Updated bullet journal!

New year = new bullet journal. I only started my other one back in October and I still had a lot of space left, but I chose to start a new one for a few reasons. First off, I wanted to have everything for the whole year in one. There were a lot of things that I wanted to track yearly (books read, social media/blog stats, etc) and I really didn’t want to have to transfer it over to a new journal. And, if you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen that I messed something up so bad that I would have had to rip out 20+ pages to keep it all in line. So I gave in and started fresh for 2018. I have to say that I am SO glad that I did! I love the look and I was able to include so many bookish things I want to keep track of. There’s a lot to see so let’s get to it!

The first major change I made was adding a future log at the beginning of the journal. I have so much going on ahead of time and needed a place to write it all down. I was attempting to get ahead in my journal by 2-3 months because I needed to write it all down, but then I ran into the problem of not being able to make changes. If something wasn’t working or if I needed to add something, it was too late as I had already done the spreads for that month. These pages are my lifesaver!

These pages I kept exactly the same from my first journal. They worked out too perfectly to not keep them. There is so much to write down on these spreads so I didn’t want to add a busy design. It would be too much! Of course I’m going to track the books read in the year. I did however add the page numbers in brackets so it’s easier to track my pages read in a month/year. Also the ARC page has made it so much easier to keep track of release dates! I used to put post it notes on the spine but they always fell off.

This is an interesting spread for me! The goals page looks bare and empty. I didn’t want to set too many goals in the beginning of the year and overwhelm myself. And I’m also the type of person who adjusts as my life changes. So I left some clear space to add to my list if I wanted to. The year in pixels is going to be an interesting experiment and is placed next to my goals page for a reason. Some of you may know that I struggle with anxiety. I’m working hard on my ability to handle stress and my two biggest personal goals is to BE HAPPY and STRESS LESS! The coloured in boxes will track my mood and see how things are going. So far so good!

Hands down my favourite page in this whole journal!!! I needed to keep a master list of all my top 5 Tuesday topics so why not make it bright and pretty?! I love the colours and my flowers turned out perfectly. I also got some new washi tape for christmas which makes this look amazing!

This spread is blog and social media specific. Last year I made a chart to keep track of all these things but I couldn’t really fill it in at the beginning of the year. As things (hopefully) grow, I had no clue what numbers to put on my graph. What if I filled it in to 2000 and ended up with 3000? So, I drew a box for each month of the year and will write in the numbers there. It’s not as graphically pleasing as a chart is, but it’s so much easier for me. I also keep track of all these things at the end of the monthly spread (look below) and I don’t think I’ll keep that part now that I have this. Keeping it all on one page will stop me from having to flip to each month.

Here is a collage of my my monthly/weekly spreads for January! Top left is my title page and my meal tracker for the month. I like to write my ideas down on removable post it notes so that I can move them around. It’s also fun and helpful to see what we’ve eaten so I can track when we’ve had something last and I can maybe get some ideas from past months. Top right is my month at a glance, separated by personal and blog. This is where I write down my post ideas in pencil and when it’s written and scheduled I write it down in pen. I also have my habit tracker – and I forgot to add essential oil usage to the list! I’ve gotten into essential oils big time over the last few months and I want to make sure that I’m using them on a continuous basis so that I’m getting the best out of them. Bottom left is what my weekly/daily pages look like. I keep track of things daily as well as I track my blogging and reading for the week. Lastly, bottom right is my social media/blog trackers where I track all of my books read and how my stats look.

And finally is my newest addition to the bullet journal – book thoughts! WARNING!!!! There may be some spoilery thoughts in this so don’t read what i’ve written unless you maybe want to get spoiled!!! I saw this on another bloggers post (sorry but I can’t remember who’s it was!! Please let me know if it was you and I will absolutely credit you for this idea!) I’m the worst at remembering things about books! I used to put some notes in my phone but I always forgot to look at them or deleted them on accident. This ensures that I can always find my thoughts and look back to it to remember certain things. When I write a review I always keep it spoiler free. But here I can write down specific things and look back to see a little bit more detail. I haven’t written too many spoilery things but want to in the future. This one is taking me a bit of time to get used to!

There is my new bullet journal for 2018! I’m absolutely loving this system and it helps me keep my head above water every single day. I don’t know how many bullet journal updates i’ll keep doing though. My layouts are pretty much set in stone so the only thing you would be seeing that’s different on a monthly basis is the themes and decorations. I’ll maybe do a bi-monthly update or something just to keep you all motivated to try this yourself!

Until next time, happy reading!

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