A Bullet Journal is a great way to keep your life in one place and have notes on what you need to do and your hopes /dreams all together while being creative!
Who am I? How did I get here? Hello! It’s been a while. Life was very hectic at the end of 2024, and I lost track of a lot of things. I am not good with change and there were many rapid changes happening that I ended up being overwhelmed. But now I am hoping this is a bit calmer and I will be able to post more often.
And, as always, I am going to kick off the new year with a celebration of a new bullet journal! While I do have a bullet journal for sale that is very structured, I felt a little constrained over the last year. Especially toward the end (unsurprisingly). I was itching for change and ended up buying a blank bullet journal as well as fine point pens.
The pens were an especially interesting buy because I do not use fine point pens. I normally would use G2 pens but the fine point pens toe line between a pen and a marker. And, overall, it gives a smooth finish to the writing that I am taking a liking to.
And so, I headed into the new year with a blank notebook and an overactive mind. There were many page spreads that I wanted to do and many different themes I am excited to explore. Today I will share only a few of them.
Check out the Craft section of MCG for more fun patterns in strings and things or more unlimited ideas.
YEAR AT A GLANCE
One of my biggest changes this year is the year at a glance page. Usually, I would put the calendar for the months next to each other, highlight the dates and then have a list of “important dates”. It’s a fine approach but I was feeling it was a little less consolidated than I would like. Also, a little repetitive. Why highlight the dates if you’re just going to write them somewhere else?
So, this year, I decided to leave a space below each of the calendars. I highlighted the day and then I would write the even below next to a small dot of the same color. This helped my brain a lot. It coordinated the events smoothly and made both pieces necessary. It also helped put two events on the same day. Since the color is specific to the day and not the type of event, putting an & on the description didn’t feel as weird.
JANUARY
In the past, I have done a cover page for the month followed by a calendar and habit tracker. But I also noticed that there was a lot of extra space around the calendar and habit tracker, so I thought, why not combine them? I associate January with lights. Maybe it’s because there is still some reminiscence of Christmas lights. Or maybe it’s because fireworks, light, and new years are all jumbled together in my brain.
Either way, I knew I wanted to do a string of light design in the background. I also added in to classic hanging light bulbs because… why not? I thought it filled up the space well and I love the whole look even if it’s a little crowded.
Everything feels so changed from last year. The calendar is too small to write down the full name of events, so I decided to do highlight circle like what I did for the year at a glance. I wanted to make the dot in the day and the have the space below correspond with the dot. I really liked this method because it eliminated the repeat writing I used to do for events.
HABIT TRACKER
The biggest change for me is the habit tracker! I went back to a grid habit tracker because it is easier to make. Instead of writing the name, I put down icons at the top of each column. Since making a full grid would be a little tedious. I decided I’m going to just dots inside of each “grid” space. Still debating on whether I assign a color to a column or a color to a day.
There was enough space on the right that I decided I wanted to make another tracker. This one is more of a graph type situation. I tried to create a mock-up of what that might look like (I’ll have an actual example next month)
My excel obsession is showing, isn’t it? Anyway, I thought it would be fun to mark my mood, the weather for the day, and how many glasses of water I drank each day. Having multiple lines going on one graph is extremely pleasing but it can also help me correlate how certain things impact my mood (or if they do at all).
I think I will be better about the mood tracker since it’s on the same page as the daily habit track but only time will tell…
RANDOM PAGE HIGHLIGHT: ONE LINE A DAY
In my prior journal I had a space to put gratitude for the day on the same page as the day. This time, I wanted to do something a little different and try out the one line a day spread. I liked having the one line a day because it felt less constrictive than a sentence that always began the same. Instead of starting with “I’m grateful for…” every day, I am curious so see what I end up doing. It’s definitely nice to be able to say what I’m excited about or something else positive.
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