Time management is not my strong suit. I’m constantly using different tools to try to keep me organized and on task. My Alexa has been helpful with a lot of the scheduling but recently I got really into planners. There are such specific things that I want to track that it was impossible to find a planner that matched my needs 100%. Bullet journaling caught my attention because there is so much room for customization and it also seemed like such a zen activity to express creativity. I think it seems relatively easy to do without stencils if you use the bullets as your guideline. Last year, I tried a little bit of it but this year, I planned out a bunch of sections and really enjoyed it. I found inspiration all over, like searching #bujo on Instagram and throughout Pinterest, and even just Google image searching.
I love the simplicity of the year-at-a-glance page. It’s basic and lets you play around a little with the bullet journal fonts. This one is good just for highlighting important dates with small titles. It doesn’t leave much room for appointment details but I like to get an idea of what the overall months look like.
A monthly setup helps me to gather myself at the beginning of each month and plan out goals I’m hoping to achieve during that time. I’ve added Bible verses to mine to help with encouragement and personal reminders.
For the more detailed plans, I like the weekly layouts but there are a million ways to make one. Since it’s my first time creating a weekly, I went with something simple but cute.
I planned ahead for my themes which I’d say honestly serves no functional purpose other than giving me time to come up with layout ideas, just another way to play around and test out fonts and doodles.
Habit trackers are fairly common. People track their fitness, water intake, reading history, anything you can think of. With my personal goals being God-centered, I wanted to focus on my progress through reading the Bible.
In the past few years, I’m disappointed to admit that I have barely read any books at all. There are so many books that I began reading but never finished. This year, I knew that needed to change. I need the mental stimulation, the inspiration, encouragement, and even ideas as far as my writing goes. For those reasons, I made a reading log page.
In keeping with my ‘appreciation’ focus for the year, I also created my own simple page. “A Moment’s Notice” will be for me to take the time write down little moments and feelings that stood out to me. When I recognize the extra gold strands in my preschooler’s ringlets or my son takes the time to ask me how my day was, I want to write it down so that at the end of the year, I’ll look back on these moments with fondness at the end of the year and beyond.
There are infinite other bullet journal page subjects and ways to complete them but it’s all about your preference. Other pages I made include: Date night tracker, bucket list, wish list, prayers, and the list will keep growing. I’ll definitely be back to share more ideas at some point but this is just my beginner’s journal! I find that drawing simple headers like sashes is easy and still looks pretty so if you can’t do the fancy doodles, I think that’s a great way to start!
For the bullet journaling gear, I’m just using a Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal and some marker pens that I bought from Five Below. The pens aren’t great or terrible so they’re really not worth mentioning. I’ll come back and update if I find something personally that I like, or feel free to suggest your own for us in the comments!
What would your bullet journal have to include a page for?
I have a calendar when I enter my feelings and events that have happened. I really like looking back at it at the end of the year