how she used two pages to create a beginning of the month spread, where she attached tickets and souvenirs from events throughout the month, followed by a monthly calendar and then pages for each week and even each day. I dutifully followed suit. The idea was to write goals for the month and then for each week, breaking it down to tasks for the day.

Finding What Works for You

My favorite part about bullet journaling as a practice is that you decide how to use it. Your method can change and evolve.

After my first meeting, I quickly found that my initial approach didn’t work for me. I was recopying to-do lists day after day. So I decided to keep one list for monthly goals and a running list for daily goals. I did set up a monthly calendar and an appreciation and gratitude practice. 

I end each day circling the date when I take my prescription medicine and jotting down something that has made me happy during the day. I learned from the group that printers exist that will print stickers from pictures on your phone—who knew?! These stickers and washi tape have become part of my theme creation for monthly spreads. I’m still not artistic, but I look forward every month to tapping into my creative side with these art supplies.

For a while I used my journal as a tracker for hours of reading, time spent editing, word count for writing, and hours spent in writer-related administrative work. But I soon realized that I didn’t enjoy keeping track of hours and words. It works better for me to set a monthly goal to read and write (trying to do both each day). I also aspire to edit and submit each month, listing which projects will be my focus. Drawing a line through a completed task on my bullet journal list yields a sense of satisfaction and serves as a log of what I have done when I want to look back.

The BuJo helped me lose all the post-it notes because I write the items “to do” or “to remember” straight into my journal. I have special pages for books I want to read, books I have read, a global future log, quotes to remember, and pages listing tasks for forthcoming books. I take webinar or meeting notes right in the journal. I still keep an online calendar, but I find that handwriting deadlines and dates helps fix them in my head.

Straight from the BuJo Trenches:

Here are other BuJo group members describing their use of journaling and its value to their writing life:

“Bullet journaling has given me a central repository for my to-do list, goals, and important pieces of information. It has replaced loose pieces of paper strewn around my office.” 

— Saila Kariat, writer, director, and producer of Jesus Land (forthcoming)

“I use my BuJo primarily for taking notes—everything from phone calls with my agent to periodic check-ins with my writing groups to to-do lists during the hectic holiday season. When my life feels out of control, the BuJo gives me a semblance of order.”

— A.H. Kim, author of Relative Strangers

“I use my BuJo as a more open-ended and customizable planner that is better suited to my ADHD brain and multitude of projects. How I set it up has changed over time. For example, when I am traveling and have an unpredictable schedule, I take things day by day and use it as a combination of travel journal and daily to-do lists. But when I am at home or a writing residency, I make a two-page weekly spread with my weekly goals, daily tasks, and habits I'm trying to maintain.”

— Jenny Qi, poet, writer, and author of Focal Point

“When I first heard writer friends talking about their bullet journals and inviting other writers to join them for monthly “setting up” dates, I thought: Oh lord, no! Who has time for one more thing?! It took missing an essential deadline, along with double-booking myself on multiple occasions to realize I was the one who needed that thing. Using a BuJo to track my projects and time not only keeps me on track but clears much-needed brain space for, guess what: writing!”

— Bridget Quinn, author Portrait of a Woman

“Bullet journaling helps ensure that I don’t let lucrative or valuable literary opportunities slip away from me. I’ve noticed a clear increase in the number of grants and residencies I’ve landed as a result of tracking these opportunities in my BuJo. The very act of recording items in my journal—with crayon, gel pen, marker, colored pencil, stencils, and stickers—renders those items indelible in my mind. For me, this has proven much more effective than just scribbling notes down on a calendar.”

— Lyzette Wanzer, author of Trauma, Tresses, & Truth

“I, too, began keeping a bullet journal because of the community at the Writers Grotto, and have used it to keep track of daily tasks as well as small and large projects. I couldn’t have written my most recent book without the help of my BuJo.”

— Beth Winegarner, journalist and author of San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History

From BuJo to The Coven

When the pandemic hit, our BuJo in-person meetings had to move online, and we bemoaned the loss of our face-to-face writing community. But then, we realized we could meet more often throughout the month via Zoom, not just to set up journals but to hold each other accountable for our writing time. And thus the BuJo Coven was born.

At the height of lockdown, we met four days a week for two hours. (It’s now two days a week, still via Zoom.) Members dial in even from residencies and far-flung locations.

We begin each accountability session stating our goal for the two hours. Then we mute and work. We report at the end of the time on what we actually did. Some days it’s the dread “admin work.” For some people, all the “butt-in-chair” time counts because the emails, class syllabi, submissions, and grant writing have to get done. For others, this reserved time is sacred for writing and or editing or reading. Just like the bullet journal itself is personal to each of our needs and styles, so is the accountability time. 

Inevitably, sometimes we do just talk, either a bit at the beginning or going overtime at the end. And these conversations have value, too. As Lyzette explains, “I can say unequivocally that The Coven helped me cross the finish line of my first book and is now propelling me through the writing of my second book. Beyond the focused accountability aspect, the group helped me forge book marketing ideas and social media advertising campaigns and provided advice on best practices for book launch events. I’ve enjoyed seeing other members’ projects come to fruition. We also commiserate when we receive rejections, are experiencing a rough time in our lives, or when the words just won’t come.”

I’m confident that I’m more productive because of this group that we named The Coven. We have produced a screenplay and at least six books (with more in the works) in areas as varied as biography, creative nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and children’s literature. The richness that arises from our diverse perspectives in genre, identity, geographic location, and other factors benefits us, as we all work to be the writers we want to be.

Just My BuJo and Me

I’m at my desk and wonder what should I do first? I open my BuJo and look at my task list. I see I have a deadline for WOW! Women on Writing. I can finish this piece, finding satisfaction in drawing a line through this item on my list and reporting to The Coven that it is sent. Now, on to the next item—let’s see what does my bullet journal say…

***

Stephanie Wildman, author of six children’s books, became a Professor Emerita after serving as the John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro Chair at Santa Clara Law. She is a grandmother, mother, spouse, friend, good listener, who can sit “criss-cross apple sauce” thanks to her yoga practice. 

Her latest, Story Power! (co-authored with Simon Wildman Chung, illustrated by Estefanía Razo) will be available in October 2025.

Visit her website at www.stephaniewildman.com.