School’s started and we’re settling back into our regular routine again. So as going down a rabbit hole looking at ways to organize my home, life, studies, work, health, etc., it seems like a good time to bring back bullet journaling and share some tips from our previous teen intern who swears by it.

Fei Fei Xu started her first bullet journal in the summer of 2018. It was a complete failure. But you learn from your mistakes and months later, her second attempt became the first journal ever filled. Here’s what she’s got to share for those looking to get into bullet journaling.

Bullet journaling is not just an Instagram-worthy hobby, but also an outlet for creativity, a chance to overcome perfectionist ideals, and a way to collaborate and meet other passionate journal-ists. But first, what is a bullet journal, and how is it different from a regular journal?

A bullet journal is a self-tailored planner that helps you keep track of your week, schedule, or habits, whereas a regular journal mostly documents your day in plain text on paper.

To start a bullet journal, you need to give yourself room to make mistakes. The first step to creating a successful bullet journal is to try an array of journals and notebooks to find one that fits your preference. A bullet journal is your own to customize and decorate. Try out a few different journals to find what you prefer – hardcover or spiral-bound, big or small. Give yourself time to experiment with your first journal.

A completely blank pristine book may seem like a welcoming challenge to some, but a disaster waiting to happen for others. To get over your fear of ruining an empty journal, you need to understand that mistakes are bound to happen and that letting yourself make these mistakes is going to help you overcome them.

When I first started my bullet journal, the blank pages were so daunting that the simplest of lines I drew were deemed unworthy. Slowly but surely, I gained more confidence in my journal and allowed the mishaps to breathe, sometimes even embracing random smears of ink.

Pro tip: Cover unwanted mistakes with scraps of paper or stickers and integrate them into the design! It brings more layers to the spread and fleshes out the page as well!

A bullet journal is part of your personal expression. Find washi tapes that you like, pens in the colors you prefer (not just black or blue!), and fill it with curly and bold handwriting as you wish. Use all the colors you want or challenge yourself by sticking to a few. Your journal can be filled to the brim with different spreads detailing your week and a complex log of your emotions, or it can have no rhyme or reason and simply burst with spontaneous color and ideas. Most importantly though, don’t feel intimidated by the impeccable journal spreads on Pinterest. Rather, use them as inspiration and motivation. Your journal is for you and you only, so adjust it to your liking!

I have bonded with many friends over bullet journaling, sharing stationery, and flipping through each other’s books. Which is to say, bullet journaling isn’t just about putting pen to paper, but also the social experience of shopping for journals and the requisite tools with friends (I recommend 南锣鼓巷 nánluógǔxiàng or any stationery store near you), letting go and journaling your thoughts, then sharing work that you’re proud of.

Find it:
西城区南锣鼓巷
NanLuoGuXiang, Xicheng District

So with the school year back in full swing and my days filling up with school, social, work, and family activities, I’ve recently gotten into them again. It helps keep me focused on my priorities as well and they’re such a fun way to stay organized with the exact calendar that fits your lifestyle and needs as well as a fun way to do some doodling with a purpose and play with stickers like a kid. 

For me, my latest bullet journal is none other than a super cheap, pastel-colored, flopped notebook with grid paper that I found on Taobao that reminds me of my subject notebooks from junior high.

Images: Mina Yan, Taobao, Pexels

I started my first bullet journal in the summer of 2018. It was a complete fail. Months later, my second attempt became the first journal I ever filled.

Bullet journaling is not just an Instagram-worthy hobby, but also an outlet for creativity, a chance to overcome perfectionist ideals, and a way to collaborate and meet other passionate journal-ists. But first, what is a bullet journal and how is it different from a regular journal? A bullet journal is a self-tailored planner that helps you keep track of your week, schedule, or habits, whereas a regular journal mostly documents your day in plain text on paper.

To start a bullet journal of your own, you need to give yourself room to make mistakes. The first step to creating a successful bullet journal is to try an array of journals and notebooks to find one that fits your preference. A bullet journal is your own to customize and decorate. Try out a few different journals to find what you prefer – hardcover or spiral-bound, big or small. Give yourself time to experiment with your first journal.

A completely blank pristine book may seem like a welcoming challenge to some, but a disaster waiting to happen for others. To get over your fear of ruining an empty journal, you need to understand that mistakes are bound to happen and that letting yourself make these mistakes is going to help you overcome them. When I first started my bullet journal, the blank pages were so daunting that the simplest of lines I drew were deemed unworthy. Slowly but surely, I gained more confidence in my journal and allowed the mishaps to breathe, sometimes even embracing random smears of ink.

Pro tip: Cover unwanted mistakes with scraps of paper and integrate them into the design! It brings more layers to the spread and fleshes out the page as well!

A bullet journal is part of your personal expression. Find washi tapes that you like, pens in the colors you prefer (not just black or blue!), and fill it with curly and bold handwriting as you wish. Use all the colors you want or challenge yourself by sticking to a few. Your journal can be filled to the brim with different spreads detailing your week and a complex log of your emotions, or it can have no rhyme or reason and simply burst with spontaneous color and ideas. Most importantly though, don’t feel intimidated by the impeccable journal spreads on Pinterest. Rather, use them as inspiration and motivation. Your journal is for you and you only, so adjust it to your liking!

I have bonded with many friends over bullet journaling, sharing stationery, and flipping through each other’s books. Which is to say, bullet journaling isn’t just about putting pen to paper, but also the social experience of shopping for journals and the requisite tools with friends (I recommend 南锣鼓巷 nánluógǔxiàng or any stationery store near you), letting go and journaling your thoughts, then sharing work that you’re proud of.

So go out and get yourself a journal, make it yours, and enjoy the process!

KEEP READING: DIY Camp Week 1: Cooking Up Life Skills

Images: Mina Yan

Last month, American artist Natalie Long of LONG Creations shot to international fame when a free online resource she designed, the COVID-19 Time Capsule, went viral. Originally shared on Facebook, the pdf workbook, designed to help children record and contextualize their experience under the global pandemic, became so popular that Long’s personal website was unable to handle the traffic. In a sweet act of friendship to Long, a long-time collaborator, Canadian website consultancy firm Let’s Embark agreed to host the document, where you can find it today.

Now, Long has released a few supplemental downloads, including a special version for adults and pregnant moms. There are also some bonus pages that fit into the original version, designed for students, recent graduates, new parents, and to commemorate birthdays and Mother’s Day. The pdf has also been translated into French and Spanish and includes a metric version and an alternative cover.

The ‘adult’ version still looks and feels pretty childlike (I stand … inches tall!), but the design is sound, including thought-provoking prompts like “what I have learned the most from this experience” and spaces for you to fill out the average price of various items, or what TV shows are trending, which prompt you to think about the kinds of life details that feel mundane now, but can be truly fascinating in the future. Plus, there are plenty of spaces to color in and decorate, handy for those of you who are already tapped into the soothing benefits of adult coloring.

Here in the beijingkids editorial room, we hunt down every fact, check every source, color every worksheet…

It may feel a bit late in the game for those of us in China to start the project, as we’ve already been dealing with COVID-19 fallout for 12+ weeks and are now seemingly past the worst of it, but we are living through a very unusual time in history, so we think any project that helps us to commemorate and contextualize it is worth doing.

Click the following links to check out the full package, including all different versions and bonus pages: https://letsembark.ca/time-capsule.

KEEP READING: Aussie Website Offers Free Movies, E-Books, and More for Kids

Photos: Anna Pellegrin Hartley, Mina Yan

When I was a kid, I was always a bit sore about the absence of a baby book for me. I’m the second child. My sister had her first steps and first haircut recorded. There’s even a swath of baby hair under some scotch tape. My mother seemed so careful about archiving my sister’s history that she even kept the greeting cards sent by friends and family for my sister’s first birthday.

Then I came along. There are some pictures, yes. But that’s it. (Cue the violins.)

It took until I had my own children to realize that two babies truly are “ten times the work.” When my son arrived, there was just no time to get pictures of him printed and organized into a photo album like I had done for my daughter after she turned one. In fact, I still haven’t done it and he’s three and a half.

But, I am proud of one thing that qualifies me as an archivist for my kids. When my daughter was born, I cracked the spine of a book with blank pages—about the size of a small dictionary—and began the process of recording my thoughts alongside her many milestones for her future self to read. This journaling became a habit. Writing in my native language to my child (who would one day read it fluently) felt like I was making a stronger connection to her that would transcend time. One day, I know, she will read about my perceptions of her little self, and some details about our lives at the time of the entries, and I picture the older version of my child relating to the younger version of me.

So, when my son was born, I bought him a book too. Now, with the two of them still small, I struggle to find enough time. Sometimes months go by between entries. Sometimes I write in one book and not the other because the story I wish to record focuses on one child and only features the other as a supporting character.

This makes me wonder, too, if it won’t be weird for them not to read their books in tandem with each other, considering I often tell the story of a family issue in one book and then resist repeating it in the other. I just simply write, ‘I wrote about this in your brother’s book in detail, but here are some additional thoughts about you lately.’

I picture them as adults sitting together and pouring over these entries, patching together our family history, sharing each other’s content. But, I can’t decide how old they should be when I present them with these chronicles. Maybe eighteen? Maybe when they have their own children, if they decide to become parents? Maybe at around age thirty when their identities and worldviews are more established? I’m not sure yet, but there’s lots of time to decide.

Ironically, I keep a digital notes on my iPhone to remind me of “what not to forget to write about” in their analog journals, when I take pen to paper. Going backwards in time technologically when I’m creating something for their future selves seems counter-intuitive, I know, but I continue. A physical keepsake feels safer than a digital cloud will ever be. These will be books they can actually hold.

In the end, may the existence of these journals distract them from the absence of a true baby book for either child. And, for my second child, may he one day forgive me for not putting photos of him into an album like I did for his sister!

My 10-year old daughter is in that tender pre-adolescent stage that can be difficult for all involved. She no longer wants to be a little girl, certainly not in public, yet she’s not confident enough (nor old enough) to go it alone. She’s gradually maturing, sometimes stumbling along the way. Yet ask for help? Mom is beginning to fall into that you-don’t-know-anything phase that I’m so not looking forward to.

How do you keep your daughter close? How do you make sure those lines of communication stay open, especially when the tough stuff is right around the corner?

About a year ago, I started journaling with Leah. This isn’t your typical diary, nor is it a concurrent activity we do together. Rather, I bought a lined journal for us to share. When she has something she wants to talk about, she’ll write to me in it and leave it at my bed side. I don’t have to return it immediately. I can respond in due time, answering her questions or maybe sharing some of my own thoughts. We aren’t really writing letters back and forth to each other – although sometimes it turns out to be doing just that – but we give each other the opportunity to say what’s on our minds and share it. Sometimes we’re mad. Sometimes we don’t pass the journal back and forth for several weeks. But it’s always there and it’s always a chance to “talk” when words don’t seem to find their way.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I can’t. I read about it in a magazine somewhere. I think that the daughter was older, and the journal may have been more regular. But it was a keepsake this woman remembered because of the respect her mother paid her by recognizing the need to back off and give some space.

I hope to start this with my younger daughter soon, allowing her, too, to share private feelings and thoughts, just with me. It’s a safe, easy way to let your daughters know that they can talk to you about anything, anytime.