2 Months Into My Bullet Journal - What's New?
I don't think I'm going to do a monthly bullet journal update even though I have for the past 3 months but you never know, I do love a good blog series.
I've made a few changes to my bullet journal this month, I've added some pages and I've come to the end of others and I am just as obsessed with using it as I was at the start. I find that I kind of use it in two ways, I forward plan what I am doing/whose birthday it is/what's coming up and then I also use it on a daily basis as a bit of a reflection. This is when I fill in my habit tracker for the day and write a few notes for the next day etc.
So one thing I have pretty much given up with is my index. I know, I know, worst bullet journal user in the world. Basically, I never used it. I filled it in until I came to the end of the page and I haven' bothered since. If I want to find the page I am on, I use the ribbon. If I want to find a particular page I just flick through, I don't turn to the index and find where the page I'm looking for is, I just look for it on my own. I probably won't pick this back up again to be fair.
My layout for June didn't differ much from my layout for May. As you can see there is a difference in my June look ahead from last month's post to this one and it's a good example of how I'm using my monthly calendar as and when plans comes up. I have a desk calendar in my office and a wall calendar in my kitchen with very similar layouts but I like having this penned version in my BuJo as a third option because I carry it with me. My June habit tracker is still one of the things I love most. I really enjoy filling it in at the end of the day and seeing what I have and haven't achieved. As you can see, my blogging/social media game is strong but filling in my diary and drinking 8 cups of water? Less so. My weekly log hasn't changed format either, I like what I settled with and I think I'll stick with it until that changes and it no longer works for me. I tend to map out 4 weeks of these in one go so I can fill them in ahead of time so I start with noting down birthdays/blog posts/things I know I am doing on that day and then a day or two before I'll make more detailed notes like chores, things I need to remember, things I need from the shop etc.
Some new pages!! I mentioned last month that I thought I would like to add an illustrated film tracker into my journal to go with my books read one (which is still empty, for shame). As you can see I don't get much time to watch films but tracking what I do see is a habit for me, I used to jot it down in my diary every year anyway. I saw the format of this one on Pinterest so no credit at all goes to me but I think it looks cute. And yes I did watch the DVD of the Top Gear Burma special with extra scenes and outtakes. I watched it twice in a week in fact but hey. Alongside it I drew up a social media/blog goals tracker of all the stats I wanted to hit between June 1st and December 31st - little did I know my blog would explode this month and I hit my end of year goals within 18 days. Yeah. So I decided I needed some more goals which are coming up in a mo.
More new content! I have guest bloggers taking over my website for the last 2 weeks of the month whilst I'm on holiday and whilst I was getting it sorted I wanted some way of tracking who'd agreed and where I could slot them in. The fact that this schedule is 1. on a torn up piece of scrap paper and 2. full of post it notes you can see how much I messed about with it and changed it. If you are one of my guest bloggers, this isn't necessarily the final version so bear with me, I'll be emailing out a copy next weekend! I've mentioned before how my BuJo is very much black and white but actually, I do think the pastel post its are kinda cute so maybe I'm not against the colour so much after all.
Again, I have stuck with the same trusty formats for my July look ahead, habit tracker and weekly schedule cos if it ain't broke and all that. Like I mentioned above, I start by adding the solid plans I know I have books in like my car service, birthday's, the dates of my holiday etc and then I start adding a few more details as I go along. And yes, I have marked down the Wales Portugal game for Wednesday night - my priorities are straight.
And finally - my new social media goals! I decided to have this one over a double page spread which I have found easier to manage and I have a gap for another tracker should I think of one I'd like to keep an eye on which is handy. This time I based my goals on what my blog and social media is achieving currently, with June being my best month by miles so I think they're realistic goals to meet but that'll also be challenging. My Twitter growth this month was huge but I expect it to be a blip so I am anticipating 5K followers will be hard to get by the end of the year being on 1.2K now. Similarly Bloglovin is a nightmare to get any kind of growth on and I'd be made up to hit my target and Etsy, whilst having really good feedback is also a bit hit and miss. However, my Instagram growth has been really slow the past 6 months and then boomed in the last few days so I might achieve that one and I think I am going to have to revise my Pinterest goals as that's gone viral and I'm already over 500 followers and it's racking up more and more each day. As for my blog, there's no way of knowing. If I continue at the rate I am now then I'll meet my target easy but I do think it might be a one off and it'll level out again soon so we'll see.
How're you using your bullet journal? Is there anything you've added or something you've decided you won't use? Let me know in the comments!