Hey guys! So this year I decided to start a bullet journal and I absolutely love it! So I thought since the new month is about to begin, I would share a few things that I learned about bullet journaling just in case you guys were thinking of starting one too!
Just to be clear, you guys don’t have to restrict starting at the beginning of a new month! You can start whenever. I have showed a few people my bullet journal, and whenever they see it they’re always like “I can’t do this, it invovles too much work/creativity/whatever”. It’s important to remember it’s your bullet journal. So you can do whatever you like! I have just offering some suggestions/ideas, because I personally love searching Instagram and Pinterest for ideas.
My bullet journal is the Leuchtturm1917, which I got from Chapters. I like it, but almost any pen I use bleeds through the paper (this means that you can see what you written on the other side of the page). If this bothers you I would not recommend this one, but otherwise it’s great! It has nice ribbon to bookmark, a elastic to hold it together and many helpful bullet journal things like an index and page numbers already built it. Another thing to note is whether to get a grid or dotted journal. Grid is similar to grid paper while dotted is kind of like gird just minus the lines connecting all the boxes together. It’s really up to personal preference – I just like the look of dots more, and I don’t need the squares to draw straight lines.
For pens I didn’t want to spend a lot of money just in case I didn’t like bullet journaling. So I got a pack of Sharpie felt tips which came with black, green, blue and red. Then I got another pack of coloured felt tip pens from Dollarama. As I started to get more into it over the month, I bought a pack of Stabilo BOSS Pastel Highlighters from Amazon. Also Michaels had a sale on their scrap booking stuff, so I was able to get a bunch of stickers and washi tape there for super cheap! Always look for sales!!!
Next I am going to show you guys some pictures of my spreads and explain what I did and why I like it. And the end I’m also going to show a simpler example of a bullet journal spread since mine are pretty creative.
My first spread is my future log for 2018. On the left I have the year and my resolutions and then on the right I have all the month spread out. I like having this by seeing my resolutions written down it reminds me of them. I also like having all the months written out that way if I have to quickly look up a date farther in the year it’s easy to find.
A second option for a future log is one that is shorter than a year but longer than a month. Now since I am a university student and our semester are four months long, it made the most sense for me to put in a future log where I can put all my assignment. So this log has all my assignments for my Winter Term. You can put other dates or appointments in your log, but I kept my strictly school related. Sometimes I make mistakes when doing my bullet journal. I usually use white out, but as you can see in March, I decided to cut out a piece of paper and cover the whole area since it was going to be too much to white out. This is a really easy way to fix large mistakes. It is also possible to use pretty coloured paper to makes your mistakes purposeful. (Also looked at my February, I have so many midterms and assignment it’s going to be awful! #rip)
Now this is completely optional, but I decided to do almost like a cover page for the month of January. I like this because it helps split up my months. I found the idea on Pinterest.
Monthly spreads are very useful! There are many different ways to do monthly spreads, but I prefer the full calendar month approach the most. It’s just the best way for me to visualize my month. This is where I put all my assignments, appointments, events, etc. I find it helpful to just flip to this page and see what I have to do in later weeks.
Next is the weekly spreads. I have done four so far this month. I have really switched it up with every spread because I am just trying to figure out what does and doesn’t work for me. As you can see from my spreads, I am less of a schedule-every-day person and more of a general to do list person. So I usually put a few things for every day at the beginning of the week and fill in my days as I go. I also put a huge space for my to do list. Other things I like to include is my dinner schedule and a blog schedule for the week. One of my New Years Resolution is to drink more water, so I decided to put a water tracker to help motivate myself to drink more water. There are so many other trackers and things that you can add to your bullet journal.
Weekly spreads don’t have to be complicated though. So this picture is from Pinterest and it shows that bullet journals can be very simple. As well, two of my housemates also have bullet journals and they are very simple. There monthly spread is all the dates written down in a straight line and then space to write done events, appointment, etc. It’s important to do what you find helpful. My bullet journal will probably become simpler as I become busier.
Finally, one of my favourite things about my bullet journal is that I can put lists in the middle of the weeks. Before my bullet journal I have both an agenda and a notebook for all my lists. Now with my bullet journal I have narrowed it done to one book. As you can see I did a cleaning list for my room and also a page to brainstorm ideas for my blog. But you can do whatever you like! Like I’ve said many times, there are so many different ideas online for what you can do.
And that is my bullet journal! Wow this is probably one of the longest posts I have ever written! Let me know if you guys enjoyed this and if you would like be to continue posting stuff about my bullet journal.
xoxoxo
Lea
Leave it to Lea 