Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | January 2020

Bullet JournalHello and welcome to another Bujo setup post! I am very excited to show you this months spreads for two reasons. I have cut a lot of the spreads I normally had and I added a few for the new year. Some of the cuts include my blog planning. I totally removed those pages and I now use a different planner/travelers notebook. As for the other spreads, expect to see a little consolidation and a few new layouts to mark the new year! On to a look into my bullet journal!


Since I am using the same notebook as I transition into the new year I decided to add this artwork from Shayda Campbell. I feel like this really separates and marks the new year and I thought it was important to celebrate it.

This year I wanted to add a little layout that would highlight my favorite book of the month. I thought it would be helpful and fun to reflect upon it at the end of the year. On the other page I have a Read 5, Buy 1 layout for the new year. I am excited to get back to this. But, this time I am making sure I only count books from my own shelves as thee reads, not library books this time around. So, because of this the spread is a little smaller.

This page I added a little doodle and then I also added a page with 12 books to showcase my 2020 Shakespeare Challenge, if you don’t know about it here is the post,  Blogmas | Goals | 2020 Shakespeare Challenge. I wanted to mark the play that is picked each month because it is a year long journey and I would love to see it grow. I also want to add a doodle for each play as I read them.  I thought it would be fun.

I have been working on a temperature blanket since the summer and I wanted to track my progress in my bullet journal. So, I added the month on the top and the day on the side and I am adding a dot for the days I have crocheted. I did not fill it out before taking the picture, but I will admit I am a little behind. On the right I decided to have a meal prep idea bank for when I am stumped on what to make for my meals. These are all ones I love so I will always be happy with any of them.

I picked this up from craftyenginerd, this year I wanted a pysical way to track when bills are paid. I will say I have never paid anything late, but sometimes I pay so early I freaekout and think I didn’t pay. So this will help me not freak out and rush and sign into my accounts. I also want to do a monthly one, I was thinking of adding one inspired by thatbujokid. But, I have not done it yet. I am still up in the air about it.

Here we are getting into the monthly spreads. On the left I have my January dashboard and mini calendar. On the right I added a place to add an affirmation that I can look back on. At the time I did not add one because I wanted to take the time and add a meaningful one. These are both from Shayda Campbell. The one on the right I took her other artwork and used it to complete the spread. I will say this month I didn’t use a ruler and I am kinda feeling the messy lines.

This month I really wanted to continue with the messy lines and the brown paper so I brought it through to me book tracker and to be read. These are spreads I have every month so I won’t go to much into it, but if you want to check out my TBR you can see that here: To Be Read | January 2020.

My weekly layouts are very similar to what they have been the last few months, but I added a tracker into my weekly spreads instead of just its own page. I really wanted to downsize my monthly spreads and get rid of stuff that was fluff and condense everything if I could. This layout has really been working for me and I have loved using it.


QOTD: How to do keep your schedule organized? Do you use a planner, bullet journal, or a monthly calendar? 

Sign Off 2020

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | September 2019

Recs

Hello everyone! Today I am going to be sharing my bullet journal spreads for the month of September. I am so excited and pumped about this month because I am trying more new spreads and I am in love with my theme. This year I went on vacation to Maine and I fell in love with the state, it is so beautiful and wonderful. I decided I wanted to hold on to those memories and feelings by making Septembers theme Maine!


This has not changed, it really works for me to have a little mini calendar for quick reference at the front of the month. I also decided to doodle a lighthouse that I took a picture of when I was in Maine. I have not drawn in a while so excuse the wonkiness, but I love it!

So, this month I decided to try a new type of habit tracker inspired by journalby.amber on instagram. I really liked how simple and clean it looked and it wasn’t a huge rectangle that took up the whole page. I like how each habit has its own little home. On the other page, which is kinda a little peak into something I am giving a go, you will see a page tracker. This was inspired by BooksandLala on youtube a long time ago. The doodles for these two pages are lobster and buoys. I was tempted to color these in, but I decided to leave this month without color, I don’t want to steal someone else’s color! If you didn’t know the color scheme on a buoy is unique to each fisher.

This month I decided to give my TBR a little bit of a makeover inspired by bookshelves and paperbacks. I loved that she had a bit of an area to check off her progress. I edited them a bit to fit my needs more, but I put S- started, R-read, P-placed. All are pretty self explanatory, but placed means that I placed the mini review in my middle mark or wrap up and marked it in my bujo tbr list. This illustration is of a mountainside. The area in Maine I was in a lot of it was made of granite . So the beaches are all rock and have a lot of steep drops. It is really beautiful to see the pink granite everywhere you look.

The last spread I added was 50 miles in September, which was inspired by The Petite Planner on instagram. If you were not aware this summer I did 2 5Ks and really enjoyed myself and I want to keep up being active. So looking through the internet I found this challenge of sorts and I really wanted to do it. I also loved that it had a spot built in to write my way ins. I kinda hate having to flip to more pages than I need to.

This month my weekly spreads are the same as they were in August, the only difference is I added some doodles since I was feeling inspired. I added a hook because fishing is such a staple in Maine, Blueberries because everyone had a famous blueberry pie or blueberry infused food item, a whale because they are everywhere, and lastly a huge pine tree because I loved the trees by where I was staying so much. They were so tall and sturdy.


Where is your favorite place to visit?

Do you use a habit tracker? What kind of format is it?

SignOff12:17

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | July 2019

Recs

Hello again! Welcome to my monthly peek into my bullet journal. This month, much like last month I took a lot of inspiration from Plant Based Bride over on youtube and her blog, http://plantbasedbride.com. I took her theme and quote and then added in my own style to it and my spreads that work from me. If you have never seen her stuff before, I suggest taking a look. She is very talented.


First off I loved her use of peaches for July, I know I am eating a ton of fruit this time of year so I loved this. I drew her images on my into page and then used my stamps for the month. I also decided to keep my spreads mainly monotone, but with a splash of peach. Which, you can see on my calendar overview.

I absolutely loved this quote that she used this month, so I decided to add it to mine as well. If I am not mistaken it is a quote from Dita Von Teese. I changed the font to just my hand writing and added in a little pop of color instead of going all out with the coloring. In the past I have noticed when I add color I tend to ruin my spreads by over doing it. I really loved this new social media calendar that I tried last month so I added it again. I wish I had used this spread sooner to track by blog and insta posts.

Next is my much loved book tracker. I have used this tracker through two different bullet journals and I am going to keep it for a long while I think. It is just really satisfying to see how long it takes to read a book and how often I actually read.

Here is my TBR for the month of July. You may have seen my TBR post, if you have you will notice I added another book in there. Since I loved Good Omens so much when I read it last month I wanted to read more works by Terry Pratchett so on the guidance of quite a few people I decided to start with Mort.

Last, but the most useful to me on a daily basis would be my weekly spreads. At this time I have not added the hours in the little squares on the left side of the day because my schedule has recently changed and I need to find a new balance with that.


What Bujo spread is the most used by you?

Do you track your reading outside of goodreads?

SignOff12:17

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | June 2019

Recs

So, this month I was so excited to be starting a new bullet journal. I don’t know about you, but I get super excited about starting a new one. It feels like a fresh start, a sweet breeze, or a clean slate. I can take all the spreads that have worked for me and leave the ones behind that I either don’t use or out grew. It is nice to see it evolve and grow as you do. Well, this time around I will admit I was heavily inspired by the Plant Based Bride over on youtube and her blog, http://plantbasedbride.com. I really enjoy the feel and simplicity of her bullet journal and I have heavily taken inspiration along with the spreads that have worked for me to create this new bullet journal.

Divider 2

My last bullet journal was a Rhodia goalbook, I HATED it. The pages fell apart just from erasing it, the paper was awful and I will not be buying a new one. Also, their customer service is horrible. I filled out a from and reached out on twitter and they said they would contact me twice and they never did. Not how you handle a situation as a company. This time around I am trying a new company, their notebooks are a bit pricy, but I was lucky enough to get it as a gift from my wonderful BF. I am trying an Archer and Olive notebook.


Before I moved into my new notebook I decided to make a list of the spread I wanted to keep and the ones I wanted to add. Here is a bit of a peak into the spreads I wanted to keep for this bullet journal, as well as add.

Keep

  • Crochet hooks ✔️
  • Weight-loss Tracker ✔️
  • Yearly Reading Goals ✔️
  • War and Peace readalong tracker ✔️
  • Twitter tracker ✔️
  • Blog tracker ✔️
  • Seasonal Bucket List ✔️
  • Grid spacing ✔️
  • ARC Tracker ✔️

Add

  • Period Tracker ✔️
  • Crochet Project Tracker/Wishlist Just Bright Ideas ✔️
  • 5K Training Progress ✔️
  • Owned TBR ✔️
  • Buddy Reads ✔️
  • Study Tracker ✔️

-General Spreads-

This layout is very helpful for me when I move into a new bullet journal, especailly when the brand is new to me. This lets me quickly see where 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 in either direction as well as how many boxes are in each page.

I tent to only keep a bullet journal for 4-6 months, so I only bother putting 6 months ahead so I can easily see how many days are in each month. I also left an area on the bottom incase I wanted to add a particular note for a day. On the other page I updated my eARC/ARC tracker page. I can easily see when a book comes out and if I have reviewed it. In this bujo I only added the ones I am still working on.

While I am not in blogging or on twitter for the numbers, I find it fun to track them. Seeing all the people I can connect with or who want to read my work is motivating in a way.

Alright, these two pages are totally new. On the right I added a different layout for my War and Peace reading this year. This year I decided that I would read W&P on the right hand side I write what sections I should read each month to finish on time. On the right I am writing when I actually end up reading it. I also added a little progress bar at the bottom. On the right I decided I wanted to keep track of all the books Reg, Jenna, Amy and myself read together. I added a bit of a starry night because I messed up, but I really did love how it came out.

Here is my reading challenge tracker, the same as it was in my old bujo. On the right I started writing my seasonal bucket list. I am still thinking up ideas, if you have any suggestions let me know!

I decided I wanted to track my studying my writing in the topic as well as checking off if I actually do study. I am trying to become a bit more structured. On the right I am tracking my period, I find myself needing to track it more now so I figured having an over all picture in one place would be helpful.

If you did not know this year I am really taking the time for myself and my health. So, I have been doing my best to make healthier decisions and lose some extra weight. I really loved the spreads I had in my other bujo so I migrated them over. I took the layout on the right from Forever Good Life.

A bit of a continuation, I am currently doing a 5K training app. I wanted to track my progress through the program as well as the km per week I am running/walking. On the right I wanted to keep track of the crochet hooks I have so I did some googling and found this spread from paperandinkco.heidi on instagram.

On the left I decided to give myself a space to write all of my “dream” crochet projects. I also decided to implement a kanban board for my blog posts. I picked this up from Plant Based Bride, as I said in the start of this post I found a lot of inspiration from her.

Divider 2

-Monthly-

This is my dashboard page and a bit of a monthly overview. I really enjoy having this monthly overview each month and I wanted to continue with it.

This is my normal book tracker that I have been using for MONTHS and I just love seeing what books I read and on what days. It is a great overview picture of my reading habits without using a habit tracker, which I realized are not for me because I don’t look at them for days and then have to do my best to remember when I did what.

Here is a bit of a view of my other reading tracker. I color in a block for each chapter that I have read. It is almost like a goodreads for my notebook when it comes to progress.

I wanted to try something new for my social media page. I decided to draw a mini calendar and highlight my blogging days, but I want to also color in when I post on instagram. I will see how this format goes instead of a list. On the other page is my TBR, pretty simple and straight forward.

Last month I used this weekly spread and I really loved it. I had to resize it a bit for this new notebook, but I still really like it. It made organizing my day really easy and gave me a clear view of my week. I will be adding some quotes as I move through the weeks, but I also left room to add doodles if I want to as well.

Divider 2

Well, there you have it, my new bullet journal and my June spreads, what do you think? Have you ever used a notebook by this brand before? Are there any notebooks you think I should try in the future?

SignOff12:17

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | March 2019

Recs

Hello everyone, I just wanted to share a few pictures of my bullet journal today. This month I am very much following the theme from this months Boho Berry Box, you can see all the things inside here, Unboxing Boho Berry | March 2019. I really loved the theme and instead of just adding it to another theme or using bits and leaving others I decided to embrace everything and use as much as I could. Here are my March spreads!

Divider 2

I want to star off by sharing the spread I added to my bullet journal since last month. If you have not seen my posts about me trying to have an indoor garden I till leave that here, Indoor Garden Adventures| January 2019. Anyway, I wanted to make a spread that would help me care for my new plants. As you can see the left is all filled out, but the right I just have a sketch. I am currently waiting for my Queen Pothos to arrive so I wanted to make sure I left room to add, but I love how it came out!


Here is my March dashboard of sorts and my monthly calendar of events. I decided to try using the Faber and Castell Gelatos on these two pages. I really like the colors, but they do not work well on this paper, I blame the paper, it is bad paper! Anyway. I added a few stickers and used washi tape to set the tone of this months theme. Also, sorry for the horrible editing on the picture, I just wanted to keep a few things a surprise!


This month I am using a mood tracker for the first time. I wasn’t quite sure what types of books to add so I picked calm, happy, anxious and sad/mad. If you have any suggestions that you think might work a little better let me know. On the right I added my habit tracker, this month I kept all the categories, but I added crocheting. I am currently working on a baby blanket and I need to get it done by the end of the month. I am hoping having it trackable will help me get my butt in gear.


Here is my tried and true reading/book tracker. I have really been loving this tracker and how visual it is. As you can see I plan on reading, for certain, these three books so I have them already penciled in and color coded.


Here are my chapter trackers for the books I am reading. I have a square for each chapter or section and I have not colored in my total progress into War and Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo yet because when I took these pictures it was still February and I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself.


On the left is where I plan off of my blog posts, sometimes I plan ahead and other times I don’t it really depends on my mood. At least point I can say I have about a week ahead planned, which works well for me. On the right I have my TBR for March, if you want some more details you can read my post, March TBR | 2019.


This month I added a to do section for those larger projects that won’t really be taken care of on a particular day. I also wanted to give you a little peak into what my dailies look like.

With that, those are the spreads I have added since February, I hope you enjoyed this little peak inside my bullet journal!

Divider 2

SignOff12:17

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | February 2019

Recs

This month I ended up having to migrate into a new bullet journal, just a month shy of starting a new one in the new year, but I can’t bring myself to waste so many pages. Anyway, I love starting a new bullet journal because, for me, I always end up not using spreads I used constantly in the start and creating something new. I like removing all the fluff and redoing all the things I love and use. So this months installment of my bullet journal you will see the spreads I migrated and then my monthly set up. If you want to see my previous bullet journal and spreads you can find those here.

Supplies I Used

Inspiration From

Boho Berry, @bulletjournaltime, @northernplanner, XOXOKAYMO, and Plant Based Bride.

DividerMy Spreads

Here is the opening of my new bullet journal, I wanted to add a bit more artistic flair to this one instead of jumping right into my spreads. On the right side quote/art Credit: Epooch I ordered a card with this quote on it planning on pasting it inside my bullet journal, but sadly it did not arrive on time so I recreated it. But, I am excited to be able to keep it and put it on my tack board to look at all the time. On the left side I did my best to doodle a bee and some honey comb patterns.

I made a “year” at a glance with only 3 months because my bullet journals really don’t even last a year or even 6 months. Mine tend to last 3-5 months if I am lucky. I use mine for notes and organization so I have many pages of notes and random things. On the right hand side I added a page that I can turn to to easily find the middle of the page and other spacing that might be useful to me.

The layout on the left is a migration of my winter bucket list from my previous bullet journal. I really enjoy this idea, it gives me a little drive to do something fun and different. The righthand side is the migration of my ARC Tracker as well. I have not really changed anything other than adding a downloaded column to keep track of the books I have added to my kindle or my computer depending on the format.

So, I have said a lot of times that I am not a blogger for the numbers or anything like that, I am here to talk books, bookish things and additionally my other hobbies. Well, when I was googling inspiration for a bee inspired layouts I found this tracker and I thought it was so cute with all the honey combs. I wanted to doodle it for two reasons. The first being it was a challenge to draw that shape so many times without messing up and the second being it was so aesthetically pleasing. So I added social media tracking. Each comb has a number and when I reach that number I color the edges in and write the date I met the milestone.

Both of these are buddy reads I am doing currently. War and Peace I am reading throughout the year and Monte Cristo I am cohosting a buddy read with Jenna on instagram [find her account here], if you have read the book or want to jump in and join us we would be thrilled. We are reading it until April and will have discussions every Friday.

These are both migrations as well. On the left-hand side I a cheatsheet to help me come up with blog post ideas. I don’t stick to this layout, but it helps when I need to come up with an idea what types of blog posts I can do without writing a lot of the same thing again and again. On the right-hand side I have my idea daily routine if I didn’t need to do anything.

On the left-hand side you can see my reading goals, you can see I have already made some progress on some of them, which makes me super happy. On the right-hand side I added a date night idea page. I thought this would be fun to add a bunch of stuff to and when my bf and myself feel like we want to do something different, we can just look at this page and do something.

DividerJanuary Spreads

So, with this being the first month in my bullet journal I wanted to stay with the overall theme I started it with. So we are continuing with the bees. The reason I came up with this theme is I watch a youtuber and then I found out she had a separate bee keeping channel, emmymade, and then I fell into a rabbit hole and ended up watching all of the videos from the last year. While I am afraid of bees, I can very much respect them. I am also really jealous of those who are not afraid and can bee keep. It looks like a very rewarding experience.

Here is my monthly habit tracker for this month. This monthly tracker is from my Boho Berry Box and her theme this month was sending letters. Not something I was really into as a theme, but I do love sending postcards. I participate in postcrossing and I love sending postcards all over the world as well as receiving them and learning about those who live in other countries.

On the left-hand side is my book tracker where I color in squares to show how many days I am reading a particular book. It is a wonderful visual tracker that I have fallen in love with over the past two months of trying it. I have gotten rid of my book stack and replaced it with this. On the right-hand side I have my key as well as room to add the book titles. As you can see I am carrying over two books from January so I already added them. I am keeping them the same color so it is more consistent.

This page is another book tracker I have used for months and months. I write the title of the book then underneath I add a square for each chapter or section of the book. When I complete that chapter or section I color in a square. It is like the goodreads precent tracker, but in a notebook.

In this monthly overview I write down all of the blogposts I plan on writing and publishing throughout the month. You will see on the left I have dots next to some of the dates. This is because those are my posting days. This reminds me that I need to get brain storming. On the right side I just write the books I am going to try and read in the month. It is a simple checklist layout. Sometimes simple spreads are just what you need.

Last month I tried a new weekly layout and I will say I absolutely HATED it. I am so happy that this month I get to use my old layout. The other one I did not have enough room to write the items I needed to get done each day as well as appointments I had. I did want to still have room to journal or take notes so, as you can seen below, I added a page here and there that is just meant for notes. I added a simple header at the top of the left page and bottom of the right page.

So there you have it, my February bullet journal. As you can see I have a fun new bullet journal with a new theme and I have kept some of the spreads and others I have dropped  like hot cakes. That is the thing I LOVE about bullet journals, you can keep what works and throw away the rest. As your life changes you can change you bujo.

Divider

SignOff12:17

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | January 2019

Recs

So this month I decided to try a new weekly layout and added a few new spreads. I am curious if I will actually be using a lot of the things I added or they end up being some pages that I doodled with high hopes. Either way, I am really digging the peach color currently so I decided to use that as my color of the month. One thing I have noticed is that I do not like to use a bunch of different colors as ascents throughout my monthly spreads. So, I am going to do my best to keep to one color a month, apart from my book tracker that depends on using different colors.

I wanted to note that I took inspiration from Boho Berry and a few different youtubers. Regrettably, my screen shots were taken on full screen view so their usernames were not in the image like I thought they would be to credit. If you know the channels please let me know, I feel awful. I thought I had their names in the screen shot, but no, I stink.

Anyway, here is my bullet journal and the new things I tried for the new year.

P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Divider

So this month instead of making an entire calendar that I don’t really end up using past setting up my weekly spreads. I decided to put in a little less effort and do a Monday start quick look on the left and a line to write what I need to write on the right hand side. This can include events, birthdays, or whatever I want.

On the left hand side I wanted to start really taking a look at my daily activity. I always feel like I don’t have time, but I think that is because I waste a lot of it. I want to sketch out my idea week day on the left and my ideal weekend day on the right in pencil. From there I want to try and follow it to the best of my ability and see if that helps me find some extra time to do something new.  On the right I am also trying a habit tracker which is something I have tried in the past and stunk at because I always kept forgetting to track my data. With this big picture addition and something I added to my weekly spread I am excited to see if I can finally be consistent.

So, this is a layout I tried out last month for the first time, I pretty much picked this up from BookandLala. I ended up loving this idea a lot more than I thought I would so I decided to bring it back again this month and I decided to drop the doodled stack of books. While, it was beautiful, it didn’t really give me the data I wanted, this on the other hand have me a lot more information about my reading habits.

Here is my December one completed for reference, one thing I learned was that I needed to carry around a few different colors of highlighter with me so I can fill this out in a more pleasing manner. I ended up having to use dots and lines, which don’t look great, but not what I prefer.

So once again on the left I have my monthly overview where I plan all of my blog posts and I put a dot on the dates that I normally schedule, those I come up with ideas first. I always end up posting more for one reason or another, but I like some consistency. On the right I have my TBR for January. I have a few idea of what books I am going to read next month, but I have not declared them just yet.

Now, I am trying a new weekly spread this month. I have no idea if it will workout for me or not, but it is worth a try. I made my daily’s a bit smaller and left room on the left and write to add tasks that are not day dependent or notes. I put a small tracker in the top left because I know I will be on this page a lot more than the monthly tracker. I figured at the end of the week I can move the data from my weekly to my monthly so I can see a bigger picture without going back and forth each day.

Divider

I don’t know if it is just the new year, but I am really excited about this months spreads and color choices. Once again I want to say have a wonderful New Year and I wish each and every one of you the best in 2019.

What bullet journal spread is you must have each month?

SignOff12:17

Tumblr Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads