My First Month of Bullet Journaling
One of my goals for 2019 was to start bullet journaling. I received a bullet journal and supplies for Christmas so come January 1, I was more than ready to get going.
I knew going into it that I was not your typical artsy person. I can’t doodle to save my life and staring at a book filled with blank pages was a bit intimidating at first. Thankfully, Pinterest is a thing and I quickly got inspired when I found a bunch of minimalist spreads that I could easily replicate.
Before creating my first monthly spread, I knew I wanted to create a few yearly spreads at the front of the bullet journal: Year At A Glance, Future Log, Movies to See in 2019, 2019 Bookshelf, and Blog Post Ideas…just to name a few. These are yearly spreads because they’re not tied down to a specific month so I can easily update them whenever I want.
When it came to setting up my January spreads, I kept it simple. I didn’t go *too* crazy since I wanted to focus on the actual habit/act of bullet journaling. By creating just a few spreads, I was able to see what I did and didn’t like so I could adjust accordingly for February. Here is the recap.
Things I Liked.
Habit Tracker. One of the things that attracted me to bullet journaling was the Habit Tracker. If you know me, this doesn’t surprise you. I’m obsessed with list, habits, and tracking literally anything I can. My January Habit Tracker was the first spread I created for the month and it ended up being one of my favorite spreads (shocker, I know).
Netflix Tracker. I try not to watch tons of shows on my own, but Luke got me into Chuck and we’re both hooked. To be honest, I realized AFTER I designed the header for this spread that Chuck is actually on Amazon Prime …but I kept it anyways. Shh…don’t tell
Highlight Of The Day. Another spread I loved was Highlight Of The Day, a one-page spread where at the end of the day, I wrote a quick sentence about the best thing that day. Some days were pretty nonchalant, but it was a fun challenge to find the little joy in each day.
Things I’m Changing.
Weekly To-Do Lists. Ironically, the one thing I’m changing for February is how I did my weekly to-do lists. I still have my Bloom Planners’ Vision Planner and I track a lot of my daily to-dos in there. Halfway through January, I tried creating a weekly to-do list in my bullet journal but I wasn’t a fan of how it turned out. I think switching from a horizontal layout to a vertical one will do the trick.
More spreads. Now that I’ve mastered a few of the spreads, I’m adding a few more in February. I like the idea of a “Monthly Goals” spread and a “When Did I Last___” spread to keep track of when I last did something (like get my car’s oil changed, clean out the fridge, etc).
Here’s to Month 2 of Bullet Journaling!