Thinking of starting a digital bullet journal?
If you’re looking for an app that’s going to allow you to easily translate bujo inspiration from your mind to the page and replace your paper notebooks, look no further than Goodnotes.
Goodnotes is a digital note-taking app, and is the app of choice for digital planners all over the globe — for good reason.
Here’s why Goodnotes is the best digital bullet journal app for your 2021!
It’s easy to edit, so you’ll never mess up a page
When you’re on paper, one slip of the hand could ruin the entire spread you’ve worked so hard to create.
Thankfully, when you’re creating a digital bullet journal in Goodnotes, you’ll never have to worry about getting it right on the first try.
Goodnotes makes editing your writing really convenient. With the Lasso Tool, you can select any text, drawing, or image to:
- Resize or rotate it to exactly the right position
- Move it to another spot on the page
- Change the color of the ink
- Copy and paste it somewhere else
Tip: In GoodNotes, you can double-tap with two fingers to undo!
Jump to exactly the right page, tracker, or month in seconds
In a paper bullet journal, you might have an index page that lists out where to find all your different trackers, monthly plans, and different spreads. But sometimes, you just don’t want to flip and flip before you find the right page.
With your digital bullet journal in Goodnotes, the page you’re looking for is only one tap away.
To find the right page right away, you can:
- Open the thumbnail view to see a visual overview of all your pages
- Bookmark Favorite pages to create shortcuts to your most used spreads, like your mood tracker or habit tracker
- Add pages to a custom outline. This essentially works like a table of contents, similar to an index page in a paper bullet journal
- Search find to-dos, page headers, indexes, and dates (Goodnotes can read your handwriting!)
You have hundreds of pens and highlighter options at your fingertips
Without ever having to put down the Apple Pencil in your hand, you can access hundreds of pens and highlighter options in Goodnotes.
Customize the color, thickness, and style of your pen strokes to instantly create the pen you want.
Thanks to the strong digital bullet journaling community for GoodNotes, people love sharing different color palettes with the hex codes they use, so you’ll never run out of inspiration.
Easily add stickers and images to decorate your journal
You don’t have to fuss with printing, cutting out, and gluing images into your bullet journal when you’re using an app.
In your digital bullet journal, adding an image is as simple as a tap. This makes it easy to keep a daily photo log, for example.
What’s more, there are numerous sticker creators designing stickers (which are simply hand drawn images or illustrations) specifically for use in Goodnotes!
Read more: Check out our guide to digital stickers.
Draw straight lines and perfect shapes without a ruler
Goodnotes has built-in shape recognition, making it super easy to draw your calendars, monthly habit trackers, and all the spreads you like.
All you have to do is draw a line or shape, and hold at the end. At the pause of your pen, Goodnotes will convert your line into a perfect shape.
So, the next time you want to start a new page, you don’t have to worry about digging out your ruler in order to draw straight lines.
You can import custom paper templates, bujo spreads, and fonts
If you ever see other people’s #bujo spreads on Instagram or Pinterest and think, “I want that!” you’re in luck.
Goodnotes allows you to import custom templates, so if you’re unable to recreate the bujo spread you love, you can simply find one online and import it as a new template.
There are thousands of creators active on Etsy, YouTube, and Pinterest who design PDF paper templates for digital bullet journalling in Goodnotes.
What’s more, the PDF hyperlinks in your custom templates are preserved when you import them. For example, some digital planners (like the one shown in the video above!) include tabs for different months or allow you to jump to specific days or weeks by tapping the link.
You can also use custom fonts you’ve downloaded to your iPad if you want to add a bit of flair to typed headings or sections.
Tip: Goodnotes already comes with a variety of default paper templates, with a range of sizes, colors, and templates (like dotted paper, squared/grid paper, weekly planners, and lined paper, to name a few!). Plenty for you to get started!
(See how to import custom paper templates here!)
You can even create shared journals with your friends
Ever had a shared journal with someone when you were younger? Taking turns passing a notebook back and forth?
Bring back that feeling of shared closeness with Goodnotes’ shared documents. Simply send out the link to your journal to invite friends to collaborate on the notebook.
You can created shared journals for:
- Photo logs and daily recaps
- Tracking books and movies together
- Keeping each other accountable with habit trackers
- Creating shared calendars to plan activities
All your pages are apocalypse ready (aka. backed up!)
With a digital bullet journal, you don’t need to be afraid of losing years of work and you can always refer back to a certain day in your life.
Goodnotes automatically syncs your files to iCloud. That also means that you can easily access your bullet journal wherever you are on your iPhone or Mac.
What’s more, you can even choose to back up your files to Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive.
Start digital bullet journaling with Goodnotes today!
When it comes to bullet journaling, digital planning, and digital note-taking apps, the GoodNotes app is the best in class.
If you want some help to get off the ground, you can also check our our list of the best digital planners to use with Goodnotes.
Don’t have Goodnotes yet?
Click here to download Goodnotes today, and join the community of bujo enthusiasts around the globe.
Happy digital bullet journaling 😊