a peek inside my bullet journal

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Organisation is kind of my thing. It has to be else I’d never remember anything or get anything done. There are to-do lists within to-do lists partly so I do the things, and also because it’s SO satisfying crossing stuff off. Bullet journals are perfect for all kinds of to-do lists, reminders, goal tracking and so on. Because you create it yourself the possibilities are pretty much endless. I always found normal diaries restrictive because I need to write everything down and there’s never enough space, so making my own is perfect.

My friend Letti got me a Leuchtterm journal for Christmas, which is just the perfect bullet journal book. I’ve got the squared paper one, but you can get dots, lines and plain too. The squares work perfectly for my goal tracking and drawing boxes around stuff. Loads of the journals I’ve seen have real cool fancy stuff like washi tape and cool paper and brush pens, but with mine I mostly use a four colour pen as I can take this around with me anywhere. I do stuff to my spreads on my lunch break sometimes, so it’s good to have a simple colour scheme and not have to lug loads of pens around with me. I use pastel highlighters for an extra pop of colour when sometimes.

When I first started I put a lot of pressure on myself to have this beautiful journal that was fit for Pinterest, but I’ve learned that all I need to do is create spreads that work for me. I experimented with a lot of different ways of doing it last year, which means my journal was a mess. But it’s supposed to be a creativity and improvement exercise as well as for organisation, so this year’s will probably be the same by the end of the year. And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Next year’s journal will be even better as a result.

My yearly spread

This is how I keep track of birthdays and other important dates for the year. I’m terrible at remembering birthdays, especially family ones. At 27 years old my mum still has to remind me to send cards, so this year I decided I’d be one step ahead and pop them all on a calendar at the start of the year. I don’t know why I’ve never done that before, and as this is the year I want to improve the things that niggle me about myself, I thought this would be an easy win. Plus, I already have a stash of cards from previous years when I’ve forgotten to send them. Accidentally organised!

The yearly spread is also important because unlike a shop-bought diary, the days aren’t already laid out for you throughout the book. I do mine a week at a time, as this gives me maximum flexibility to add it any extra spreads, and to shake up my layout if I feel it needs something extra. Without the yearly spread I’d have no way of noting down upcoming events for future months, and I would definitely forget. Plus it saves leafing through to find out if there’s something planned for a day in the future.

My goals for the year

I wrote about my ideal me the other day, which is the goals I want to smash this year. There’s always so much I regret not doing or wish I’d devoted more time to, so I thought “why not just bloody do it”. And what better time that the start of the year. 2018 is going to be my year, because I’m going to make it my year. At the start I’ve listed eight areas I want to work on over the year to become the person I want to be. This first page is really an overview, with the following pages breaking each one down into goals.

I’ve done a spread for each goal with mini goals, trackers, and inspiration to help me on my way. This is how I’ll keep track of how I’m doing in each area. The eight aspirations become a bunch of concrete goals that I can cross off as I go. As a crossy, ticky offy person these pages will be really motivational for me.

Monthly and weekly spreads

This is where I keep track of my more specific goals and to-do lists. Starting with a monthly calendar to show what’s going on in my life for the month, then a breakdown of monthly goals, all relating to my eight areas of improvement. Also a habit tracker, reminders, and notes section.

My weekly tracker is the real diary part of my bullet journal. Here I can organise each day and make sure I actually do all the things I need to do.

It may not be as pretty as some of the journals on pinterest, but it’ mine and it works for me. It’s also a whole lot better than when I started bullet journalling last year. It’s a pretty cool way to show improvement, as at the end of the year I’ll have this whole book not only with the trackers in it, but with progressively better spreads.

Do you use a bullet journal? What kind of spreads do you use? Let me know in the comments 🙂