2018 Bullet Journal Inspiration | A Look Through
It's a new year and that can only mean one thing - a new bullet journal.
I'm a bit late to the party admittedly getting my bujo look through up and chances are you've already started plotting yours out. I got my new Leuchtturm for Christmas off Santa, along with a beautiful berry coloured one for July - December and I have spent a blissful fortnight making it exactly how I wanted. I thought really carefully about what I wanted this journal to include and how I wanted it to look and I even used the last few pages of my 2017 journal to map this one.
I firstly am in love with the yellow journal (just don't judge me and Sarah for having matching ones, she copied me FYI). It's so bright and colourful and in your face it makes me happy every time I see it and I returned to the squared format I love so much.
So let's get on with the look through - and hopefully you'll find some inspo for your 2018 bullet journal too.
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I always have a big 'first page' fear for my bullet journal and normally draw something in it or put some stickers on it toward the end of my time with it, that way lessening the idea I might ruin it and have to live with it for 6 months. This time though I decided early on that I wanted to recreate my real life Pinterest boards from last year's journal and design a 2018 mood board for the front cover....and flippin heck am I glad I did. I chose lots of NYE inspired images from Pinterest, printed them out and stuck them in and it makes such a good first page (and makes the journal a bit sturdier with the extra volume in it too).
Following on from the title page my journal is relatively similar to normal for the beginning. I have 2 double page spreads full of doodles and banners and also some typography which I use as inspiration later in the year. I have yet to fill in my index at the beginning of the Leuchtturm as I never really use it on reflection but I have included my key as normal.
Next to that comes important 2018 dates like UK bank holidays and a double page spread of birthdays which isn't photographed but I took inspo from Hannah's look at the year ahead pages. Because I use two bullet journals a year now I have only created calendars for 6 months of 2018 taking us up to June which all take up a double page spread each. It's very simple, a normal calendar set up and whilst I've only snapped January, they're all the same look with varying degrees of detail depending on how much I have planned for that month.
Now here comes the biggie - my tracker spreads. I have A LOT of them, more than ever but I really assessed what I loved about my bullet journal and the constant motivation to achieve things I wanted to achieve via the habit tracker was a real deal for me. I have my normal habit trackers which are the same format as in my old journal and again just from January to June of this year. I've taken some of my habits I was tracking off like taking part in Twitter chats because it was such an irregular occurrence it wasn't worth having on my spread. This time though I have included a few more new ones which I hope will keep me focused on my NYE resolutions like doing yoga and reading a book.
After my habit trackers I have taken to tracking some things more in depth and this includes a resolutions and goals tracker for 2018. I included this in my old journal but about halfway through the year and never looked at it let alone tried to achieve any of it. I hope that having these written down as a reminder will keep me motivated and I can tick them off as I achieve them. Next up I have my financial goals which compromises a page where I write down what I still owe outstanding money on and also a new way of tracking my savings goals. I always used to use the jar design you'll have seen on Pinterest a million times but this year I decided to change it up with a bar graph which I am loads happier with.
Straight after that it's back to business as usual with 2018 books and films tracker and then my sleep tracker. This year though as well as a sleep tracker where I track what kind of sleep I had (slept through, woke up or got up) I have also added an hours sleep tracker. I felt like the how I slept alone wasn't giving me enough information because I might have slept through but only had 4 hours sleep so I now have a dedicated space to write down the hours sleep I've been getting too which is much easier to form a pattern.
I then get onto some health trackers including my steps counter which isn't pictured. My Samsung health app tracks my daily steps so I don't see the need to track those but what I wanted to do instead was create a monthly target as I felt it reflected my life a bit more. I work from home and am reasonably desk bound on working days so might only do 1.5K steps in a day, whereas a day I'm out and about and active I'll do 7K. I've essentially created a bar graph with increments of 10K steps on each piece which I'll colour in at the end of the month depending on my total. I also opposite that page have a period tracker but I kinda hate the layout and may cover it up so I didn't photograph it. I then have my 30 day yoga challenge (which is my fav spread in the whole journal) and a 30 day abs challenge to keep referring back to, followed by my weight loss tracker and my mood tracker which is the only colour you'll see in my bujo.
After all my health trackers I have a future log which is a reminder of things I have coming up later in 2018 or even 2019, followed by present ideas (no peeping family) and a wishlist of things I need to buy myself. I found my parcel tracker really helpful in my last journal so I added it again this time but made it double the size, hopefully lasting me the whole 6 months with this notebook.
READ MORE: Why my Bullet Journal has done wonders for my productivity.
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After my habit trackers I have a few miscellaneous pages which I kinda refer to as 'master lists'. These are the kinds of things you won't use all that often but it's handy to have to refer back to at a later date. Mine include a big double page spread of chores to remind me what I should be (and ultimately won't be doing), a general packing list for trips, a general shopping list of things we buy followed by some blog pages.
I use my bullet journal exclusively for my blog now whereas I used to have a Bando planner purely dedicated to it. In this journal I have a blog post ideas spread and a separate bullet journal blog post ideas list which I didn't photograph because I don't want to reveal all my upcoming content too soon. I then have a stats tracker which I copied directly from last years journal but I added December 2017 statistics too so I can see what growth I have in January.
READ MORE: What to include in your university bullet journal.
And now that we're already on page 65 (!!!) of this journal and haven't even got to January yet it's finally time to take a look at how I'm setting up my months. I used to do these in advance in my 2016 journal working on mapping out 4 weeks at a time but I soon found it was restricting. Now I draw my weekly spreads out on a Sunday and just turn over a fresh sheet whenever I need something a bit different like a packing list or a master to do.
I have decided that I want something to make a clear cut start and finish to my months but my format from last year wasn't working anymore, I was barely using it and just filling it in as a break for the month so this time I followed my Pinterest inspired initial page and created a mood board for January. I want to continue this every month with a colour scheme and some pics from Pinterest and use it as some inspiration, as well as a book mark of sorts. Opposite it I'm creating a master to do list of all the jobs for the month that have no real date or deadline attached and then I'm onto my weekly spreads. The format is still the same as always for me with the week set out the same old way - it just works and I'm not likely to change it any time soon.
I also have my monthly blog calendar which is exactly the same layout as my calendars at the beginning of the journal, making it easy to flip between both and see what content I want to have up vs. how busy I am. As you can see I'm doing really well at sticking to it so far (uhm). I have a page in between my weekly spreads which I didn't bother snapping as it was a list of Friday Favourites which I have since decided to discontinue and my winter insta challenge which I nearly have everything ticked off on! After that it's business as usual with my weekly spreads interjected by packing lists and jobs that need attending to - and that's likely the way it's going to stay!
So there we have it - another year started and another bullet journal all laid out. I know it's a photo heavy post (but I just love nosing at other people's journals and hate when they only show like 3 pics) so congrats if you've made it all the way down here and hopefully I've provided you with some inspo for your own journal. Tag me on Instagram if you do!
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