New Bullet Journal Setup

People often ask me how I stay organized and on task as a writer. If you are an aspiring author like me, this can be pretty difficult. Previously, I let myself fall in to different phases.I would go from writing to reading, from painting to binge watching a show. Then finally, I was back to writing again. It was a vicious cycle. I would lose my motivation to continue writing simply because something else caught my attention.

Thankfully, I was able to combine my love for bullet journaling with my passion for writing. Using this journal, I am able to track my progress as well as motivate myself to keep going.

Before I continue and show the different spreads I like to use, I have a few disclaimers:

1. This is my personal journal. I lay it out the way that works best for me. That does not mean that these will work for everybody. I encourage you to try any spreads you think you will like. If they don't work for you or if you realize they are not useful for what you are trying to do, then drop them. There is no point in wasting time on something that is not working for you.

2. Some of these spreads I use are very typical bujo spreads, while others I created myself or pulled inspiration from another writer. Any spreads that I use which were inspired by another, I will post a link to their post/video. It is my goal to give credit where credit is due.

3. I do not claim to be a wonderful artist.

Let's get started!

This is my lovely Leuchtturm 1917 bullet journal. This is the second bullet journal I have purchased. So far I like it better than the Shine Bright journal I had previously. The dot ratio (40x27) works very nicely for the spreads that I use. The only downfall is that markers and pens tend to bleed more that the other journal I used.

This is my Future Log. This spread is used to record events/birthdays that are far in the future. It gives you a place to write down things you don't want to forget before you reach that month. This is a pretty common and easy layout. I don't need a lot of space so I decided to put the entire year on two pages while some bullet journalists spread it across four.

Next I have some inspirational quotes. This is what I like to refer to as my "Good cop, Bad cop" spread. One quote is nice and motivational, while the other is telling me to get up off my ass and work.

"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere." by Ann Lamott.

"If you wait for inspiration to write, you're not a writer, you're a waiter." by Dan Poynter

Here I have yet another inspirational quote. No, it's not meant to be morbid, it is merely reminding us not to waste our time doing anything but what you love.

"The trouble is you think you have time" by Buddha.

I also have my bucket list here. These are all things I hope to do by the end of the year.

This here is pretty self explanatory. I set a goad to read at least one book per month. I know, I know! This isn't a pretty hefty goal, but considering how little time I have, even one book is a lot for me. On this page I will be listing each goal.

My goals page is a little different than my bucket list. This page only lists my writing goals. It breaks them down into smaller, easier to obtain goals to help me stay on track.

This spread is all about separating my ideas. I am currently working on a series of picture books. I haven't decided how many books total will be in this series so I wanted a place to always be able to turn to when jotting down my ideas. The same goes for the blog posts.

Can you believe it is September already? I like to start every month of with a quote that either inspires me, or a quote that I can relate to. This here is one of my favorites that I found on theinvisibleauthor.com.

"A crappy first draft is worth so much more than a perfect book that has never been written"

This quote says it all. Everything that I need to be reminded of this month. The first draft is just that, a first draft. It's for the authors eyes, and can only get better from there. You don't need to write the most amazing first draft, or second, or third really. You just need to get your words out on the page so that later you can go through and refine your thoughts and story into something amazing.

After the quote, I have what I like to call my "Monthly Cover Page". It has a small calendar for quick review, as well as the most important part of this entire spread; the goals section. This is the first time I have broken my goals down by month and I look forward to seeing how it plays out. I'm hoping having them listed there front and center will encourage me to stick to them, whereas before I only had yearly goals listed in my new year's collections. I broke my goals down into two sections: Writing and Life. Obviously my main focus is on ramping up my writing and staying focused, but I didn't want to forget about my family life either.

After the Cover page, comes the full calendar spread. I am a huge fan of doing the separate boxes for each day of the month and adding a drop shadow to them. I think it adds character and depth. Just drawing a grid with a ruler would have been much easier and less time consuming, but I don't think it would look nearly as aesthetically pleasing. I got this idea from a youtuber by the name of AmandaRachLee, whom I love! She had a similar design in her January PLAN WITH ME. If you are looking for more encouragement, I definitely suggest checking it out.

If you haven't caught on already, bullet journals perfect for tracking different things.

The first is a Habit Tracker. What you do is quite simple; you come up with a list of things you wish to track throughout the month, like sleep, no spending, exercise, and water intake, then you throw them in a chart, listing every day that month. That's it. Every day, simply fill in the habits you completed and hopefully by the end of the month you will have a fairly full chart.

I also have a social media tracker on the next page, mostly to remind myself the keep up to date with my social media presence.

The next spread is my Creative Station spread. It is simply a glorified brain dump page. I like including a lot of space each month so I have somewhere to get my ideas out. Any random thought I have I throw in here. You never know what you are going to pull inspiration from in the future.

This first spread is my Three Things a Day page which was adapted from the original "Five Things a Day" that I saw in a youtube video by Michelle Chouinard. Basically, she mentions that every writer should do at least five things a day to improve their writing. One should always be write (duh), another should always be read, while the last three can be anything. Personally, I know myself. I am definitely not going to be able to accomplish that, at least not to start off. So, instead, I set a more realistic goal for myself, and changed it to three things instead of five.

The second spread was one of my favorites to create.

I first saw it while watching a video by Rachel Stephan. In short, it is here as a reminder that we all go through cycles of productivity and recovery. I often beat myself up whenever I don't have the motivation or energy to do as much as I had hoped. I need to start recognizing these phases and take advantage of them.

Finally, we move on to my weekly spreads. They are all relatively the same, but as you can see, I utilized dutch doors this month. I like this idea because I can include a word count tracker at the bottom that I will be able to see no matter what week it is. I am hoping this will motivate me to write the entire month. This layout was inspired by Miss McKenna's Life Leverage.

Lastly, we have September in review where I will be adding my favorite photo of the month, with a caption, my best memories, the total word count for the month (including my blog and stories), and my accomplishments. I'm very pleased with how this page turned out and very excited to be able to fill it out.

And to finish out the month, I thought I would include one last inspirational quote

"There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's books and write your own." by Albert Einstein.

That's it for my September layout. Let me know what you liked or didn't in the comments below. Be sure to follow be on Twitter. Bye for now!