Tuesday 27 September 2016

Leuchtturm Bullet Journal from Bureau Direct

I was delighted when Mishka from Bureau Direct emailed me to say that they had the Leuchtturm Bullet Journals back in stock and would I like to try one. Oh, and how was I for washi tape? I said I would be more than happy with anything she sent.
Well, this morning, a parcel arrived for me. I managed to restrain myself enough to take some pictures before ripping the bubble wrap off!

Still in bubble wrap!
And then took a couple of pictures before unwrapping it all completely...

Front cover plus washi
Back cover plus washi
Here's the washi in more detail:

Top to bottom: baby blue, pink, tape measure washi
Okay, but the main part of the parcel was the bullet journal. I was interested to see what was different from a standard Leuchtturm dotted A5 notebook that turned it into a specific Bullet Journal notebook.

On the inside cover is a key for symbols used in Bullet Journalling, including space to note your own versions:

Key on the inside cover

Following that, there is the usual Name and Contact page. As with all Leuchtturm notebooks, the pages are numbered and there is an index at the front. The index in the Bullet Journal notebook is a page longer (total of 4 pages) than in the standard version and has 26 lines per page (as does the standard version). There are 240 pages of dot grid (5mm spacing) c.f. 249 pages to write on in the standard version. In the Bullet Journal notebook, those other pages are taken up with notes on how to use a Bullet Journal which come after the dot grid pages. Whereas a standard Leuchtturm notebook has 2 ribbon markers, the Bullet Journal has 3. In a standard Leuchtturm notebook, the top of every page has space for the date; in the Bullet Journal the pages are unlabelled.

3 ribbon markers
Also note that the page has no pre-printed label to add the date

The index is pre-filled with two things: Future Log and the Instructions. The first 4 pages of the dot grid section are labelled at the top with 'Future Log'. I found this surprising as I thought the point of bullet-journalling was that you did what suited you, not necessarily what someone else did.

Index - pre-filled with 2 items
First 4 pages are pre-labelled Future Log

I'm not convinced that I will use the first 4 pages as a Future Log so this was a bit annoying (for me).

There are several pages of instructions/tips at the back. I won't show you all of them, but here are the first few (there are 8 in total):

Introduction
Rapid logging
More on rapid logging
Tips
Obviously, as it has only just arrived, I've not used it properly yet. I'll post again in a week or so to let you know how I'm getting on with it.