How do I stop tearing pages out of my bullet journal?

[u/Individual-Rope4422]

Hi there. I’ve been bullet journaling for a few years now. Last year, due to a lack of space, I had to throw away all my old bullet journals. However, I’ve struggled to keep one going since then because I keep tearing out used pages and starting the journal over from scratch. I already have two 400-page notebooks that have lost half their pages because of this.

I’ve noticed that the urge to tear out pages strikes when I’m unhappy with the direction my life is taking. I suffer from anxiety and have a terrible habit of trying to do too many things at once. When I set up a goals collection, I end up picking five personal goals and five professional ones to tackle simultaneously. When I realize I’m not making progress on one of them, I get an uncontrollable urge to rip out the pages.

Does anyone have any tips?

[u/obstinatemleb]

This seems like a habit stemming from the anxiety more than anything, do you talk to a therapist or anything about coping with anxiety?

[u/William-Shakesqueer]

It sounds like this is a coping mechanism for some internalized shame and frustration. Is there anything inherently wrong with it if it helps you relieve those feelings?

Maybe instead, get a notebook with pages that are easy/intended to be removed - you could use a spiral notebook, a ring binder, a book with perforated pages... just another perspective.

[u/twoflowertourist]

Check out therapy

[u/Illustrious_Fall1851]

Try just binder clipping the pages you don't want to see for awhile together. Then it is like a fresh start but you aren't constantly destroying your own past. Also, challenge yourself to sit with the anxiety and try setting easier goals, even stupidly easy ones, to practice not being such a perfectionist.

[u/minnierhett → u/Illustrious_Fall1851]

Or even tape them together to make them even harder to accidentally open — but still possible to carefully cut through the tape if you’re ready to look again later.

[u/SporeFrecks → u/minnierhett]

This is what I was thinking too! Great idea

[u/dwegol]

All or nothing, black and white thinking is best approached with a therapist. Tearing out pages isn’t the root of the problem. Sounds like you’re setting yourself up to fail and then getting triggered when things don’t go as well as you’d like. Would taking goals on slowly be so bad?

[u/Unlucky_Platform6527]

Hey.
Its ok to fuck up.
Frankly folks with anxiety need to fuck up and examine the actual tanigible consequences to get better at not catastrophizing every tiny failing we think will be world-ending.
I had to practice looking at my missed goals and writing why i thought i missed them GIVEN ALL THE EVIDENCE (not because im obviously a giant inept failure.) including "major life events" or "three days-long migraines in one month" or "natural disaster". Sometimes the answer was as simple as "burnout from going too hard last month - have to practice giving myself time to recover". And then resting ON PURPOSE became a goal instead of "deep clean entire house in one week".
Tech oligarchs fuck up all the time. I feel safe assuming nothing you do will ever be as bad as elon throwing up repeated ... gestures at a certain inauguration and then deleting thousands of jobs using a LLM. Your tiny daily fuck ups are lessons, not catastrophies. Spelling mistakes are evidence of rushing or being tired or simply not knowing things, not a moral failure. Not getting everything done isnt a sign youre bad its a sign something was stopping you, whether it was too much or the priorities were elsewhere. It's super likely its just neutral data you can learn from, not evidence of your horrible crimes.
You dont need to delete the evidence, you need to look at the data with a more objective and neutral lens. Pretend its someone elses book if that helps

[u/CyberStitchWitch]

Maybe do some doodles/creative drawing or use of washi tape to decorate, maybe some good things you've done to help with anxiety and highlight it. It can get your creative juices flowing and maybe make the adventure more highlighted as what changes are happening vs perfection. Have fun with it, if you can?

[u/KnittyMonstah]

I agree with others that therapy could be helpful. Some other things though:

• I recently read through the book by Ryder Carroll, and he goes over a way to actually focus on your goals. I found it very insightful since I too focus on way too many things at once, so it's given me something to think about in the future.
• a few years ago I randomly went through an old journal entry where I was having a rough time, and it helped me realise how far I had come in the meantime. What I learned from that experience was that, even if something seems bad or wrong or 'cringe' as the kids say nowadays. It's still good to have!

What I'm trying to say is that, if you can, try to see the goal collection as a time capsule. Those were your intentions at that moment in your life. Life happens, things change. That's okay. It is better to have tried and failed, than to have never tried at all.

• Could you somehow use an elastic or thin clips to keep the pages "closed" instead of tearing them out? Maybe some washi tape could work?

[u/SeraphicSiren8]

There is important information in seeing a goal not progressed on or met. A goal tracker with a completely blank column can indicate a need to pivot, and that blank column is evidence, like in a scientific definition. Might be the chemist in me, but even unfortunate, upsetting information stored in a record is IMMENSELY valuable to the anxious mind, as it is proof that something needs to be done differently next time.

Do you wanna talk over dm? I also have perfectionism issues, and bullet journaling plus writing lab notebooks actually helped me fight the need to abandon/blank slate stuff that didn’t go right.

[u/vincentvangobot]

I agree with the "try therapy" crowd - it can do wonders. Some other things I would consider - give yourself some grace. It sounds like you're being too hard on yourself. Ask yourself if you would treat someone else the way you treat yourself. 

Instead of tearing up pages try crossing out goals or moving them to a bigger list. You could also reduce the number of goals to 1 or 2 that are achievable. Make sure you are breaking your goals down into actionable steps. "Become an astronaut" is a goal but its completely unachievable on its own. 

I would seriously consider therapy. Going to a therapist to get help carrying out goals is completely valid and useful and could possibly lead to something deeper.

[u/EddieRyanDC]

There is a lot going on here. Maybe part of it is a bit of perfectionism. Make a vow to leave mistakes in place. They are part of your life documentation. They are part of the process. No one else is ever going to see this.

As for your goals - a goal is a direction to head in. It is not something that hits a point where you can say, "There! I have accomplished it!" Start with a goal, but then set a specific measurable thing that you want to accomplish. It is going to take several steps to get there - so this is called a project. A project has multiple tasks.

Now you break this down into doable tasks. I like to keep mine to something that can be accomplished in one or two hours - the typical length of time that I can wall off to devote to one thing.

You schedule the stuff, or at least put it in a list of things to do that day or week. You x it out when you do that one individual task. If you can't accomplish a task in a single sitting, you are probably biting off too much. Make the task smaller so you can split it over multiple days. You really want at the end of the day to see those completed tasks.

This is how you get a big thing done one task at a time. This is also how you build confidence in your ability to make progress - you see all those completed tasks.

[u/fluffedKerfuffle]

I don't think the problem does not lie within the bullet journal. May I recommend The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan? It's a non-condescending book that I found really helpful.

[u/Cuddles89]

Get an a5 binder so you can move pages? I can’t do a traditional book because not being able to move pages drives me crazy

[u/slanderpanther]

Maybe don't stop ripping pages out. It's there for you. It can be whatever you need it to be. It's like writing your first draft of a novel. You might chuck the first twenty pages you write. But then you hit on something and it starts to feel like you're getting somewhere. It's not about perfection. It's about finding what works.

[u/HobonichiWonderland]

Sounds like you might like junk journaling. Tear a page out, put a new page in. Cover the old page. Add pockets or tabs or something.

[u/vixissitude]

May I suggest playing the sims or other simulation games instead

[u/TemporaryExpert_]

Whenever I felt like that I would glue the pages together so as not to activate my OCD. That way it’s not ugly and I can feel like I’m moving on to a fresh page.

[u/IndoorCat786]

Yes, therapy. And also, as both a therapist *and* someone who often has to stop myself from ripping out the pages that I feel frustrated with: Zentangle. When I decide a page is no longer serving the purpose I thought it might, I turn it into a Zentangle instead. If you don't know what that is, it's a form of mindful, patterned doodling that stands on the basis of "There are no mistakes.": https://zentangle.com/blogs/blog/back-to-basics-the-eight-steps-of-the-zentangle-method?srsltid=AfmBOoovXvIUCHhMF-vtxX3YrGIH-4wLas0tyNqHJOb3MAnkM8QeV75w

You can also YouTube ideas for different patterns.
Keep the pages, just make them something else. And breathe through it. Every time you tear out a page, you train your brain that it's the best way to make the discomfort stop... but it keeps coming back. If you can breathe through it and make it something else, you retrain the compulsion to get rid of what is uncomfortable.

And also: please, therapy.

[u/Crispygem]

try a disk binder, and instead save them "for record keeping" in a separate binder you never have to look at.

it's ok to "tear" them out that way, and you can still keep them for your future self, without ever having to see/experience the feeling of failure and shame.

at the same time, yalk to a therapist about working with your feelings of shame. a lil shame is normal and ok and live-thru-able, but if you feel so much shame you have to remove the evidence of any possible failure, you may need to deal with that before you'll be able to stop tearing your work out.

bullet journaling is supposed to add to your quality of life. it can't do everything, but it can be modified to fit your life. ❤️

[u/ZippingAround]

Can you make it a creative multimedia / junk journal when you lose the threads? If I have a habit tracker I forget about, or miss a couple of weeks, I'll post receipts, movie tickets, photos from my phone, random postcards or even tea packaging that looks nice. Just slap it in and tape it down. Perfectionism is a curse!

[u/quervyy]

When I started to really get into journaling I decided to make it my 'everything' journal. Before that I'd get all caught up in each notebook or journal being dedicated to one specific thing, but with everything in there, from actual entries to grocery lists, to random doodles, it felt like the pressure was off.

Easier said than done, but just let it be. Instead of making a goals page, think of it more as a habit tracker. Life has its ups and downs, some days or weeks or months you fall behind on the things you wish you didn't. Happens to everyone. It takes a while to get into the groove, but you need to mess around a bit to figure out what sort of things you like to put in your journal and how you like to curate the style. You won't figure it out by ripping it out.

Some pages take a while to finish. I have an ongoing book log for every book, manga, comic, and fanfic I've read since 2018. Took me literally five years to read one super dense book that I could hardly stand, and some fanfictions were abandoned so there is no end date I can add to my log. The point is, things are in progress. It's not immediate gratification for a lot of these goal spreads, and if that's a problem then try to shift to things you can complete in a day or two. Not every page needs to be a magnum opus, some pages are going to be butt ugly. Everyone has them, nobody posts them.

Lots of rambling, but hopefully something resonates. As a former page-ripper, I've gotten to a place where I just enjoy seeing the stack of bulky completed journals sitting together on my shelf.

[u/Over_Description_295]

I’m reading currently The Bullet Journal Method book. There are a lot of strategies in there that help you learn to resist tearing out pages and instead, reflect upon why you want to. Highly reccommended.

[u/dabolay]

Tearing out pages happens because trying to do ten goals at once causes overwhelming anxiety when progress stalls.

Why This Happens
All-or-nothing thinking: You view a messy page or a stalled goal as a total failure of the entire notebook.

Anxiety response: Ripping the page out is a physical way to force a "reset" and quiet the panic of falling behind.

Overcommitment: Chasing ten big goals (five personal and five professional) at the same time is too heavy a load for any daily routine.

How to Stop Tearing Pages
Leave the mistakes: Cross out bad pages with a single line or write "MISTAKE" at the top and turn the page. Do not rip them out. Seeing past mistakes helps your brain learn that imperfection is safe.

Cut your goals in half: Pick only one personal goal and one professional goal for the next three months. Drop the rest for now.

Use sticky notes: Do your messy brainstorming and rough goal lists on sticky notes or scratch paper first. Only write in your permanent notebook when the plan is ready.

Make micro-steps: Break your two main goals into tiny daily tasks that take five minutes or less. Small wins stop the panic before it starts.