It’s New Year’s Day, which means the end of 2018 and what a year it’s been! 2018 for me has very much been about our Wedding Day, from all the planning to the day itself, to enjoying life as newlyweds. It’s been amazing! In those limbo days between Christmas and the New Year, I turned my focus to 2019 and what I want to happen. So, I did what any stationery-addict would do, I ordered a new Leuchtturm1917 and created my 2019 Bullet Journal Setup.
If you’ve never heard of a Bullet Journal before, it is essentially a planner, diary, to-do list all in one, in a dotted notebook that allows you to make any page into whatever you want and use it however you want. The creator, Ryder Carroll has made a very helpful video that explains the concept.
I thought I’d share my Bullet Journal setup with you and talk you through how I plan to use it to help me achieve my goals for 2019. It should be said that I take a minimalist approach to my Bullet Journal. While some draw, use watercolour, stickers and colourful pens, I keep mine pretty simple. You’ll notice I play around with calligraphy a little bit – I’m very much a beginner at this, but I enjoy practising and experimenting. That’s the beauty of a Bullet Journal – you can make it whatever you want!
The Future Log
My Bullet Journal starts with the index page, which I’ve filled in but isn’t that interesting to photograph, so I’ll start by sharing the Future Log instead. As the Bullet Journal does not have all 12 months of the year already set up like dated planners, the Future Log is where I can jot down anything happening in the upcoming months. I prefer this vertical layout to others that I’ve seen, as I feel like it looks neater and gives me more room to jot down events and key things to remember. I use a 4-page spread for my Future Log with 3 months on each page.
My Goals for 2019
I like to keep Collections that I’ll refer to all year long at the front of my Bullet Journal and the first spread is my goals for 2019. I’ve decided to focus on just four main goals this year. I’ve seen others create lists like ‘19 goals for 2019’ and ‘30 before 30’ etc, but for me, that’s too much to focus on and I don’t end up achieving much at all. So in 2019, I’ll be focusing on “The 4 B’s”, as all my goals conveniently begin with B.
In my Bullet Journal I’ve written down my four goals as well as the reasons why I want to achieve these goals, then I’ve listed some action steps I need to take in order to make these goals happen. (I’ve blurred out some personal information in the pictures). In my Monthly and Weekly spreads and to-do lists, I’ll break these action steps down into smaller tasks. For example, one of my action steps to achieve my goal of losing 15% of my body weight is to ‘Track IIFYM in MyFitnessPal daily’ and I can break this down into smaller tasks such as ‘Calculate my macros’, ‘Setup my macros in MyFitnessPal’, ‘Plan my meals for the week ahead in MyFitnessPal on a Sunday night’ etc. I’ve also created a little inspirational quote page to help motivate me to achieve my goals, plus I just think it looks nice. I can’t take the credit for this page as I completely copied a design I found online, but I can’t find the original source!
The Wishlists
The next collection is a set of lists, where I can jot down books I want to read, films and TV shows I want to see, places to go in London and things I want to buy. I always struggle with remembering these type of things, especially when someone shares a recommendation. So this way I can jot them down here, then when the time comes that I’m looking for something to watch on TV, I can refer to my list. One rule I’ve set for myself is to only use eBooks and Audiobooks as I find them easier to read or listen to on my commute than a physical book and it will also help to minimise the number of belongings and things I have at home.
My Blog Tracker
The next two spreads are to do with my blog and social media. In May this year, I rebranded and relaunched my blog after a long hiatus, but I struggled to keep up with posting regularly. That’s something I really want to get on top of this year, so I’ve made these spreads to help me. The first is the year at a glance and I intend to mark each date that I publish a blog post, so I can make sure I’m posting regularly. The next is my blog analytics so that I can keep track of my growth and make sure I’m making progress with the effort I’ll be putting in. After that, I have a double page for ideas for blog posts and for Instagram. I do have a digital list of blog post ideas, but I sometimes forget to refer to it, so I thought having a list in my bullet journal would help me keep it front of mind, and Instagram is something I struggle with as I want the pictures to look nice but I also want to post daily. The struggle!
My Health and Fitness Trackers
My next collections are all focused around my body – my health and fitness. First up are two more year at a glance trackers, but drawn out differently to my blog year at a glance tracker. For these two, I plan to colour in the squares to signify when I’ve had my period and also when I’ve worked out. I haven’t drawn the titles as I’m not sure what to call these pages yet, or what style of typography to use. For tracking my period, I do use an app called Clue, which is really helpful in tracking symptoms, when I’m next due etc, but I find having an overview of the whole year like this really helps me see how regular I’ve been, which is something I need to monitor since I have PCOS. For the workouts, my main struggle is consistency, so I’m hoping this will help get me moving if I notice any large gaps of empty squares appearing.
After that, I have a tracker for a 60 Day Challenge I’ll be starting on January 2nd, where I plan to workout regularly and track my macros daily. I’ll explain more about the challenge, what it involves and why I’m doing it in another blog post. Next to that, I have a body measurement and weight tracker for the year, so that every month I can record what progress I’m making. I’ve actually booked myself in for an InBody Scan today so that I can get my starting point and I’m excited to see what I can achieve in 2019!
Our Honeymoon Planner
Although Michael and I got married in August, we didn’t go on honeymoon straight away. Instead, we chose to wait until Summer 2019 so that we can put more time into planning it and also save up some more. We’re planning on going to Bali, but travelling around the island, cramming in as many experiences as we can. So this spread is to help me keep track of all the tasks I need to do, as well as note down recommendations we get for places to go to, restaurants, hotels and activities to do. If you have any suggestions for us, please do let me know and you can be sure I’ll note it in my Bullet Journal!
When Did I Last?
I’d seen similar spreads but with very different layouts in other people’s Bullet Journals and I really liked the idea of being able to track the things you do bi-annually and annually, like changing your toothbrush, flipping the mattress and visiting the dentist, as well as the things you do regularly, like vacuuming, washing the bedding, watering the plants etc. I ordered them with the things I do regularly at the top and the things I do less often towards the bottom, so hopefully, when I colour in the squares to signify I’ve done something, it will create a sort of gradient effect.
My January Setup
After all of my Collections, I move on to my monthly spreads starting with, of course, January. I start with a monthly overview of January with a calendar, a list of my goals for that month (which relate back to my 4 main goals), any events, as well as a habit tracker at the bottom. I used to have a whole page dedicated to my habit tracker, with a tonne of habits but I found it overwhelming. So I decided to focus on just 6 habits this month and I can change these habits each month, depending on what areas I feel I need to pay more attention to.
The next spread is my Blog Schedule, where I’ll note down the blog post titles on the day I plan to publish them and check off when they’ve been photographed, written, edited, scheduled and posted on social media. Then I have my gratitude log where I jot down anything I’m thankful for, it is one of my favourite pages to have in my Bullet Journal.
Next up I’ve dedicated 4 pages to create weekly meal plans for January. As one of my goals is to track my macros in MyFitnessPal every day this month, I find being prepared by planning my meals ahead of time essential to helping me stay on track. Especially because logging ingredients in MyFitnessPal doesn’t always make it clear what that meal should be. For example, eggs, onions and peppers could be a veggie omelette, a scramble, or a frittata etc.
Then we move onto my Weekly Spread. I don’t personally use Daily Logs, so I like this layout as I feel like it combines both. In the spaces for each day I write down events, my planned workouts, and tasks that must be done that day, then down the right-hand side I have a running to-do list for tasks that need to get done this week, but not necessarily on a certain day. I also have space to write down anything coming up the following week as I only draw one Weekly Spread at a time. Anything happening past the following week will go into my Future Log, back at the start of my Bullet Journal.
I hope you’ve enjoyed getting a peek into how I’ve set up my Bullet Journal for 2019 so far to keep me on track with my goals for the year, increase my productivity and to (hopefully) not have everything jumbled up in my mind! As I said, I like to take a minimalist approach to my Bullet Journal layouts and also the stationery I use. I only use 2 black pens, 2 blue pens and a ruler, you can shop below if you want to see the exact pens I use. I’d love to share more of my Bullet Journal on my blog, so if there’s anything you’d like to see just let me know.
My Bullet Journal Supplies
Leuchtturm1917 A5 Dotted in Graphite Grey
Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen
Muji 0.5mm Gel Ink Black Pen
30cm Ruler
Pilot FriXion Light Pastel Highlighter in Soft Green
Do you use a Bullet Journal? If so, I’d love to know what Collections and Spreads you love. Or do you prefer a different type of planner? Let me know what you’ve found helpful in the comments. I love anything to do with planning, productivity and goal setting!
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