You may have heard about the new trend among college gals, creatives, people who love to stay organized and many others: bullet journaling. You may have also asked yourself the questions, "What exactly is that?" or "Where would I even start?" You might have even told yourself you aren't creative or artsy enough to do that. Well, I'm here to tell you, think again. You don't have to be artsy or creative and you don't even have to know where to start. The true gem about journaling is that it can be anything you want it to be from the very start. Maybe you're looking to spark your creativity, organize your life or simply discover a new hobby.

Whatever the case, journaling could be the exact answer you've been searching for.

1. Sparking Creativity

Being a media production major is a lot of fun. I can create video and audio content, learn how to manage social media pages and so much more. As you can imagine, this takes a lot of creativity. To come up with content, campaigns and visual art ideas, you have to think outside of the box. To come up with SUCCESSFUL content, campaigns and visual art ideas, you have to be creative, like REALLY creative. The older I get, the more I realize that my imagination isn't what it used to be. I've realized I may be lacking in the creativity department and upon making that realization, I immediately wanted to change that. Journaling has become my saving grace in reversing this reality.

It's amazing how creative you can get when you start cutting up paper, gluing things down and not looking back. Since I've started journaling, I find myself coming up with creative ideas left and right about everyday thoughts and events. I come up with cool and artsy page designs just to remember simple things and preserve memories I'd like not to forget, like a coffee date with friends, a class assignment I really enjoyed, or a significant thought I had that day. Whatever it may be, since I've started journaling, I've started thinking more creatively every day, and not just about the pages in my journal. It helps me think of more creative events for organizations I'm involved in and ideas for class projects.

So if you're feeling like anything I just described, do yourself a favor, and give journaling a try.

2. Relaxing and Calming Down

Being a college student. Working several jobs. Being involved. Maintaining a social life. Paying bills. Running Errands. Getting good grades. Just a few of the many things that can stress you out on a daily basis. For me, journaling has become something I can do, at anytime of day and in any amount of free time, that calms me down no matter how stressed or overwhelmed I'm feeling. Taking a few minutes during my lunch break or sitting down for an hour before bed to create a few journal pages, clears my mind and shifts my focus from the usual business and stressors of the day.

There's just something about opening my art supply container, seeing all the paper, markers and stickers I've collected, and knowing that I'm about to create something beautiful and personal that really makes me feel relaxed. And if you're having a bad day, it can help you feel better about that too! How? Because you can channel that sadness, frustration or nervousness into a creative page of art.

3. Organization and "Thought Dumping"

Bullet journaling is a perfect way to plan your life out in different and fun ways. In preparation for a semester to start, I always make sure I have my planner, aka my lifeline, color-coded and organized. While that's always been sufficient, I've found that bullet journaling gives you so much creative freedom to add things that a regular planner just doesn't have space for. For instance, I've experimented with a habit tracker for the month of January. So what I did, was pick 10 specific habits that I wanted to increase or decrease, for example the nights that I was in bed by midnight and if I drank coffee each day. I ordered these 10 habits into a graph-like grid and each day of the month I color in the different boxes for all the things that I did that day. This gives me something to look back on at the end of the month to see what habits have increased, decreased or stayed the same. This is an awesome way to keep track of goals or just to be conscious of your everyday habits.

Also, if you're anything like me, you have many random thoughts throughout the day, some of which are actually really good, but you can never remember them later. Your journal is a great place to quickly "dump" random thoughts and ideas. Which could be important because, who knows, these things might be some of your greatest ideas yet! It's also a perfect place to put movie tickets, fliers, stickers, or the other random stuff that we all collect, don't want to get rid of, but also have no idea what to do with!

These are just a few of the reasons why I've come to love bullet journaling so much. It provides me a release and something to focus on that's all my own, which is something we could all use in our daily lives. I'm calling my current journal, my 2018 journal. I'm excited to look back on it at the end of the year to relive my memories, my highs and lows, and most importantly, how far I've come and how much I've grown as a person.