UNC YouTuber uses bullet journaling for self-care and personal growth

Bullet journaling is a creative outlet for many, but UNC junior Kayla Dang takes it to another level with her YouTube channel. 

She describes bullet journaling as her form of self-care and her favorite way of keeping herself organized. Dang, like many others, used a store-bought planner before she realized that a bullet journal, or BuJo for short, could be useful for her. 

Bullet journaling combines a planner, a diary and written meditation to reduce the chaos of coordinating one's life and deadlines into an efficient system. Ultimately, it helps with productivity and reaching goals in personal and professional life. 

Dang started bullet journaling in 2017 and started making YouTube videos to share her bullet journal process with the world in 2019, under the username “DangItsKayla."

Dang makes a variety of types of videos, including college vlogs about living in Chapel Hill and going to UNC, as well as organizational videos that she hopes will motivate others to clean their environments. And of course, bullet journaling videos. 

“Freshman year of college I went through some rough times and I was really, really disorganized and I was feeling down all the time,” Dang said. “Bullet journaling gave me a sense of peace and much-needed alone time." 

Dang said she was recently messaged by an out-of-state student who binge-watched her YouTube channel. 

“My videos are one of the factors that led her to going to UNC. I was completely blown away, because my channel’s relatively small, but the fact that my videos had an impact on her was really insanely cool,” Dang said. 

During the COVID-19 quarantine, Dang started “The Bullet Journal Breakdown,” a YouTube series where she and YouTuber Anthony Clark, of "obsessive.stationary," take beginners through some potential elements of bullet journals.

“Kayla probably values organization because — let’s be honest — when you don’t have it, your life is a mess,” said Clark. 

Dang said one of her favorite aspects of bullet journals is that they are customizable.

“One of the most common phrases I say in all those videos is, ‘Do whatever works for you’,” Dang said.

The bullet journal method was created by Ryder Carroll, who was diagnosed with ADD when he was young. Carroll wanted to design a system that organized his important information in the way his brain worked. 

“It’s really nice to set aside just a couple minutes each week to just get yourself organized and work on yourself," Lauren Morgan, Dang's friend, said. "To work on feeling how you’re feeling and really sitting with that.” 

For those interested in bullet journaling, here are some tips from Dang:

Start simple

• “Don’t feel the need to drop $40 on the best of the best notebooks or $100 on all the stationery to use in your notebooks,” Dang said. “Just start off simple.”
• Dang said her supplies are cheap, yet good quality. She found her BuJo notebook for less than $10 at Walmart.

Be patient

• Dang said not to compare your bullet journal to others.
• “Obviously, when you start, it’s not going to look the way the bullet journals on Pinterest look,” Dang said. “I know a lot of people get down on themselves and say ‘Oh I’m not a good artist,’ or ‘I can’t draw,’ but that’s not the point of bullet journaling really. (The point is) to get everything out of your mind into one notebook.”

Be creative

• “I think people should take up bullet journaling because it is a chance for them to be creative," Dang said. "It sounds cheesy, but they can unlock a part of themselves.”
• Dang said BuJo is a unique way to save memories. 
• “It’s like a little time capsule, basically,” she said. 

@emmatcraig

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