Collections journal set up

Hi everyone!

Today I am going to share with you my collections journal set up. I haven’t thought that I’ll be able to set it up by this week, as there is so much going on in my life for the last two months. As I haven’t done as many things I am tracking, it simply wasn’t a priority at the time. But as I found some time, I’ve decided to set up at least these, which I will most likely use on a regular basis. So here is what does my collections journal looks like at the moment. There aren’t all collections done yet, but as I will manage to set them up, I’ll write another post to share them with you.

Also, if you would like to see me setting me up all the spreads I am showing here, you can see my video on YouTube.

If you are wondering why do I have a separate notebook for my collection, the story is quite simple and not as spectacular. I’ve started a bullet journal journey about three years ago. I had some breaks on the way, but they lasted no longer than two months. And during these years I went through eight notebooks, which seemed a bit too many for me. One day I saw a video, where the creator had set her collections journal, giving similar reasons for that as I had. But back then I thought it is a waste of notebook. However, I’ve changed my opinion this time, when I was sketching spreads for this part of the year when I’ve realised that I am about to transfer so many spreads that I haven’t even filled in full. And this was the point in my journaling adventure, where I’ve decided to go for a separate notebook.

As you got to know the story behind my journal, there is nothing left but present you my spreads.

Title page

I’ve decided to keep my cover page simple so I’ve just written a title with capital letters and my normal handwriting. I drew a sign behind it, so page isn’t too empty. I’ve decided for yellow and green as colours because I look like they look together. Additionally, they are very warm colours, so it makes the entire spread much more cosy and welcoming.

Birthdays

Birthday page is quite self explanatory. It is just a page to write birthdays of our close one. For this spread I went with balloons, so each of the letter is a balloon and each month has a balloon too to write dates and names in them. I haven’t intended to make it as dark, but overall I think these colours go well together and I like it a lot even though it is a very simple set up.

Books I’ve read

I am personally very excited for this spread. I used to read a lot in past, but recently I wasn’t able to find time for it. I’m looking forward to fill it out. For set up itself, I’ve decided to draw a book shelf with colourful books on each shelf. I just made sure that colours of my books aren’t too dark, so I will be able to write a title and author on them.

I hope to fill all these books quickly, but of course we’ll see how it goes as time passes.

Audiobooks I’ve listened to

I am a big fan of audiobooks recently. I mostly listen to self-development books or business management ones, as they are the easiest for me to listen to. Listening to useful books boosts my productivity too, as I am able to get my chores done and get some new knowledge.

In my spread, colourful rectangles with simplified Audible icons will hold titles of audiobooks I’ve listened to. And fact that they are so colourful make the entire spread look very happy.

Series tracker

I have made this spread for the first time. I’ve started watching serials recently, especially before going to bed (yes, I know it is not healthy, but any way I am usually so tired at the end of the day, that I am falling asleep in no time any way). The only problem is when I fall asleep and there is episode, after episode going on and it takes me a lot of the time to actually find where I am when I am to watch it next time. Having tracked the last episode I watched, I have usually one or two episode to check what makes my life much more easy.

For the set up I went very easy with the title on the top of the page and a grid wit episodes and seasons for each serial. Here I’ve created a grid just for one serial, as at the time when I was setting it up it was the only one I was watching.

Things to sell/donate

This spread is crucial for me at the moment as I am trying to declutter my home and I have so many things I am trying to sell, that I am simply getting confused of the point of each product’s status. This turned out to be my life changer,

I preferred this spread to be functional and fit a lot of data, that’s why I went for a simple table to trach the status of each item I am selling.

And these are all collections I’ve set up so far, There will definitely be more, but I will update you in next post of this series when I’ll have more of them ready,

This is all for today post I hope you enjoyed it. If you have some more collections ideas, please share it in a comment below and if you want to see me setting all these spreads see my YouTube video.

Daria

September plan with me

Hi everyone,

Today I’m going to show you September set up in my bullet journal. I have resigned from some spread I had in August and I added some new one. But this is what bullet journal is about in my opinion. You just keep trying some things and keep them if they work for you. Otherwise, you just don’t include them next time. So without further delaying, let’s get to my September setup.

Cover page

What would be set up without the cover page? It sets a theme for the entire month. It couldn’t be missing in my bullet journal either.

So for the month of September, I’ve decided to go with green plants. I was considering to give their pots some colour, but after I’ve decided that with shades of green for the plants itself and brown shelves, white pots will be the perfect option.

On the left page, I have included a quote: ‘Act as if what you do makes a difference’. I think this is a very good quote as very often I am wondering about the sense of what I am doing or what I am about to do. But sometimes it is better just do without overthinking things, so acting as they matter should help with carrying on. I also put two branches around the quote, to make it more interesting.

Month at a glance

Here is another traditional spread. It is quite hard for me to imagine a bullet journal without space to write your important dates for the month.

For my setup, I kept the theme and drew a bunch of plants on the empty space below my calendar. It is simple, but I think it looks pretty good.

Productivity tracker

Here is a spread, I’m trying for the first time. It is a simple layout (it takes some time to set it up, though) in shares you can put an icon for each task you did during the day. At the end of the month, you’ll have an image of how productive you are. I’ve seen this spread in many videos, but this video reminded me about it, while I was setting up my bullet journal. And I thought: ‘why not try it for myself?’. And I did.

I haven’t come out with the icons yet, so I will share them along with my October set up. And I’ll tell you more about how well did it work for me.

Habit tracker and mood tracker

My habit tracker hasn’t changed since I’ve started including it in my bullet journal. I always work on five habits, but they keep changing over time. Either I can consider some activity as my habit already (I am doing so when for two full months in a row calendars for this habit are all coloured), or because of any reason, I am deciding that I don’t want to work on a particular one. Why five though?

There isn’t a good answer to this. When I first started tracking my habits, I could think about five of them. And it stayed this way till now.

Regarding the mood tracker, I always try to fit it into my theme, so this month I am going to colour each leave as the days go. Let’s hope there won’t be too many brown leaves.

Spending tracker and sleep log

These two are talking for themselves. This month I’ve decided to track my spending by categories. So I have a table with a column for bills, groceries, my son and miscellaneous. In this last one, I will track all spendings which probably aren’t as necessary.

And sleep tracker will hold all the hours I’ll manage to sleep. It will be useful to see how many hours of snoozing I’ll get each day, especially that soon I need to return to my night-shift work. With my active son, I need to make sure I am sleeping at least the bare minimum.

Brain dump

I think this is the simplest layout of this month’s set up, yet so important for me. I have no idea how I could forget to make it last month. I usually use it for ant thought that might haunt my head, but it doesn’t have designated space to be noted.

Well, did I say it is the simplest spread? Let’s say that drawing and colouring this border took me a lot of time. I love how it looks though.

Weeklies

This kind of weeklies is part of my bullet since a very long time. Not from the very beginning, but long enough, to make me not remember what was before. It takes me quite a lot of time to set it up, but the functionality it gives me makes it worth it.

Since I’ve added the dutch door with extra space for my goals and next week’s events, I can’t imagine setting my week any other way. And these flower pots on the dutch door make it look so amazing (even if we can clearly say, I am not the best of an artist)

These are all the spreads I have in this setup. I hope they will be an inspiration for at least some of you. If you enjoyed reading this post you might want to press this like button. And if you have any ideas on what spreads I could try, please leave me a comment down below. You can leave any other message too.

And this is it for today’s post. I hope to see you in my next post next week. See you till then.

Daria

2020 Bullet Journal Set Up + August Plan with me

Hello and welcome to the first post in my blog!

As one of the main purposes of having it is to share my ideas on planning (I am not an expert and I haven’t invented it myself) and show how I am doing it. You might find it interesting, as I am integrating few methods in my planning system and I am making them work wonders for me.

So starting presenting the whole process wouldn’t have been done right, if I wouldn’t start from my bullet journal. This main part of my every day routine, my notebook which is going everywhere with me. And as I’ve run out of my last notebook, I’ve realised it will be the perfect time to show you how did I set up my new bullet journal for remaining part of the 2020. So let’s move right into it.

Except all spreads presented in this post, my bullet journal has index and the key, but as they were preprinted in my notebook, I haven’t included them here.

Cover page

This is quite useless and unnecessary page for some people. For me at the other hand is very important. Bullet journal I am presenting to you now is my fourth one. And each of my previous ones had some sentence or quote, which reflects my mindset, goals or intention for upcoming period of time. This particular one is supposed to remind me that I can always keep putting away my dreams, because of hardships I might be going through at the time, but I can never be sure that this time is not the best of all I have left in my life. I think that is a great motivation to pursue my dreams and it is nice to see reminder of it every time I open my bullet journal. And to signify the year we are in, I’ve included huge ‘2020’ on the top of this setup.

Spacing grid cheat sheet and 2020 goals

First of these pages is purely technical page. It’s purpose is to help me when I am setting up my spreads, so I don’t have to count dots each and every time I want to divide my page. It consists of lines which split page in half, thirds and fourths. And I’ve got the idea from AmandaRachLee’s video. If you are watching bullet journal videos, you probably already know her, if not I highly recommend checking her channel too for many inspirations.

Second page, which is 2020 goals page, is quite self explanatory. I simply divided my page into 2 parts, where on the left I will include all my personal goals and on the left work related goals.

I think it is nice to have all your goals in one place and be able to revise them at the end of the year.

Half year at a glance

Next pages contain half year at a glance. As I am planning to start a new bullet journal in January, I’ve included just six months. This are the pages, where I am going to put any future events for months which aren’t set up yet.

Content schedule and Cleaning schedule

Next page is a Content schedule. As I have one more blog and a YouTube channel, it is getting a bit confusing when I need to post what. And it is very easy to get it all mixed up. So in my content schedule page I will associate all my post and videos to each day of the week (for example posts in this blog will be coming up every Tuesday at 11, except this one of course).

Similar with cleaning schedule. Having a small child, I am not able to do everything every day. And any way, not all chores have to be done every day. So it is good to have some routine and keep home as clean as it is possible.

Things to buy and Savings tracker

Things to buy is a simple table where I can include thing which I want to buy and it’s price. It is helpful to have it, when I am preparing my budget. Seeing our situation each month, I can decide whether I can afford any particular thing this month or it needs to wait a bit longer. As I order it, I have place to put date when I ordered it and write when it will be delivered, this way I will not reorder same thing twice, just because I forgot that I’ve already done it.

Savings tracker is crucial to me too, because many time I would take some money out of the savings account and after a while I don’t really remember whatI’ve used it for. Having it written, makes me more accountable and help me use my savings only when I need it, instead of buying unnecessary things.

August cover page

This month I’ve decided to go for very simple theme. Mostly because I’ve realised that I am running out of pages in my old journal too late and ended up with just a little time to set the new one up. However, I really like how it did turn out after all. Simplicity of this setup and bright yellow and orange colour perfectly suit the summer time and everything looks so cute.

Flowers, on their own are very simple to draw, as they are just either yellow or orange middle and some white petals, but I really like the way, how they look on the setup.

In my case cover page does not only play a role of divider between months, but also it has a quote or just sentence reminding me my mantra for upcoming (in this case 31) days. For August, I’ve decided to go with ‘Time to bloom’. Although it has been used multiple times in Bullet Journal community, but it fits my theme perfectly and also is very motivating, considering that I’ve started a lot of new projects in August.

August at a glance

How could you have a Bullet journal without the calendar for or your important dates and events? I couldn’t miss it either! I went for simple calendar with colours matching my theme. So there are pops of yellow and orange. I’ve also included two boxes for my monthly goals and notes. Simple, yet useful.

Content schedule

Of course as an content creator I found it useful to plan all the post and videos I want to create in advance, so I can start working on them early enough. Layout is very similar to the previous one, but again it will save my life.

Habit tracker and a mood tracker

Of course I could miss these two either! Unfortunately, August has been crazy for me and it is nice to be able to see how working on my habits goes and of course how my mood has been changing considering all the madness going on.

Weklies

And here is my weekly setup. I went for a table where I can write my tasks and assign the to particular day wit a dutch door in the middle, where I can write my goals for the week and plan meals. Again, simple and useful.

And that’s it for today’s post. I know that quality of pictures isn’t the best, but I will make sure there are better next time. I hope you enjoyed it any way and see you in my next post!

D.