About a year and a half ago, I read about the Bullet Journal system, and it seemed to speak to every obsession at once. I love pens. I love notebooks. I love organizing things. So I bought my first bullet journal and went at it. And I tried too hard. I tried to make pretty elaborate layouts when I have not one artistic bone in my body, and within two months, I abandoned it.
I resurrected the old journal in April, and then filled that first one with some more messy layouts, some more discarded thoughts, and resolved to start over, brand new in June. I did that, and I stuck with it.
Thanks to various Youtube channels, particularly Boho Berry (I love Kara’s stickers and I tend to use a lot of her spreads for inspiration), I filled an entire journal for six months. Here are a few of my favorite spreads.
Book Tracker
I read like some people breathe. For years, I’ve been haphazardly tracking releases in my planners, but I knew I wanted some sort of master tracker so I could track pricing and preorders. This is the spread I use now, though it could use a bit more refining. I have something slightly different for 2018. I ordered an insert from Boho Berry Paperie to serve as both my tracker and my reading log so I can keep more details about the books I read in one spot.
I usually track my reading challenge at Goodreads, but I always found it hard to remember to keep up. By tracking it here in my BuJo, I was able to remember to write down all the books I read, including the rereads. I reached my goal in November but have slowed down since.
I always tell myself I’m going to use my BuJo to take more notes from podcasts. How Story Works from Chipperish Media and Lani Diane Rich is one of the few times I actually have. I have a spread for Big Strong Yes, but it never got very far. Maybe in this year’s BuJo.
NaNoWriMo 2017
I set my goal for 50,000, and as you can see — I reached that a week and a half before the end of the month. I loved this spread from Boho Berry, though next year I might tweak it and set a higher goal. We’ll see. It was fun to fill out with pretty colors.
The daily spreads from November represent the week I won NaNoWriMo as well as my niece’s birthday. I used stickers from Michael’s to give it more color. And the weekly is my final spread in my BuJo for this upcoming week. I adapted the daily spread from Kara @ Bohoand the weekly spread came from a Buzzfeed article I read last year, but I don’t remember where specifically. I ran out of pages to do daily spreads, so made it a full weekly.
That’s my first six months in a Bullet Journal. I’m really excited for 2018! Anyone can do it — I’m obviously not super talented and artistic, but I love bright colors, stickers, and pens, so I’m trying to get away from worrying about how perfect it is and just have fun.