bullet journaling bullet journaling and planning

How to Migrate to a New Bullet Journal

by The Productive Pixie - November 28, 2020

With the new year just around the corner, your bullet journal is probably almost filled up, with happy memories from the year, and (hopefully completed) to-do lists. Migrating to a new bullet journal can be a large task. Where do you begin? What pages should you migrate to your new bullet journal?

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Updated for 2024

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How should you migrate those pages over to your new notebook?

Should you just recreate those pages?

How do you make this a less time-consuming task?

Well, today, I am here to answer all of those questions about migrating into a new bullet journal for the year ahead and I will also give you some tips and ideas to make the migration process of starting a new bullet journal easier for you.

Let's get right into this post, shall we?

How to Migrate to a New Bullet Journal

The best place to start your bullet journal migration is at the back of your old bullet journal. When you are getting to the end of your bullet journal, you will want to start planning for your next bullet journal.

A few pages at the back of your old notebook will be enough.

This is where you plan out which pages you want to have in your new notebook. You can simply make a bulleted list, or you can actually sketch out miniatures of what you want each page to look like. Keep in mind that sketching out pictures of what you want each page layout to look like, will be more time-consuming.

You can also use this list to jot down new collection layouts you want to try out in your new bullet journal for the coming year.

How do you decide which pages to migrate?

Go back through every page in your notebook and look to see if you used it during the year, or if you found it helpful (aka notes that you referred to throughout the year, etc.).

Obviously, layouts like weekly to-do lists, and monthly trackers, will not need to be migrated to your new bullet journal, unless you haven't finished those to-do lists yet! :)

So mostly, the layouts you should be migrating to your new bullet journal are the collection layouts that you used and referred back to throughout the year. If you look back at a collection page, and you didn't fill it in or look back at it, then you will want to ask yourself, if you want to try to use it again next year.

If you do want to use it next year, then you can decide what you liked about this layout, and what you need to change to make the layout more effective.

Setting Up Your New Bullet Journal

Now you should know what pages you want to add to your new bullet journal. You should also use the bulleted list in your old bullet journal to decide what order you want to put the layouts in. For example, your list might look something like this.

38 - Books to Read | 12 |
10 - Goals for 2021 | 3 - 5 |
25 - Project Ideas | 7 |
80 - Capsule Wardrobe | 9 - 11 |
4 - Bullet Journal Layout Ideas | 6 |
63 - Bullet Journal Theme Ideas | 8 |
2 - Index | 2 |
1 - Key | 1 |
123 - Fitness Tracker | 13 - 15 |

Inside the brackets, is the page number the layout will have in your new notebook. The page number at the beginning of each bulleted point is the page number that that layout has in your old bullet journal. You might not include all of this information on your list, but you can if your bullet journal has a lot of layouts, and you want to further simplify the process.

Next, you can open up your new bullet journal and write in pencil at the top of each page, what that page is going to be. You have to decide where you want your collection layouts to be. Do you want them at the beginning, the end, or mixed in with your other layouts?

I mix my collection layouts in with my other layouts, and it works out because I have an up-to-date index. :)

Now it's time to actually migrate the pages in your bullet journal. Here are a bunch of options you can use.

1. Bullet Journal in a Binder

If you don't like migrating from one bullet journal to the next, you might want to try out bullet journaling in a binder like in the picture above.

I bullet journaled in a binder for over a year, but in the end, I decided that I didn't want the flexibility of being able to add and remove pages.

If you bullet journal in a binder, then one of the pros is that you never have to migrate from one notebook to the next. You can always leave your collection layouts in your notebook. Plus, you can organize your notebook because you can move the pages around.

2. Recreate Them

This is definitely going to be time-consuming, but if you like trying out new layout designs, then this is the way to go!

And if some of your layouts have incorrect information, then you cannot use the same layout as before, so you are going to have to redraw them anyway.

This is the method I do, and though it is more time-consuming, I like drawing in my bullet journal, so it is fun. :)

If you do decide to do this method, I recommend having a layout like I mentioned in the section "Setting up Your New Bullet Journal" and writing in pencil what each layout is supposed to be.

3. The Sticky Note Method

If there is a layout that you want to move to your next notebook, but you don't want to have to recreate or redraw it, you can simply cut it out of your old bullet journal, and then stick it into your new bullet journal with a bit of washi tape or glue.

To help it blend in a little more, you can also glue some craft paper overlapping a little or stickers to help it blend in.

Make sure you cut the layout to be a little smaller than your notebook, so the page doesn't end up sticking over the edge of the page you glue it on to.

4. Inserting a Page

Carefully cut out the page really close to the binding. You might have to use an Exacto knife. Just know, that when doing this, the page on the other side might also fall out.

Now open up your new bullet journal to where you want to add your page. Lay it flat inside the book as if it already was a page. Then take a piece of tape that is as long as your notebook and put it half on the page that is already in the book and the layout you are trying to add to your notebook.

Then flip the page over and add another piece of tape on the other side. There you go! You have now added a page to your bullet journal.

This will only work a couple of times though. It definitely won't work, if you want to migrate half of your bullet journal!

Migrating to a New Bullet Journal

That's it! Using the methods above, you can migrate from your old bullet journal to your new bullet journal in less time.

Starting a new bullet journal is fun, but it is always a big task, so plan ahead and most likely you won't be able to do it in one sitting so break it up and don't try to do it all at once.

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I hope you liked this post and that it helped you migrate to your new bullet journal!

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Tags : bullet journaling, bullet journaling and planning