This Is How I Currently Set up My Bullet Journal
It's been months since my first blog post about my bullet journal, and A LOT has changed! Today, I will be sharing with you the main things I set up for a new month, and the spreads I had to let go of because they just weren't working for me.
A few days ago, Jorge and I went to the coffee shop we frequent to do some work, but unfortunately, the wi-fi was extremely slow! Instead of being frustrated about the situation, I decided to bust out my bullet journal to set up for the month of March. No wi-fi? No problem!
Like I said above, my spreads have changed a lot! They have become simpler and cleaner which I actually really like. "Less is more." I just use an accent color for decorative purposes, and I switch the colors up every week. Some of the spreads that I have changed or gotten rid of completely are my elaborate daily spreads, my two-page weekly spreads, my gratitude pages, my little coffee trackers, the weather doodles, and the word of the day.
If you check my previous post, you will see that I almost always used up an entire page for one day because I squeezed in a lot per day: it had a "word of the day", a to-do list, a little water,sleep,h2o,workout tracker, and a gratitude section. For a while, that worked for me, and I actually enjoyed decorating and coloring, etc. but at one point, it became way too time-consuming for me to set up every night. So come October of last year, I decided to change things up a bit.
My BuJo is ever evolving, but right now, these are the spreads that have been working really well for me:
• MONTHLY SPREAD & TRACKER •
I usually don't decorate a page for a "MARCH" like what I did for my December month of last year, when my next free pages fall on a two-page spread. If the month ends on an awkward page, I then decorate the right page with the name of the next month so I can do the spreads the way they look on the photo above. I like setting it up this way because I can always easily flip through both pages, which I look back to often, because it's where I leave the striped bookmark for the entire month.
Here you will see that for my monthly spread, I followed the system Ryder Carroll created. This is where I list down important events and deadlines for the entire month and I always refer back to this page when I create my weeklies. For my monthly tracker, I followed the one that I've seen from Kara Benz (@bohoberry). To be honest, I might switch things up for this page because I feel like I track way too many unnecessary things! HAHA. I'll update you guys when I do change it up, but for now, this is how it looks like. It's divided into four major sections: self-care, werk, chores, and misc. And yes, I need to keep track of the days I shower. It's bad you guys. I don't like showering because I don't like washing my long and heavy hair. :(
• GRATITUDE PAGE •
In October of last year, when I started to have a separate Gratitude Spread, I only used up one page for the whole month. So imagine the spread above squeezed into just one page. After two months of small gratitude pages, I realized that it wasn't enough space for me anymore because I found myself being grateful for many more things. This year, I finally expanded my "I'm Thankful For" page, and I'm loving it so far. I now allot two lines for each day, which I find is enough for me. I also like to set these pages up right after the tracker, because this way, at the end of the day, after I evaluate my day through the tracker, I only have to flip one page to log the things I was thankful for that day.
• MONTHLY MEMORIES & FAVORITES PAGE •
Right after my Gratitude page, you will find my monthly memories & favorites spread. I like keeping track of the memorable things that happen in that month. I think I would really enjoy looking back at these pages someday. I also like to keep a page for my monthly favorites because it helps me keep track of the things I loved that month, that I eventually write about for my "Monthly Favorites" here on the blog. I fill up these pages in the form of drawings and little writings.
• WORK PLAN SPREAD •
I'm still playing around with this spread, but so far this month, it has helped me stay on track with my work stuff. On the left side, I created a little calendar where I can assign posts on particular days. This way, I'm able to set posts that have deadlines, and spread out posts of similar themes. For example, I wouldn't want to schedule/post two beauty related posts next to each other, or two consecutive sponsored posts, etc. On the right side is kind of like my "brain dump" page for all my blog & YouTube ideas for the month, and as you can see, I split them into several categories. The past two "work plan" spreads I created were huge failures, and this is actually the first one that looks like would work for me. I'll let you guys know how this one goes.
• WEEKLY AND DAILY SPREADS •
Finally, my weekly and daily spreads. I've been doing this type of weekly spread since October and I actually really like it. It allows me to have a quick glance on what my events and tasks are for the week. On the right corner of the page, you will see that I have a "TO DO" and "TO BUY" list. The to-do's section is for tasks that are not day-specific but need to be done in that week. The to buy section is pretty straightforward haha. My daily page is as simple as it can get! I got rid of the "time bar". I got rid of my Bible verse of the day. I just write the name of the day, the date, and my tasks. I also added a sleep and water tracker because that's something I actually want to keep track of each day.
For months, this spread layout worked very well for me, but I might actually change it up for next month. If you guys want updates on how I set up my Bullet Journal each month, let me know. I can totally make this into a monthly thing. On YouTube, they call these things "plan with me" videos. :)
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Do you keep a journal? Do you follow the bullet journaling system? What are some spreads that you cannot live without? If you don't have a bullet journal yet, do you think you'll start on one soon? Why?
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