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A few years back I took to bullet journaling to try to sort out my life during school. But, after a while I gave up on this because I was too worried about making it look nice and be pretty. I had fun making the spreads but I just did not have time to dedicate to this while in school. So, I turned my attention back to my Google Calendar and left the bullet journal on the shelf to collect dust.
It wasn’t until two months ago that I decided I wanted to try a combined approach of using my bullet journal and Google Calendar. My Google Calendar is what houses most of my life. I like to time batch and calendar block to get as much done as possible. I learnt a lot of these techniques form Amy Landino. So, be sure to check out her content to find out more about this and how it can help you with productivity and efficiency.
So, I decided that my bullet journal would be a bit of an additional piece to my organization. I use my bullet journal to keep track of important tasks for the day, week, and month. I also use it as a habit tracker for my IBD, life habits, and a goal tracker. This time around I find I stick to my journal more because I took a minimal approach to the design and focused on functionality over creating pretty spreads.
Each month I create three different spreads to help organize the month and I add a new one every week to organize the week ahead. In addition, I will also add any extra pages if I find I need more space for notes, collections, etc. So, without any more delay, here is my bullet journal routine!
Monthly Spreads
Monthly Overview & Goals
I use this spread to transfer any important dates and appointments. As well as to rewrite my yearly and monthly goals. I go back to this spread weekly and sometimes daily. So having all of this important information in one place is super beneficial.
Habit Tracker & Chart
This is one spread I find most useful in my bullet journal and this is what I wanted to share with my fellow IBD and chronic illness warriors! This has changed the game in terms of tracking. I still like to use an IBD tracking app, (which you can read more about here) but I find that having a visual of the whole month is really helpful. This kind of chart can easily be modified to track any symptom or habit that you like. It is simple, clean, and effective. I find this really helpful to track my BM, symptoms and how this may correlate to the food I am eating, my stress levels, mood, and sleep. On the right page I have the days of the month and anything I would like to track, I then place a dot if I had/did that thing on that day. On the left page, I have a sleep, stress, and mood tracker, as well as a IBD tracker. For each of these I give them a line pattern and by the end of the month I have a full chart to help me see where I had worse days and better days and how that could possibly correlate to the information on the right page (food/activities).
Brain Dump Page
This is the perfect spread to add into every monthly set up because it is a place to write down any random thoughts, ideas, or notes that may come up. Instead of having a million sticky notes everywhere, you will have all of the random thoughts, phone call messages, etc, in one place.
Weekly Spreads
Weekly To-Do & Task Overview
At the beginning of the week I like to make a weekly spread that allows me to look at what is coming up that week. On the left page I write out my to-do’s for the week, next week, and also any other info I need to jot down. On the right page, I have a simple weekly spread that shows any big appointments, tasks, workouts I have planned. I also like to write out my meal plan for the week on the right page as well. This is meant more as a weekly overview and the more day-today planning will go in the “daily to-do” spread (below).
Daily To-Do
The daily to-do spread is meant to be a two page spread where you simply write out your daily tasks as the week goes on. I make this a very casual spread and simple make it as I go along, I think this works better for me because some days I may have two tasks and some days I may have 10. So, by not making a pre-made spread, it gives me more flexibility throughout the week.
So, these are the simple weekly and monthly spreads I like to do in my bullet journal to help keep me organized and on task. I hope that you found it helpful and gave you some ideas on how you can apply this technique in your life. If you enjoyed this post, you may also like the post I did on HOW TO STAY ON TOP OF YOUR LIFE AND MAINTAIN BALANCE. I also discuss calendar blocking more in depth here!
QUESTION: DO YOU BULLET JOURNAL?
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Your trusty, gutsy gal,
Nathalie xx
Gutsy Feeling 