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March 12, 2019

Dot Journaling: A Practical Guide (Book Review)

With the rise in popularity of bullet journaling someone was bound to make a book out of it sooner or later. You might’ve already heard of the Dot Journaling: A Practical Guide book and be wondering if it’s worth buying. If so, I hope you find this honest review helpful!

This book has:

  • Basic info if you’ve never done bullet journaling
  • Spread ideas for:
    • Yearly
    • Monthly
    • Monthly habit trackers
    • Weekly
    • Daily
  • Using your dot journal as a diary
  • Health and fitness spread ideas
  • List ideas
  • Financial spreads
  • Chore spreads
  • Meal-planning spreads
  • Travel spreads
  • Recommended tools
  • Random stories from the author

dot journaling a practical guide honest book review pros and cons page layouts look inside

LET’S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK!

To enlarge the screen of the video, click the square icon in the bottom right hand corner of the video (it will say ‘full screen’ when you hover your mouse over the icon).

If you’d prefer not to watch a video, here are some photos of the inside pages:

The author includes a bunch of personal stories and rambling throughout the book which I think is just a waste of paper

books on bullet journaling how to inspiration ideas tips spreads weekly monthly daily

Basic introduction…

guide to dot journaling book review

Followed by more basic tips / common knowledge / don’t bother wasting your time reading it

bullet journal guide book review rachel wilkerson miller

There’s also random ‘fluff’ pages that are a waste of space in my opinion:

bullet journal book review dot journaling practical guide rachel wilkerson

bullet journal book dot journaling rachel wilkerson miller

practical guide to dot journaling book review not worth the money

Past all the filler pages are (finally!) some page layout ideas:

Daily

honest review of guide to dot journaling book pros and cons video flipthrough

bullet journaling pros and cons weekly spread inspiration page layout ideas pros and cons

Weekly

guide to dot journaling book review bujo pay layout spreads bullet journal

bullet journal spread ideas book inspo bujo dot journaling a practical guide book review

Monthly

dot journaling book review video flipthrough is it worth the money

Habit Trackers

practical guide to bullet journaling book review habit tracker daily weekly monthly inspo spread ideas

guide to dot journaling pros and cons page layout ideas daily weekly spread video flipthrough

Other Pages

bullet journal inspiration page layout ideas guide to dot journaling book review

bullet journal book review dot grid practical guide to bullet journaling

Page Dividers

bullet journal inspiration page divider ideas bujo book review

Stationery Recommendations

bullet journal inspiration and ideas guide to dot journaling rachel wilkerson miller

There are obviously more pages than the photos I’ve included above so if you want a closer look, I show more pages in the video flipthrough a the top of this post.

Do I recommend this book?

If you’ve never bullet journaled before or you have but you’re out of ideas and are ok with paying for them then yes. But there’s so much free resources and inspiration on the internet these days – blogs, Pinterest, Instagram etc. I really don’t think it’s necessary to buy a book that has the same info as the free stuff you can find online. Bullet journaling is simple – you don’t need to pay for a book to learn how to do it.

Plus the author includes a bunch of fluff / waste of space filler content. $20AUD for this book?  In my opinion it’s not worth the money.

If you like this notebook, it’s available on Amazon (affiliate link).

free printable monthly habit tracker download template diy resize page size custom insert refill happy planner routine recurring

More bullet journal

  • 100 Bullet Journal Planning Hashtags for Instagram
  • 12 Planner Layout Ideas for Monthly Habit Tracking in Your Bullet Journal
  • How to make printable graph paper in Photoshop (perfect for habit tracking and bullet journalling!) 

Found this post helpful? Pin it!

dot journaling a practical guide book review pros and cons daily spread weekly monthly habit to do list inspiration inspo ideas

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  • Planning Inspiration: 15 habit tracker tips & ideas to tryPlanning Inspiration: 15 habit tracker tips & ideas to try
  • 7 Tips to keep your bullet journal neat7 Tips to keep your bullet journal neat

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Posted In: Bullet Journal, Bullet Journal Reviews · Tagged: beginner bujo, beginner bullet journal, book review guide to dot journaling, bujo inspiration, bujo tips, bullet journal book, bullet journal book review, bullet journal for beginner, bullet journal inspiration, bullet journal page ideas, bullet journal practical guide, guide to bullet journaling, guide to dot journaling book

Comments

  1. Charlotte Scott says

    March 13, 2019 at 01:03

    Thank you for your informative review. I had actually considered this book. You are correct there is just to much free and if a person reads they will have the same information.

  2. Joshua says

    March 13, 2019 at 01:25

    This was a very helpful review. I do like the inspirational quotes and personal stories to help people who are new to this understand what good it can do. So I don’t always find it fluff but I do find it less helpful than just using the web. Ryder Carrol did produce his book as well. I found very informational and great. Thank you for the honest review. It helped decide on this book.

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