When searching through Pinterest or Tumblr, you can find a lot of beautiful bullet journal spreads. Some are intricate art to start a month, while others have decorations and doodles as themes that span the entire month. But what about all of those pages in between that are unfinished or that you are embarrassed to show friends? The secret is out: not every page of my BuJo is beautiful.

Not every page of your bullet journal has to be beautiful either. I taught a class on the basics of making bullet journals a few months ago, and the students honestly preferred to see my bad pages rather than the good ones. So, here are some examples of my bad pages because a BuJo is for you personally to use and enjoy:

1. Planning Pages 

Maddy McKeever

Most pages, unless copy directly from an image online, will need to be planned. Even if directly copied from Pinterest, they may need to be redone a second time and glued over the first attempt. But you can't have a beautiful end product without deciding the layout beforehand.

In many of my planner pages, I try out different layouts and pens. Sometimes I even write out my content in lists, so I can decide how to organize the items on the page. So know that even though you might see images like the ones below online, they all started as the one shown above.

2. Quick Lists

Maddy McKeever

Not every list you put in your pages is going to be one you need long-term. They may also not end up beautiful. Several lists in my pages are quickly written down to look at later. They aren't always meant to be important.

I am planning on starting a new journal to put all of my ideas for articles into, but until then, I have several pages in a row all in the same colored pen that are messy lists. They are cramped, and will have things crossed off in them. Then they will eventually be gone once my articles are finished being written online. But they are still pages that are necessary when I don't have access to the internet.

3. Scrap Paper

Maddy McKeever

I don't always have a notepad to write down notes to myself in. Because of that, some of the pages in my BuJo are hurried scribbles. They are ugly transition pages, but necessary ones for when I'm on the go.

I am currently writing short story samples for my graduate school applications, and without my actual notebook for stories with me, my BuJo sometimes gets filled with scribbled out sentences.

4. Brain Dump

Maddy McKeever

I have seen some beautiful brain dump pages posted online. Some of my brain dump pages have ended up wonderfully, but some of them also look like nightmares. They are a brain dump for a reason. They are there for you to write anything and everything down, whether it looks good or not.

Sometimes my brain dump pages can look lovely, colorful, and neat. But most of these pages in my journal look like the image above. It is full of not pleasant colors, pasted in receipt notes, and glued green pages over things like tea stains.

5. Almost Empty

Maddy McKeever

Sometimes I plan out a page in my journal, but then end up not having enough content for it. This results in a mostly empty page. Often times, I try to fill the space with artistic decorations, but it only makes the page look more lacking.

I will even write in larger font just to make the page seem filled more. But the little decorations don't detract from the lack of bullet journal lists on the page. The deadly nightshade is only killing this page more.

6. Never Finished

Some pages in my bullet journal have enough content to fill them, but I just never get the time or motivation to finish filling them out. This leaves me with unfinished pages that I eventually forget exist until I flip through my notebook and find them on accident.

I started a social media page in one of my journals, but since beginning it have finished out all the pages in that BuJo. Because of that, the old page on the left is never going to get finished, because I've already started a new one on the right side in my new journal to fill out instead.

7. Art Mishaps

Maddy McKeever

I've had my fair share of bleeding ink and tea spills. My stamps have transferred to the page against them, my pens have bled to the paper behind them, and my lines have been anything but straight. Art can't get better without you learning from your mistakes.

My stamps have smeared because I didn't wait for the red to dry. I've taken my BuJo out in rainy Seattle and had the colored ink on my pages not only bleed, but bleed together into the crook of the notebook. Some mistakes I can clean up with a little ink and white out tape. But some pages just have to be left how they are.

Just because a bullet journal has 162 pages in it doesn't mean that you'll have 162 pages you are proud of. But sometimes journals are about the functionality, not the beauty. Although bullet journals are meant to be both, on occasion you get the process and not the product being the most important part.

There are ways to fix these mistakes. But the only way to conquer the fear of making mistakes in your bullet journal is to make mistakes in the first place.