Please note: What we make of it is beautiful.

The confusion begins with the question of what to call what many of us do: create sketchnotes? Keep a bullet journal*? Draw in a diary? Scribble lists? Beautify each day? One person calls it this, another calls it that – what they all have in common is that they enjoy putting things into books. And this is how it happens:
A diary is a good starting point.

Almost everyone started keeping a diary sometime between the ages of 14 and 20 – we were young and needed an outlet – and nobody but ourselves ever saw it. Because here, it didn't (and still doesn't) matter whether it contained deeply personal things or just the schedule for the next day, whether it was beautifully written or just in bullet points, whether the handwriting (and perhaps the drawings) deserved an exhibition or not: diaries are only the business of those who keep them, and everyone decides for themselves how public they want to be. Some of us, by the way, continue to keep them, but that's not for this blog. Exactly. That's private.

Chinese silk: Popular in the 1970s.

Another beginning: The appointment calendar.

Despite all the convenient apps, it's still available in print. For those in a hurry, the seven days of the week are always presented on a double page, in clear lines and with space for important meetings and/or – equally important – quick shopping notes. Those who need to remember more can use a page for each day; there are plenty of practical calendars available, either fully bound or as pre-punched stacks for the whole year, which can then be inserted into planners of any price range.

So much for planning: This post, for example, is too late…

Another beginning: The loose sheets of paper and casual notes.

Oops! Someone just said something really important in the meeting – and all you have are a few scraps of paper and a pen. But they're already covered in the little drawings you always make at these kinds of meetings – most of what's said is rather dull, especially since it's also projected onto the wall via PowerPoint. So you just doodle away... Then you draw a speech bubble around the brilliant sentence in the meeting, or a few roses – whatever suits your fancy. Then the meeting ends and you think: "Where do I put this?" Or: "Actually, you shouldn't just throw something like this away. It looks nice."

This even makes parents' evenings entertaining.

Even a table can be exciting.

The ideal starting point: The idea of keeping a book.

Brighten up your appointments. Sketch out your thoughts on important points in the conversation. Decorate the date, make important things colorful, bold, or large. Draw unicorns or caricature your conversation partner. Draw hearts as dots on the "i"s or musical notes on the pre-printed lines. You decide what's important to you. And if it is, record it in a book that gives you plenty of space for everything. You'll see: with every page you fill, it will become more beautiful, special, and personal. It will become—your book.

How do you like it best?

Finally, a bit of advertising: Here's our suggestion.

Whatever you want to put on paper is more enjoyable when the material is just right. Our BulletProof notebook is bound in smooth recycled leather and printed all around with everything we could think of about "life, the universe, and everything else."

Because it's thread-bound, it opens easily. And the 120-gram paper is very stable, so nothing bleeds through to the other side. For those who like to draw straight lines and tables, it's printed with a fine gray dot grid. In short: We already think it's pretty beautiful. Make it even more beautiful. Just get started.

(*The name Bullet Journal, by the way, is an invention of New York designer Ryder Carroll, who was looking for a system to plan appointments and record events—neatly, but not slavishly bound to a grid. He wanted to place his bullet points as individually as possible. And so the idea developed to use dots for tasks, dashes for notes, and circles for meetings. He marked completed tasks with an X, and moved uncompleted ones to the next day with a > and noted them down again. He used the dot grid, which you can also find on all pages of our BulletProof , as a guide.)

These simple basic rules create order. What makes it beautiful is you – your handwriting, your colors, your drawings. Just try it out and make bulletproof your own.