I’m now one month in to my new re-boot of my bullet journal. Throughout the month, I kept thinking “man, I should be doing more with this…” But in all honesty, it was kind of nice not to have to deal with it so much. I could have included my One Positive Thing 365 project in it, but I think that’s better suited for my actual journal because it gives me room to elaborate when needed. Also, I had originally decided to try to include tracking for my water and exercise in my planner, but that was sort of a wasted plan. My FitBit app is just handling that, and I try to write down my gym dates at least in the planner at some point. Now I just have pages of little icons I drew with no data related to them… Oh well.
As you can see, I ended up with a really simple, but I feel somewhat meaningful, monthly spread. As I mentioned when I talked about my page-ripping re-boot, I’m not doing really any tracking. I mean, at most, maybe just a little bit in my goals since those had weekly actions. But I don’t feel the need to keep a record of how often I did certain chores or good habits, etc. I just want a concise way of recording my life. However, I will say, I do want to figure out some sort of BuJo-Recipe book type thing. But I think I’m going to do that with a mini-binder so it’s easier to add and move things around.
So for the monthly spread I decided to add a mini calendar and to highlight important dates. I may end up tying this into my Highlights section via actual highlight colors. Maybe. But it gives me a quick month-at-a-glance, which I like. But it doesn’t have to be as detailed as my planner is. In fact, no where close.
At the beginning of the month, I start with just the calendar and my goals. This gives me the flexibility to add what I need and not be limited to space. I’m trying to keep my goals small and manageable, though. Things I think I can actually tackle in one month. Since I was doing two that involved weekly accomplishments, I added bullets behind them for the weeks and crossed them off as I completed them. As you can see, outside of one week of missed exercising, I did really well!
At the end of the month, I decided to add an Outcomes section below my goals. This allowed me to reflect on how I did with my goals and any changes I saw. So I could note that my thesis outline goal has completely shifted, and it doesn’t look like I just failed at it. I could also discuss my weekly gym dates and how I lost 5lbs! From there I’ve got my Improvements section, however, I’m still needing to reflect more to fill this out. I’m hoping these will help shape the next month’s goals, but it doesn’t have to be an exact transfer.
The largest section of my spread is my Highlights. These I can fill out as the month happens, as I prefer them in a chronological order, but I tend to forget. Typically at the end of the month I sit down with my planner, journal, and social media (mostly instagram), and see what happened that month. I try not to add things I personally did not partake in — like I didn’t do anything for my sisters’ birthdays this month besides text them, so I didn’t add that to my highlights. However, I also didn’t go out and march for the Women’s March On Washington, but it was so significant that it did need to be included because it does impact my life. It’s also why it gets the denotation of “important history” because it is just that.
So far I’m continuing this spread design for February. I feel like it gives me the flexibility to add or change things up as needed, which of course is the beauty of bullet journals in general. Maybe if I ever read more outside of class, I can add in a “What I read” section… but yeah, I don’t see that changing much. Sadly.
Do you BuJo? What’s in your monthly spreads?