March Monthly Spread

Starting your first month:

                You don't need to start with January!! Start with the month that is coming (if it is September, start with October). You also don't need to go in order. If you miss a month, that is fine. Continue on with the next month. That doesn't mean that you have to stop altogether and get a whole new bullet journal. Also if this happens, don't be tempted to rip out pages. It is always nice to see how far you have come. 

                Your first cover page!!! For some reason I have almost always put my cover page on the right side page. I have no clue why but it just happens that way. If you choose to do this great, if not, you can rotate sides or only do the left side if you want to. Its up to you. Anyway, with starting on the right side, I usually run into the issue of having a blank page on the left side. When this happens I find a cute quote. If you go on Pinterest. There are many cute quotes that you can do. Usually for my cover, I think about the certain month, and what design or theme I would like to include. I usually stick to that theme for the rest of the month. (This includes a color scheme because I'm extra.) I usually don't include a calendar over view on the cover page but it is an option. 

                 The next two pages are taken up by a monthly spread. In my opinion this is one of the hardest spreads. Before I start permanently drawing lines on the page, I map out how big the boxes are going to be and where I should put them. Once I feel like it looks up to my standards. I use a pen to start tracing. This is so I can see the month at a glance, and it I have important items, like exams, I will put them here. With the way I layout the days, I make sure that I have room I write what month it is and to also include an extra larger box, for either a to-do list, notes, or for me a blog spot. Also if I'm not feeling the box idea, I trade it out for a cute quote. If you would like to to use the whole spread for the month days, you can do that as well.

                Flip the page and get ready for your memories page. It is one of the easier pages because it is exactly like your monthly spread except for titling it memories. (you can also include the month again, i.e., march memories). Also instead of another notes area, you can have 'Your Favorite Memory' box instead. I love this page because it is like a mini journal for me. It allows me to write about my day, but instead of having long pages about nothing, I choose my favorite parts of the days and summarize it into a couple sentences. 

                Start your week off right! Continue your theme in your weekly spreads. You can either choose to have it be on two pages or one, it depends on how big you want your boxes. For the first week, I usually include the header (the month and what days of the week are going to be on this page, i.e., March 5-11). Then I get to work on the boxes. When I am done with those, I usually have enough room for a notes area or a quote. I usually repeat the same pages for the rest of the weeks unless I can think of a really cute new spread, but for these I usually need more time to do these, so I have to plan ahead of time to do them.  

               Between all of the weekly spreads (I usually have 4-5), I include a separate spread. 

                         The first one is a mood tracker. I love to look back and see how I was feeling that day. I stick to my theme, and have a different object/area to color in for every day of the moth. I also label each area so that I know which day is which. This usually only takes one page, so on the other page, I include a fun quote. 

                          The second one is a habit tracker. I have recently found a way that works for my new book, since it is a little smaller than my first one, but if you don't like the way I do it, you can also draw a chart and fill it in that way. For mine, I chose eight different habits and I want to make sure that I do for the month (i.e., clean my room, eat healthy meals, workout, etc.). I then draw out a tiny monthly calendar for each one. I then label each one with the individual habit. This sounds really confusing but I will add pictures to show what it looks like. Again this usually only takes one page, so I offset it with a quote. (I feel like I'm always talking about adding quotes, but it is like a doodle page for me. If you would rather have a doodle page, feel free to do so!)

                         The last one is a larger to-do list. This page is usually really plain, and has a header (To Do), and maybe a border if it fits with the theme. I have it mostly blank because I always have a big to do list, and it needs a lot of room. Again, I offset it with a quote.  

                         You can do these in any order that you choose to, I also flip back and forth from doing them on the left side and right side. 

               That is the end of the spread that I usually do, but if you would like to include more go for it! I know it seems like a lot at first, but once you get your first month down, things will start to fly by. If you are ever running out of ideas, Pinterest and YouTube are both great places to look at to find new ideas. I will hopefully be posting my spreads soon.

Starting a Bullet Journal

Hi everyone! Welcome to my first post! I will be talking about how to start your bullet journal and what you should include, or even think about including.

When I start my bullet journal (bujo) I first include a cover page. Writing Emily's Bullet Journal on the very first page. It lets me mess around with doing different fonts and background designs. Now that that is done, there are many ways that you can go.

When I was first starting, I found a lot of different websites and people who included indexes in theirs to keep it more organized. On my first journal, I tried to do this, but in the end found it just wasted space. I had a bookmark in my bullet journal on where I was currently and didn't use the index to find where I was. I also never really looked back on other months to find things, but if i needed to I would just flip through my book. 

On thing that I have included is a key. I think it helps with organization. Your keys don't have to be very complicated. If you only want to use a few different symbols to represent things that is fine. I have seen many keys that take an entire page and have the weirdest symbols that no one will ever use. In my latest bullet journal, I have included task, completed, moved, canceled, appointment, and events. As a filler I have also included a weather forecast key. This was just something to fill the rest of the page up. (I hate wasting half a page, so I will usually fill it in with a doodle or quote.)

For my most recent bujo, I started it in the beginning of the year, so I included a goals page. It wan't very long, but it helps me remember what I want to accomplish for myself. I don't really like empty space so I filled this out on the first couple of pages.

For my next page I usually include an index to help me find where I put things. I have included one in my first boju and my third boju. I didn't include one in my second one and realized that I actually liked having it included. 

Another thing that I include is a year at a glance! It might seem weird to include but I like to put all my important dates in this section. It helps me stay organized.

With my first bullet journal, I included some fun pages before I started my first month. I had a book chart, a movie watching list, a marvel marathon list, a period tracker (I usually only include this at the beginning of a bujo, before I start my January month, so that it is easier to keep track of things), a weight loss page, a washi page (I have started a little collection of washi tapes, so I made a page about the ones I have), etc. For these pages you can include anything you want.

Thanks for reading my very first post! I hope it was inspirational and gave you some ideas about where you want to start. I'm going to be posting more soon, so watch out!

Thanks, Emily!!