Bullet Journal Companion 4+

I use my Bullet Journal religiously and love it. Now that I've used several I want to start the library. But the pre-loaded page number templates don't work for me. My favorite journal to use is the Leuchturm 1917 which has 249 pages PLUS unnumbered contents pages up front. So either I choose one of the pre-loaded journal formats which both have a smaller number of pages (and so I can't add my final pages) or I choose the open-ended one that has no capacity to load contents pages before page 1. This seems like a really significant oversight since the hallmark of the Bullet Journal method is the index! I will wait in the hopes this will get fixed! Also, some of the volume information can't be edited, so when I made a mistake in numbering the volumes I had to throw out the whole volume instead of being able to re-number it.

The only feature I make use of in this app is the log, but it’s worth the price of admission. I needed a place to Willy capture what’s in my head when my journal isn’t around. There are plenty of all that do capture, but this app does it best for bullet journals. Each log entry is either a task, idea, or event, there’s easy status notation to mark entries as Migrated when I transfer them to my journal, and the best feature is that the entries disappear after 72 hours, which nudges me get them on my journal AND keeps the app uncluttered

My only wish for future updates would be a 3D Touch feature that allows users to start any if the three log entry types right from the iOS Home Screen rather than requiring users to first open the app, choose log, and choose an entry type. Eliminate that pain point and it’d be a perfect app.

Update July 2024

This app has now become unusable for me. If I try to add a journal to my library with previous dates it simply won’t work. I pick a starting date and it’s fine. When I go to pick an ending date it locks up when I try to scroll prior to 2022. I’ve completely deleted the app several times, restarting my phone but nothing works.

At this point I would recommend using a good scanner app and just scan in your notebooks. The rest of the content in the app is already available for free on the BJ website. Extra features like on the go logging have an annoying 72 hour auto delete. I understand the goal was to get you to migrate to the journal but the time should be adjustable. I would love to go for a week vacation and not have to bring my journal and risk losing it. But the 72 hour limit means I can’t use this app daily to log my vacation. I recommend using Notes, Apples built in journal app or DayOne when a digital solution is needed.

Original review

I really want to give this app 5 stars but it has an absolutely fatal flaw for myself and I’m sure many others. You can have journals with overlapping dates. The reason this is critical is many of us can not mix our work and personal journals. So if you have to keep 2 journals that overlap the same date period you can’t back them up. If the app would simply add the ability to have multiple journal libraries it would solve this problem.