January 2018 Bullet Journal Set-up

It has been a while since I did an updated show and tell of my bullet journal.  I still use it daily, and have made some adjustments throughout the months, but rather than going through all of the various iterations, I will just show how I have set everything up for January.

I don’t normally have a title or intro page for my months, but I figured the start of a new year deserved something special.  I got inspiration from Pinterest (so I cannot take full credit for my designs).  I also added a washi tape border so that I could flip easily to the beginning of the new year.  I am very happy with how it turned out, so I may continue doing something like this in the future… We will see…

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Transitioning to a New Bullet Journal (Part 2)

Remember that time that I said I would get back in to regular posting?  Yeah, apparently that was a lie… Since it still hasn’t happened… Anyway, I promised that I would post the rest of my bullet journal transition, so I guess I should get this posted since I’ve already done the second month of my new bullet journal…

Transitioning to a New Bullet Journal (Part 1)

Despite my best efforts, and using my bullet journal, I still haven’t quite caught up on life since being back from our holiday and then being away for work.  But… One of the things I was working on is to transition to a new bullet journal for the month of April.  I started the process in March (and also started writing this post then), but just like most things in my life lately, I sort of only half completed the job… I did, however, take some photos of the process, so I thought I’d share them with you.

Hawaiian Trip Journal in my BuJo

Well, I’m back from my vacation, and it really was a holiday.  I didn’t bring a laptop, and I didn’t check email, or keep up on my blog, so it has definitely been a bit of catch-up now that I am back… The number of emails in my collection of inboxes was quite high!  I’m still working on getting back to the normal routine, so I don’t have any real content to share with you today…

Instead, I thought I’d share a couple images of my bullet journal that I used as a travel journal for my trip.  I’m pretty proud of my doodles, so I’m going to share… I “should” be back to normal by Thursday and will hopefully have something more exciting for you.  Until then, “Aloha!”

Travel Prep in my Bullet Journal

I never seem to get ahead of the game… every time I think I’m finally getting a handle on being organized, something comes up, or I say yes to one too many things…

Anyway, the latest thing that snuck up on me (other than missing a Tuesday blog post, shhhh) was our spring break vacation. I am currently typing this on my phone while I wait for our flight to Hawaii. (I know, I know, it’s not good to tell the interweb where we are going and when, but we have housesitters in our house, so it’s not abandoned, and that’s all the details you are getting… )

In order to help me get organized, I made a couple spreads in my bullet journal.  The first was just the trip details for planning purposes. 

This is where I put down the pertinent information about our flights, accommodation and car rental. It made it easy to check on and share with those that needed to have that info. 

The second spread that really helped me get sorted and not stress out was my packing list. 

I’m sure that I ended up over packing for this trip, but at least with the list I knew I wasn’t going to forget anything important. Or, at least I haven’t discovered that I’ve forgotten anything yet… 

Anyway, I probably won’t do another post while I’m on holidays, but will rest up and get lots of good ideas for when I return. Enjoy your spring break!

Tracking My Friends & Family Goal in My Bullet Journal

A couple weeks ago, I posted my personal goals for 2017.  The first of these goals was to visit or spend time with family and friends at least 2 times a month.  The intention of this goal is to be a better friend and a more active participant in these relationships.  It does sort of go back to the post that was the inspiration to my first goal like this for 2016.  I have less and less time to spend with these people who are so important to me, so I want to make sure to take advantage of any time I have.  And I know that my friends make me a better person, so if I can be a good friend and add value to their life, they will add value to mine.

Anyway, so far in January I have definitely been successful with this goal, but I wanted a way to keep track of what I’ve been doing and also to see the holes where I need to improve.  The solution came, as it tends to do these days, with my bullet journal.

A New Morning Routine

On Tuesday, I posted about my personal goals for 2017.  Goal #4 was to complete a monthly focus.  For January, I have chosen my mornings.

I think I’ve mentioned before that my old morning routine is no longer working out as well… The new puppy has added in a whole new set of tasks and requirements.  And I wanted to re-think it, and re-work it to fit my life now… Of course, as she always seems to do, just when I needed some inspiration on the topic, Cait Flanders posted about her slow morning routine that she is working on for January.

Unlike Cait, however, I am not trying to slow down my mornings… As much as I would love to…  I’m more interested in making sure that I get the important tasks completed.  I already naturally have very slow mornings… If I make a cup of tea, I sometimes just sit and drink it staring out the window…  And that is fine, if it fits in to the timeline of getting to work on time.

 

So, what do my mornings need?

2016 in Review: My Bullet Journal

This post was supposed to go up yesterday… but, well, it didn’t… Here it is a day late… 

2016 was the year I started my bullet journal.  Okay, if we get technical, I experimented with it briefly during the holidays in 2015 so that I would have a better idea of what I liked for the start of 2016, but really it was started in earnest in 2016.

For my first two goals of 2016 I was basically wanting to start using a bullet journal in earnest to organize my life and to also create good habits.  So, while these “goals” were only #1 and #2 on my list of goals, and #1 was really vague and not “SMART”, goal #2 actually consisted of various goals that grew and changed over the year.

Goal #1 – Bullet Journaling

To review this goal for a specific pass/fail type result would be very difficult because, as I mentioned already, it was not a “SMART” goal, so I had no definition of the end result.  However, I have indeed stuck with my bullet journaling and can definitely say that I feel it has helped me stay organized and focused, as much as is possible with a scatterbrain like myself.  (Ooh, shiny!)

I reviewed my bullet journal set up, back in September, and honestly it hasn’t changed much, and I don’t foresee any major changes in the near future because it is working for me.  I don’t think that “using my bullet journal” will be a goal for 2017, but it will be what helps me keep with my goals and I am definitely not going to stop, so I figured I’d give it another review for the end of the year…

Bullet Journal Update: The Evolution of my Weekly Spread

This post was supposed to go up last week… but I got busy and couldn’t finish it in time… In any case, here it is… I’ll work on getting my posting schedule back up to twice a week… 

As I promised last week two weeks ago, I am going to share with you today an update on my bullet journal.

I started my first bullet journal in January, and have really been enjoying it.  On my honeymoon I bought myself a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook (one of the most popular notebooks for BuJo enthusiasts) and I started using it in May.  I’ve shown various bits and pieces of the bullet journal over the course of the last few months, but I wanted today to discuss how my daily/weekly spreads (the meat & potatoes of the BuJo) have evolved over the last few months.

Habit Tracker Update

As I mentioned last week, Goal #2 of my goals for 2016 is really a collection of smaller goals.  They have evolved through out the year as my priorities change, or as I decide I want to work more on one thing or the other.

The Original Goal had 7 items on the habit tracker, but some were combinations of things.  My first check-in was back in February where I had increased the number to 8, but still had the combined items (morning & evening routines), and then I did another update in March where I split up a bunch of the items and had a total of 12 habits to track.  I skipped April because we were away on our honeymoon for most of it…

Then when I got my new bullet journal, I did another habit tracker.  I split up some of the combined habits, and got rid of a couple, so I still has 12 habits to track.  I did an update in June where I reduced the number of habits to 10.  But I haven’t done an update since…

I haven’t really changed my habit tracker up much since then, I am just plugging along, working on making these things routine.  So let’s quickly review how I have done, and where I need to re-focus my efforts to make some improvements.