The Bullet Journal thrives on the ability to constantly be revised, amended, expanded or scrapped. It can be an artistic outlet or just a way to get an organizational/ neatness fix 🙂

I wish I was as creative as the amazing Bullet Journal artists on Instagram (see previous BuJo post for list), but I have not the time or the inclination to devote QUITE that much thought to mine. I want my BuJo to be functional but clean and pleasant to look at.

It took me a rather long time after my new journal arrived to actually put ink to paper. I was scared of ruining it if I didn’t plan out my strategy first. There was much sketching on paper, listing pages I wanted, and figuring out how many pages of space each item would need, and how to group them to make the most sense.  I eventually landed on the idea of grouping 6 month blocks of weekly spreads and monthly pages together at the beginning so that everything went sequentially, then grouping all of my Miscellaneous pages together after that. Then when I was close to the end of the year, I would add another 6 month block of weeklies and monthlies. Whew! Planning stage done! Let’s go!

First off I’d like to say that people are right about this journal brand, “Leuchtturm1917”. A friend of mine, who also bullet journals, got one recently as well and we gushingly agreed that there is something about it that just feels levels of quality higher than my moleskin. It looks bright and clean, my new Sharpie pens go on smooth without much bleeding through to the other side, and the pages are wider and lay flatter than before- an all around pleasure.

My first section was July-December 2017. I started out with three 6-month spreads (July 2017-Dec 2018) so that I could see upcoming scheduled events, and could list things that I knew would be coming due (like car taxes, Dropbox renewal costs etc). This section also included my weekly spreads and  each month has a gratitude log (1-2 things I’m thankful for daily), monthly budget tracker and then my monthly habit tracker (where I see how frequently I exercise, read, knit, train my cat, drink soda, get a full night’s sleep, have a no-spend day etc).

The most fun and creative part of the Bullet Journal for me is the “Misc” pages- all of the project pages and trackers that make the BuJo unique.

So far  I have:

• A Gift Ideas page: where I keep track of upcoming gift giving and make notes of gift ideas as they come to me.
• Goals for the 2nd half of 2017: including personally designed knitting pattern goals, reading, financial, fitness goals etc.
• Grocery list: This page has a basic grocery list of things we tend to keep in the house and buy on a regular basis as well as spots for attaching post-it notes. I write down my grocery list on these throughout the week and then just take the post-it note out when I go to the store.
• Chores list: This helps me keep track of weekly cleaning in the house as well as less frequent projects that need to be done, like changing the air filter, checking and cleaning gutters and cleaning the toaster oven.
• House projects: Ah the joys of home ownership! Now everything is our responsibility :-/ I took the list of everything that was noted in our home inspection and divided it into soon (first 6 months), later (6 months- 2 years) and long term (big projects like saving up for a new roof).

• TV episodes: I’ve dabbled in a lot of shows and this will let me keep track of where I am so I can make progress on the ones I want to finish.

• Movies to See: pretty self explanatory
• Blog Brainstorm: Jotting down ideas of what to write about
• Salad in a Jar: I’ve been trying to cut down on waste and packaging where I can and lunches are a good place to do that. The whole “Meal in a mason jar” trend sounded pretty good so I jotted down several that sounded tasty, with the ingredients in the order they should be added to the jar to prevent sogginess. This way I can just choose one I haven’t tried and grab those ingredients on the weekly shopping trip.

• Wishlist and Upcoming Expenses: Been trying to clear out my credit card and save so knowing what expenses are coming up and what frivolous things I’ve been wanting to get will let me space out the “treat yo’ self” expenses so that I don’t blow my budget.
• Finance tracker: Helps me see how close to my financial goals I am (personal savings, joint savings and paying down the credit card)

• Books to Read: Aaaaahhhhhhh! one of my favorites and one of the most satisfying pages to look at- that was a lot of drawing lines with a straight edge! I think I have enough on my to-read list, for now…. better get cracking.

• Knitting Queue: pretty much just transferred this from my old BuJo. Each skein has a different category of project (personal designs, small/medium, charity knitting/ small waiting room sized projects, and large projects)

• Audiobook House Cup: Ok I kind of love this one. Came up with the idea in the old BuJo and started fresh here. I love listening to audiobooks and it helps me to keep plowing through the book list, so to make it fun, each night I check to see how long I listened that day. Each 15 min block of listening is one “gem”. I go to Google’s random number generator and set it for 1 through 4 (1-Gryffindor, 2- Ravenclaw, 3- Hufflepuff!, 4- Slytherin). Whatever number it chooses, that house gets those gems for the day. And I see who fills their hour glass first! 🙂  {*whispers* go Hufflepuff!!}

• The road goes ever on and on… : this is also a transfer from the old journal and it was “The Road to Mordor” then. But I figured I’d probably prefer to be walking back towards the Shire than towards Mordor! Each block is 1.5 miles and I check my Fitbit at the end of each day to see how far I’ve walked. I add it to the page and see how long it takes me to walk from Mordor back to the Shire (1350 miles according to some awesome person online who figured all that out).
  • Note-  I recently started just jotting down mileage on each day of the week in my weekly spreads and then adding all of the those miles together to this page at the end of the week, rather than daily- makes it a little easier.
  • Note, the second- I’ve since joined the 21st century and synced my husband’s Fitbit (which I have now stolen completely away) and downloaded the app, so I just have to look at the app once on Saturday night to get my weekly walking total… Huzzah!

And that, dear reader, is all. For now 🙂