It can be overwhelming, and you may be thinking, ‘I’ll never have time to move all of these collection pages’. I understand your doubt. But let me show you how to migrate your bullet journal painlessly.
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Depending on how fast you move through a journal, you may have to migrate some of your collections up to 4 times a year. Sounds like a lot of work when you consider all the hours of creativity and layout development you put into those pages, huh?
You’d be right. It is a lot of a work. But, the good news is that there is a fairly pain-free way to migrate your bullet journal.
For 2018, I’m migrating my Leuchtturm1917
How to Migrate Your Bullet Journal
1). Start early if you can
Last year, I got my first Lecuhtturm for Christmas and there wasn’t much time to set it up (I have kids and dogs and responsibilities, and shit). But, this year I had my notebook way in advance. I started setting up my Nuuna at the beginning of November. There has been no rush. I spend time on it when I can, but I don’t stress about getting everything moved over.
2). Decide on the flow of your bullet journal
One of the ways you can make the migration process a little easier is to decide on your flow early on. Are you going to keep all of your collection pages in the back of your journal? If so, how many pages will you set aside for collections? Are they going to be spread throughout and just kept track of in your index? There is no right or wrong way.
Yes.. I’m aware I spelled fitness wrong. I’m rolling with it.
This year, I went for a totally new approach and divided my journal into four sections: Daily Planning, Blog & Business, Personal, and Health & Fitness. First, I estimated how many pages I would use in each section. Then, I used some gorgeous floral washi tape to mark each section along the outer edge of my pages and drew cover pages for each section. This method works for me because most of my collections fall under blogging or fitness. Those that don’t get pushed to the Personal section.
Deciding this early one will help you migrate your bullet journal because there is less stress of where things “should” or “have to go”. You already have a plan and can just start adding pages when you have time.
3). Prioritize your collections
By this, I mean go through your collections and find those that are most important and that you use the most often. For me, this included blog and social media stats, my weight and measurements tracker, blog post ideas, and meal ideas. If you use or reference the collection more than a couple times a month, it should be pushed to the top of the priority list and migrated first.
If you have collections that you’ve made and then never really looked at again, consider leaving them in your previous journal and not migrating them. Instead, mark the spine of your book with the date range for that journal. Then, you can either keep a separate journal or notebook or add those collections to your current index with what page and book they are in. This is totally up to you. I don’t add old collections to my new index if they aren’t in my current journal. But, that’s because I either know I won’t ever reference them again or I know which journal they are in without indexing.
4). Pencil in your headers
If you don’t have tons of time to migrate your collections, use a pencil to write in your headers in your new journal. Like a bookmark, this designates which collections you still need to migrate and where they will be. That way, you can continue working on your journal or making regular planning pages without forgetting about those collection pages.
5). Work on bulk tasks
This method isn’t for everyone. But, for some people, it may help them migrate faster. After you have penciled in all of your headers, go to each page and do your linework with a pen and ruler. Set up the grids or tables for your all of pages. This method decreases the time you spend looking for your ruler and your black pen. And because it’s one task, you can really focus on it and not worry about the creative elements just yet.
After you finish your linework, maybe you move on to adding headers. And after headers, you pick another task until all you have to fill in is the small text for each page.
You don’t have to migrate your bullet journal in one day. It’s going to take some time. And even if you head into the new year with unfinished collections, you can always go back and add them in. The system is flexible and forgiving. Don’t rush and stress yourself out over some blank pages. Journaling shouldn’t feel like a chore. It should be your happy place, where you relax and enjoy the process. So your time, and migrate your bullet journal as you find the time.
If you are migrating your journal, did you change to a new kind of journal? Are you loving the process or hating it? Let me know in the comments below.
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