Last year was the first year I really started using a Bullet Journal to help organise my life, I was new to the concept so there were a lot of things I found that worked and a lot of things that didn't. This year I am fully embracing the Bullet Journal lifestyle. You may be sat there thinking that this kind of thing is just wasting more time and it would never work. But in all honestly trying a Bullet Journal is one of the best things I have ever done and I can't see myself ever turning back. Not only does it help you organise your life better but it also a nice way of documenting special events in your life, something you can look back on once the year is over and remember good things. Also the sense on achievement when you can tick off all of your tasks or see a full page complete is great self motivation. I would highly recommend Bullet Journaling to anyone, and the great thing about it is it can be as fancy or a simple as you want it to be, it is completely up to you.
When I first started using a Bullet Journal I had no idea where to even begin. I was one of these things I had seen on Pinterest and thought 'hey I want a go at that', I have that thought pretty often and very rarely follow through with it, but this time I did and I am so glad for it. It was also an excuse to watch countless YouTube videos about it, everything from what materials are best to use, what pages you could include and how to decorate it. While I took many of those ideas on board and some of the pages I include in my journal are standard for many other Bullet Journal lovers, I feel I have really found my rhythm this year and it seems to be working well for me. On that note i thought I would share my Bullet Journal set up with you and hopefully inspire some ideas too. I will also be sharing by setup month by month, discussing what is working and what I have improved etc. So come with me on my Bullet Journal Journey. Word of warning this first one is going to be long one, so go grab a cuppa and lets get down to it.
First of all lets talk about the materials I use. The journal itself is a Leuchttrum 1917 A5 Notebook with numbered pages, dotted
, this year I was gifted the yellow book for Christmas and I love it, but it does come in a huge variety of colours. I would highly recommend this book as it is perfect for Bullet Journaling. All the pages are already numbered for you, the dotted pages instead of blank or lined make it so much easier for page layouts and it already has a large index in the front already. The book itself is a hardback making it very sturdy, as in my experience my Bullet Journal goes through a lot throughout the year. My pens of choice are the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Superfine Point Pens, 0.3 mm
, at the moment I have the pack of 20 in assorted colours. These pens are great, so nice to write and do simple designs with, the best thing is that they don't bleed through the paper. I made the mistake of trying to use Sharpies when I first started. Other than that the only other writing materials I really use are regular graphite pencils and some coloured pencils, whichever ones I have lying around. I haven't been brave enough to try other markers or watercolours yet. To decorate I tend to use stickers (mainly because I am too lazy to do elaborate designs) with stickers I get a fancy design with minimal effort. You can see in the image above that I have used a super cute Disneyland sticker to decorate the front, this sticker is from Redbubble and I buy all my stickers from there (shameless plug but you can check out my Redbubble shop here) you will see more stickers throughout my journal.
See didn't take long to see another sticker, and there has never been a sticker that has summed me up so well 'First I drink the coffee, then I do the things'. The key is a very important part of a Bullet Journal, essentially it is the way you are going to keep track of all your events and tasks through out the journal, so have a good think about how you want to do this. In all honesty I have found that a pretty traditional Bullet Journal set up has worked well for me, keeping it simple is key, don't over complicate it. As you can see I use the traditional Bullet Journal Symbols but I change the colour depending on what the task is related to, for blogging its pink, for general everyday tasks its black etc. I have found that this way I can see very clearly where my priorities lie that day.
Next is my Future Planning Page, this is basically the whole year at a glance where I can write in major events such as holidays, gigs, weddings etc. I like to have a little fun with this page as I keep the rest of my journal pretty simple, this is probably the most elaborately decorated page, the amount of colour just makes me happy.
The next two pages are pretty self explanatory, a page where I can log all of my friends and families birthdays and a page for my yearly goals. Now the yearly goals is a new addition to my Bullet Journal this year, I felt if i had them all written down it might motivate me to stick to them more, so far it seems to be working. Boxes with striped colour in them is a theme I tend to use throughout the pages, its quick, easy and simple and yet it adds a little decoration and colour. You don't need to be super fancy for it still to look pretty.
Next are the financial pages, or in my eyes the boring pages. I have never really kept track of my finances, which could be the reason why I have got myself in a little bit of debt. But now I am in my late twenties, almost touching 30 I thought it was time to start and take control. My aim is to be debt free as fast as I can and to start saving. So I am going to attempt to use these 2 simple trackers that don't look to daunting to help me do this. I love the look of the savings jar, but I found this idea on Pinterest, I can not take credit for it. But if you are ever stuck in a Bullet Journal rut Pinterest has thousands of great ideas.
Two of my goals for this year (which you can read all about here) are to take better care of my body and to read more. The body tracker is just to keep track on my progress and hopefully act as a motivational tool. My books to read page is another idea I essentially stole from Pinterest, but I think it looks super cute. I have set myself a challenge on goodreads.com to read 30 books this year. On this page I have listed the book titles I am going to aim to read and when I have finished a book I will colour in the spine.
I wanted to catalogue every film that I watch this year, mainly for my own curiosity sake and partly because I also am part of the team over at thefilmagazine.com so it always helps to keep track of my film watching activity (if you love anything to do with film you should check it out). The next few pages are just a space where I can empty out any ideas that come to me, so I can come back and refine them later, this particular one is for blog post ideas...
...One for ideas for The Film Magazine. One for Etsy ideas...
...and finally one for Redbubble, notice that each title is in the colour corresponding to the key. Then we get into the main bit of the Bullet Journal, the main reason that we take so much time and effort setting it up in the first place. The monthly and daily planning. Shown here is my title page for January, to be honest I didn't really have many ideas. I use a sticker on the title page of every month and January was no exception, and I thought this was a nice little quote to start off the year, then I just tried my hand at a little hand lettering, not well I might ad but I tried. I will aim to make more of an effort as the months go on.
Here is how I set up my monthly spread each month. I have a little traditional style calendar showing the days of the week and the dates, a long list of the dates where I can write important events and a monthly to do list. I try to give each month a colour scheme, Januarys is blue and I decorate it with a little doodle. Nothing fancy, simple is the way forward for me. As you can see I made the rookie mistake of using a Sharpie on the previous page and it has bled through, I will never learn. Next is my habit tracker. Those of you who are new to the Bullet Journal life may not have come across this yet, but if I have learned anything from my Bullet Journal research it's that a habit tracker is a must have page. The way it works is that you write the days of the month along the top, with a list of things you want to track down the side and when you do the thing that day you colour in that days square. In the past I have been a bit lazy when it comes to filling this in but believe me when I say they work and the beauty is you can track whatever you want. For me I use mine to keep track of how much water I am drinking and if I am eating breakfast everyday, as well as blogging and social media stuff.
Two more monthly trackers, another to help me keep on track of my finances with an expense tracker. The other is to keep track of my blogging and social media progress as well as a little monthly blog planning page.
Lastly is my dailies (Bullet Journal jargon for daily to do list). My dailies look the same each month apart from the colour in the little flag like design changes to correspond to the colour theme for that month. This design served me well throughout all of last year so I thought why change it, it is quick and easy to set up and I still think it looks cute. As you can see I use different symbols (or bullets if you will) like I set up at the beginning in my key and the colour of the writing changes depending on what the task relates to.
Phew, breath we are done. I hope this was somewhat helpful, inspiring, interesting or just fun to have a peek at my Bullet Journal. I will be keeping you updated showing my new spread for each month and letting you know what is and isn't working for me and anything new I decide to add in.
Are you a Bullet Journaler? If so please share with me anything you like, the materials you use, the page you have, I am fascinated by it as it has honestly changed the way I live my life for the better.
