2018 Bullet Journal Set up!

Bullet Journal Bandwagon time!!

Yes, you’ve seen some bullet journal posts from me in the past, but this one is going to be a little different. I bought this amazing notebook from MintPrincess, you can find her Etsy shop here.

I must say that I absolutely love it. The review for this book is short and sweet. “Buy it!” The spiral bound notebook is amazing for every page laying flat and being able to actually use the full page for a spread. It comes with a ruler that fits nicely in the spirals as well so you can always take it with you without the fear of losing it. The pages are thick enough that I have used almost every pen I own on it and I haven’t seen any bleed through except with my copic marker, which you will see below. Other than that, its great dotted paper and I have really fallen in love with it.

Ok, so lets get started with the cover page. I believe that everyone should use the first page of every journal or notebook to claim it. Put your info on this page to ensure that if lost, it is returned. I wanted to make the information stand out and make sure that it was very noticeable.

After this page was out of the way, I thought that the year at a glance was the next spread. I wanted these two spreads to sorta match since they shared a view, so it wasn’t hard to use the same colors when I did the yearly calendar. Now, you will see some fancy schmancy fauxligraphy here, but I assure you, it is just me faking it until I make it! Honestly, there was even a point where I had a tween moment and put a heart as the dot above the I, but…I recovered quickly.

The next spread I decided on was the birthday calendar. I didn’t want to squish them all on one page so I just split the pages up in six areas each and did one month for each area. Two-page spread with plenty of room for all the birthdays I had to put on there. Let me tell you, June is full! For your viewing pleasure, I took photos of the spread before I put any birthdays on it.

Ok, moving on to the next spread, cleaning schedule. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the amount of cleaning that has to be done in my house. I end up spending my entire weekend off, almost spring cleaning my house. So, I did a little research and came up with a game plan, so to speak, so that I did not feel so overwhelmed every weekend. Of course, I use this as just a suggestion and it may change and adapt over time, but for now, I think its just fine.

Since I had my cleaning schedule in place, I believed that the next thing I needed to do was to try to work on a daily schedule. There are clear objectives in my day, and planning them out is a great way for me to see what I need to accomplish and when. Although there are some things that are adaptable, I can at least have an outline laid out for me to refer to and hold myself accountable to.

Ok, now lets move onto some trackers that will help me out in the new year. One of the main trackers that I have been wanting to do is tracking my reading. I fell off the wagon last year and couldn’t even get through one book. This year, I have a goal of 10 books, with plenty of space for improvement on that number. This gives me about a month to get through a book, whether it is a physical book, ebook or audio book! When I complete one, I will write the title on the book and move on to the next one.

Since I am working on goals for the new year, why not make a full spread of some of the goals I have been setting for myself. These include creating 100 mandalas as part of the www.100mandalas.com challenge, Sing like no one is listening, Sell one of my artwork projects, practice my handwriting and learning a full song with both hands on the piano. I play the piano, but I am completely self taught and have relied heavily on cord progression with my left hand, but I would like to work on getting away from that a bit more. I also have some emotional goals such as stressing less, loving myself a little more, being more kind and less judgemental and speaking out when something is upsetting me, or when I have an idea that I want to share.

And in keeping with my goals of “stressing less” you will see the bleed through on my next spread. I created a lot of borders, corner decors and hanging decors that I can add through my bullet journal. Putting them all in one place for reference was for the satisfaction it gives me to create art and be able to share that with others.

Since I was in the mood to create reference points, I also decided to do it with the weather and moods. The reason I put this in the front of the journal is so that whichever way I decide to track these things, which i’m sure will change monthly, I want to have a specific theme all the way through. I made the weather and moods simple, to the point, and generalized so that I didn’t have to account for each type of weather, like sunny yet snowing, which changes just like moods.

The next tracker is a Social Media tracker. I figured the last day of the month, I will just write down where I am at with each social media. Where will I be at in a year? I hope that the numbers will rise much further than they are currently. Still a baby at this blog thing, I am almost embarrassed at my stats in comparison with some of my blogging idols. I  even took a little bit of time to create each logo with my own twist.

The last two trackers are Savings and Expenses. I have a small goal for myself to save at least $100/mo. This might seem like a drop in the bucket for some, but for me with our large family, it’s a small step we can take that will help us out with those emergencies that like to creep up when you least expect it. Each square represents $10 and hopefully by the end of the year, I will have $1200 put away in savings. I wanted to track it by a smaller amount because I like to see the progress no matter how large or small within a month. The bill tracker is something that I saw on Pinterest somewhere I’m sure. I like the big picture. I like to know how a bill has changed throughout the year. I like to know where my money is going. So if I know that over the course of a year my mortgage takes up x% of my income, I will know to better plan the other expenses so that  we know where to eliminate waste. This is an easy way for me to also see what bill has been paid and how much was paid last.

This brings us full circle for the yearly tracking that I have already created at the beginning of my bullet journal. I would love to know what you think about each spread and which is your favorite, let me know in the comments below. Also, do you have a suggestion of a tracker that you would like me to tackle? Let me know that too!