Happy Saturday, Loves!!

So, I did it.  I finally jumped on the Bullet Journaling band wagon.

Well, I guess this isn’t really a momentous occasion.  Just because I’ve jumped on doesn’t necessarily mean that I haven’t jumped on before.

You feel me?

When I attempted a BuJo last year, I wasn’t ready to take on the full responsibility necessary for success.  But I still ‘‘planned’’ to use it to the max.  Now, I have a much different strategy for using my 2018 BuJo and have seen such great results.  Like most things in life, sometimes all it takes is a little change in direction.

The first thing that I knew I needed to do when I decided to try out this form of planning again was to simplify everything.  Instead of using it as an all-out planner, a place to have weekly spreads and the like, I knew I needed to use it more as a supplement.  So, I cut out the major ‘Calendar’ spreads and bought a big old list making calendar to use as well.  (Literally the best decision ever.)

Next, I did a bunch of research on what spreads people seemed to really enjoy in their BuJos and picked out a few favorites.  My journal includes…

+ Five Pillars Lists (Check out a post about this here)

+ A Year-At-A-Glance Future Log

+ 12 Monthly Habit Tracker Pages

+ 24 Pages for Small Scale Monthly planning and lists

+ Books to Read, Movies to Watch, etc.

+ A Daily Gratitude Log for the year

+ 4 Pages for Quarterly Goal Lists

+ Blog Planning in the back half

So, pretty easy and uncomplicated.  And for me and my ability to plan my life without hiccups, its perfect.  But if you see a need to add more, have your journal house an entire calendar, or whatever you like, that will be what works for you.  There is no cookie cutter model that will work for everyone.

Now, let’s break down some of these spreads.  First of all, the two goal setting spreads.  I love setting goals and seeing them make their way to completion, so these are some of my favorites.  As I talked about in my New Year’s post, I have found that choosing the five ‘Pillars’ of my life is a wonderful tool in setting goals.  Once you have your five pillars, you can then more easily choose what goals are important, based on what umbrella they fall under.  And instead of taking a year’s worth of goals and simply drooling over them in disbelief, it is so helpful to divide up your yearly goals into quarterly goals.  That way, you have a greater sense of purpose and more time to develop your dreams.

Another spread that I have had a lot of fun with is the monthly habit tracker spread.  It’s colorful and visual and super motivating.  And your monthly habits can be such a wide range of things.  You could strive for anything from drinking 4 glasses of water a day, to praying for an extra 10 minutes, to simply making your bed each morning.  All of these habits can dramatically change your life or faith.  And when you have made it a habit, you can hopefully take it into the next month without a problem.

There are also so many ways for you to use your bullet journal to deepen your faith.  Just like you can measure daily prayer with a habit tracker, you can also make custom spreads to track daily spiritual reading, Bible study, random nudges from God, or virtue progress.  For me, I knew it would be a grace filled challenge to track my daily gratitude.  As someone who is not naturally grateful or optimistic, this has been so helpful to me each night.  To simply look back on the day and think of a blessing is so beautiful.

So, I highly encourage you to look into the Bullet Journal planning strategy.  It’s creative, highly customizable, and super fun to implement.  Don’t feel like you have to run a journal on ‘all five cylinders’, just use it in the way that you know will best help you to stay more organized and motivated.  And if you have to change things up a bit, go for it.  And have fun with it!!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the weekend!!

Maddy