Just a heads up this may be a bit of a long post so you may want to grab a tea of coffee and get comfy!
This year I made the decision to use my standard size TN as my planner. This has been one of the best decisions I have made this year!! The size is perfect for planning.
After getting back into planning in a TN, I started watching more videos on YouTube and following more IG accounts. Doing this, I found Boho Berry! Her videos and IG convinced me to finally try bullet journaling. Up until this point, I knew what bullet journaling was but it didn't seem right for me. Her bullet journals are so pretty I couldn't resist trying it out... and I am glad I did.
I have fallen in love with this method of planning. It has helped me be less particular about how things look and actually use my planner. Don't get me wrong! My planner is still pretty and colourful, but I am learning that if I make a mistake it isn't the end of the world haha.
On my IG account Stephanie.Emmiline I have had a few requests to do this post about how I setup and use my bullet journal! So lets jump right in!
In my TN I have my actual journal, followed by my bullet journal, a book where I keep permanent lists (non-permanent ones go in my bullet journal pages as a collection), and a zipper pouch. So this post will just go through how I use my bullet journal insert, what I keep in it, and how I set it up.
When I open my BuJo, the first page is my index. I don't log everything here. Basically, I log any pages that are not daily pages, and then when I start the month I write that in and leave a space to write where the daily pages end. So April is entered as 5 - ___ April 2016. This means that my monthly spread for April begins on page 5 and then my dailies start after that, when I get all my dailies done I will put the last page number after the 5. That way I don't waste my time entering every day into my index.
The next spread is inspired by boho berry (to be honest my whole BuJo is inspired by her lol). This is my future log. Here I drew mini calendars of each month from where I began BuJo-ing (April) and left space to write next to each calendar. This is my way of future planning. If I have an appointment in September I will write it in here and then when I begin planning for September I can come back to this page and see what appointments I have. This way I can schedule things and not lose them!
Also in my future log I shade in the day on the calendar so appointments or other events stand out. I use my colour coding system from my previous post to correspond with whatever the scheduled event is. For example: appointments in orange and birthdays in dark green! You can see my colour coding post here.
The next spread is my bullet journal key and my weight loss tracker. For my BuJo key I just wrote out what I had on the card in my last post. This page is nothing special.
For tracking my weight loss I decided to go with a dot graph because I can see my ups and downs, and it is a more accurate picture of my progress. So on this graph I chose three colours (blue = no change/starting point, green = weight loss, red = weight gain.) based on whether my weight has gone up, down, or stayed the same I place a dot on the graph in the corresponding colour. I weigh in on Monday's so I only track my weight on here those days.
The next spread is my month overview for April. This month I used a combination of things I have seen in Boho berry's however, I am planning to make a few changes next month! So First I have the days of the week vertically down the side, followed by 4 columns (all day, morning, evening, and goals). Then I have next months calendar (on here I colour in specific dates where things are scheduled or planned).
On this spread I plan on changing some of the titles next month. So it will be All Day, AM, PM, and Monthly Tasks (instead of goals).
Following my monthly spread I have my April tracker. Here I put in a list of habits or tasks I want to track and each day that I accomplish these tasks I colour in the box. To the left of the tasks I have a single blank column where I am planning to use one of three colours to colour it in when the month is over. These colours will be red = poor, green = good, and yellow = okay. I am planning to use these colours to determine what I need to keep on my tracker next month and what I can remove from my tracker because it has become a habit for me.
Then I began my daily pages. Since I began on April 1st which was a Friday I used a single page for those three days.
Following my first daily pages I made a collect listing how to store particular groceries and how long they should last (too often food goes bad in my fridge so I hope this will help!!).
This information was found on pinterest |
Then we get into my first full week of BuJo-ing. This is where I will explain how I actually use my daily pages.
Each week I have decided I am going to stick to a single type of banner because I like the cohesiveness of this look. So here I used a banner from (you guessed it!) boho berry's banner tutorial video on YouTube. Under the banner I wrote the month day and year (Example: 04.04.16). Following the header I drew a time tracker that runs from 1am to 12am. I use this to colour in how I have spent my time. So I colour this in at the end of the day of after I have done something (rather than using it to plan what I want to do). Then I draw in my weather symbol for the day and write out my to do list and appointments (I use the symbols from my BuJo key in my to do list as well).
I only draw a day at a time, I don't go ahead. So today is Tuesday and I only have up to today drawn out. Before bed or when I get up in the morning I will set up Wednesday. Everyone does this differently so if that doesn't work for you, you could always draw out your week ahead of time. You can also make your pages more or less structured. Be creative and change things up! That the best part about BuJo-ing.
Following last weeks spread I put in a spread for my University Graduation, then the following spread is this week!
I hope this was helpful! If you have any more questions feel free to comment here, or DM me on IG (linked above). Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this post please follow and share with a friend!
Happy planning!!