2018 Bullet Journal Set-up

Something wonderful happened in my bullet journal life: my last bullet journal ended cleanly on December 31st, a luxury I didn't have last year. So this new bullet journal felt extra special because I got to start it on the first day of the new year! I have been bullet journaling since May 2016 so I have pretty much figured out the spreads that I like to have at the beginning of my bullet journal and any changes made to them are small changes to make them more functional and perfect.

I am on my fifth bullet journal and my third Scribbles That Matter journal. I really love the paper quality in the Scribbles That Matter and they came out with pastel colors in the last half of 2017 so I was very excited to get a pastel color. Many of my spreads are not created 100% by me, I find a lot of inspiration on Pinterest and I use Pinterest so much that it's hard to pinpoint where most of these spreads came from.

I began by filling in the key (one of my favorite features of the Scribbles That Matter since I'm not very creative) and the index as needed.

Something new I decided to do this year was choosing a Word of the Year to base my year and my goals off of. I decided on Discipline because I really need more self-discipline in many areas of my life. It's also fitting to have it as the first page in my journal and in the same spread of the 2018 goals page - which I will be filling out when I have my goals better mapped out.

Next is my future log. I've been doing it this way since my first Scribbles That Matter and I really like it. It's on two pages so it doesn't take up much space and I have enough room for what I need to keep track of - which are birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.

I have tracked my reading since my first bullet journal but this year was the first time I decided to do a Reading Challenge. I already have a post about it here if you want to check out my reading goals and what challenge prompts I am doing. I also used to do the bookshelf design for my book tracker, but it never looked that good when I designed it so I just gave that up completely this year.

Next, I have my blog schedule and my blog ideas. Toward the end of last year, I created a blog schedule similar to this and really liked it. I use sticky notes to plan out my posts for the week, what posts I want to do soon, and what posts are currently drafted but aren't going to be scheduled for the upcoming week. I am so happy with how this spread turned out.

I have my all important cleaning schedule and a new side page of different areas of your home to declutter. I like having the cleaning schedule to look back on to see what areas I clean regularly and what to do for each area. As for decluttering, we have accumulated so much junk somehow and it's really piling up so I really need to go through and start decluttering our house. Especially since we will be moving this summer.

I have had a miracle morning spread in my bullet journal since my second one. I rarely follow the miracle morning but some mornings or days when I'm having anxiety or I'm having a really motivated day, I'll follow the miracle morning. So I kept it since it is used sometimes. I used to have a level 10 life spread (both ideas come from Hal Elrod) but I seriously never used it. So this time, I didn't bother making it. I also left the facing page blank because I'm going to put my daily schedule there...once I figure it out and figure out how I want it to look.

Something I always saw on Pinterest that I really liked was the TV Show Tracker. It seemed like a great idea for me because there are a lot of shows that we've started on Netflix but can't finish because Korean Netflix either doesn't have the show at all or doesn't have all the seasons that are out. I also track shows we are currently watching just in case Korean Netflix takes it off. I haven't filled it out and it'll be something I fill out slowly as it can be tedious writing 1-23 over and over.

Next, I have my Seoul Bucket List which feels even more important this year because we only have 6 months left! So hopefully we can cross all these places off before we leave.

Finally, I have our budget planner and my wishlist. We re-did our budget recently so I needed to put our updated budget in an easy to reference place and I updated the way that I set it up so it was easier to follow. I also have my wishlist separated into items we eventually need to get and items that I just want.

I am so happy with how this year's bullet journal came out. I think this is my favorite beginning spreads that I've ever done in five bullet journals.

How are your new year plans coming along?

See you soon :)
Kylie <3

My favorite Bullet Journal Supplies

Bullet Journaling is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I love making lists and filling things out, hence why I have so many trackers in my monthly, you can see a monthly set-up here. Over my year of bullet journaling, I have accumulated a few items that I use every day or even if they aren’t used daily, they're something that’s important to my journaling.

A Variety of Colorful Utensils //

My absolute favorite colorful pens are the Staedtlertri-plus fine liners. They write wonderfully, come in a vast array of colors – especially if you spring for the 42 pack – and they last for forever. I love how thin they write and how vibrant the colors are.

I also use Papermate Flairs and Le Pen, I don’t like these quite as much but I love pens so I buy them every now and again. The Flairs are a bit of a thicker point than the Le Pen and the Staedtler so I mainly use them for outlining.

Crayola Colored Pencils are a classic pencil, while they may not do as well as high end colored pencils they serve the purpose that I use them for and they’re great. Plus, they're cheap.

Crayola SuperTips are a wonderful, cheap way to add a little color or use for highlighting and underlining. I’ve heard you can learn to hand letter with them, but I haven’t had the patience to try.

Zebra Mildliners: A cult classic for bullet journalists. I love that they are double sided and I love the muted but still vibrant colors. They were great for college and they’re still great for just journaling. My only qualm is that they're expensive and hard to find if you’re not in Asia.

My regular writing pens are just Sharpie Pens. I was using a Pilot G-2 but they smeared horribly in my book, even after I waited a few minutes. Sharpie pens also don’t bleed or ghost as bad and they dry instantly. I use a Pilot G-2 pencil for my outlining and a Pentel Clic-Erase eraser, both are long time favorites of mine. I also have a uni-ball style-fit multi-pen with a .32 tip on all 3 pens. It’s super fine and wonderful when you want to write neatly, but super tiny.

Washi, Washi, and More Washi //

I sometimes use washi tape to add little pops of cuteness to my book and to sometimes cover up mistakes. It’s super versatile and comes in hundreds of patterns. I pick up a roll every now and again when I’m at Daiso or ArtBox, they’re kind of expensive (to me) so it’s not something I get often.

6-inch ruler //

I was using a regular 12-inch ruler and decided to spend the dollar and get a 6-inch ruler and I’m so glad I did. The 6in is so much more portable and it fits the notebook better because it is an A5 size and isn’t even 6in across. Such a simple, but a nice item to have.

A Portable Printer //

My husband bought me a Polaroid Zip printer for my birthday and I absolutely love it! I love being able to print pictures of fun things Mark and I do and stick them in my bullet journal as a memory. It makes it so fun to look back.

What are some of your favorite journaling supplies?

See you next week :)

Kylie <3 

July Bullet Journal Set-Up

It's a new month and it's crazy! I feel like I just created my June set-up and here it is - July - we're over halfway through the year and it's unbelievable. Anyway, this is my first time doing a Bullet Journal set-up on my blog and it's about time; I've been doing Bullet Journaling since May of last year and I've been completely obsessed the whole time. As a preface, I take a lot of inspiration from Pinterest and Youtube. So let's jump in.

My first spread is my calendar, general task list, and goals & thoughts for the month. I like doing a more Bullet Journal system traditional calendar in a list format, partly because I like the way it looks and partly because I cannot manage to draw a two-page traditional calendar. So I have all the important dates like birthdays, paydays, holidays, and when bills are due. On the right-hand page, I have a section for general tasks that need to be done during the month but not on any specific day and then a section for any goals for the months or random thoughts that I need to write down.

Then I have my habit tracker and my thankful for page. Although I rarely have a successful habit tracker, I still like having it and doing it. The thankful page provides a nice place to write anything I'm thankful for or quick memories.

Now starts the random trackers. To be honest, these don't really have much true purpose. I create these and do them mainly to have stuff to do in my journal. I'm not super creative so unless I have a lot of trackers, the only thing I have to do is make my to-do list. I love doing things in my Bullet Journal and these trackers gives me more things to do in it and it makes me happy.

First, my health tracker. Every day I rate how my mood was, how much sleep I got, if I exercised and the type, my energy levels, and then I write in the air quality for the day since the air quality in Seoul can be very terrible.

Next, is my cleaning tracker. I like being able to cross things off in multiple places. So this has my weekly cleaning tasks separated by room. I found that I like outlining what room I'm doing on certain days since my husband doesn't work a typical 9-5 Monday-Friday shift and I do any big cleaning on days he works. It helps and it's nice to see when things have been cleaned.

Lastly, I have our budget tracker. I write our income on the top of the page then write all the transactions we do throughout the month. I guess we do a sort of "envelope" system without actually taking out the cash. So we have categories like food, gas, and spending money. I write where we spent it, the category, the amount spent, the account balance, and the category balance. It's nice to see where money is going and we have been able to see where we randomly blow money *cough cough* the Post/Base Exchange.

I plan on doing separate posts for the different trackers and how we do our budget. If you want to know more about bullet journaling check out Ryder Carroll's original idea here and a good source of more creative Bullet Journaling from Kara at Boho Berry here.

Thank you for reading and talk to you soon :)