Habit Spotlight: Bullet Journaling
I haven’t talked about bullet journaling in a while.
I’ve mentioned it here and there in other blog posts, but it’s been a minute since I’ve dedicated a post entirely to it.
Yes, I’m still bullet journaling, but I haven’t made the switch of going all in. I still use a traditional monthly planner for my everyday planning and to-do lists. It’s a habit I don’t want to break. I LOVE a good planner.
Last year, I was intrigued by the idea of bullet journaling and became obsessed with learning more about this new form of organization that I hadn’t heard much about. I started watching YouTube videos and researching “spread” ideas. I was at first intimidated by the infinite possibilities of how you can design and organize your bullet journal. I didn’t know if it was the right move for me.
But I’m so glad I decided to try it anyways.
2019 was the first year I bullet journaled. I practiced different layouts and tried different things I thought were cool. I found my groove.
In 2020, I decided to bullet journal again with the hopes that I’ll make it through another year doing it consistently.
One of the things I love about bullet journaling is the amount of trackers you can implement into your pages. Trackers to document your habits, reading goals, mood, progress on a goal…just to name a few.
There is no right or wrong way to bullet journal. Some people go all out and some are more minimal. I figured out that for me, each month needs to include the following:
A month overview page (including a written month-at-a-glance)
Habit trackers (I usually am tracking 6-8 daily habits)
Highlight of the day (A sentence summary of how the day went)
Monthly goals (I break it up by category)
Since I’ve been reading more frequently than in the past, I also included a Booklist page so I can see how many books I’ve read so far this year, my rating, the author, and which format (audiobook v. physical book). Honestly, this is one of my favorite spreads because I love to visually see the progress I’m making towards a goal.
Some months include more spreads and trackers than others. For me, I want to keep bullet journaling fun and attainable. The more trackers I create, for example, the more intimidating it might feel which completely negates the purpose of the tracker to begin with.
November, for example, was extremely minimal because it was a busy month and I didn’t have a lot of free time to dedicate to bullet journaling. In January, however, I spent more time on it because I wanted to start the year off right and motivated.
If you’ve never tried bullet journaling, I urge you to try. It’s not as intimidating or as hard as you might think. It’s really quite flexible to what you need it for. A blank canvas, if you will.
Here are the supplies I use if it helps you:
Ruler
Stencils (because I’m a perfectionist)
