Funday Friday - The One with the Super Simple, Yet Semi-Artsy BuJo

 I love to look on Pinterest at all the gorgeous Bullet Journals and dream about doing such things, but the reality of it all is that I can't draw nearly as well as I dream, and though I have quite nice penmanship (thanks, Mom), fancy lettering is not a skill I possess nor do I have time to learn it right now.

So I'm keeping my bullet journal within my current capabilities and meeting my current needs. My current needs are:

• Keep it simple
• Keep as much of my thinking/thought processes and planning in one place as possible
• Have monthly and weekly layouts that don't take a long time to lay out
• Be pretty but not overdone
• Have a place for dreams, lists, notes from books and studies, quotes of note

So, here's a quick peek at my work-in-progress:

I found the "Books to Read" page somewhere online, printed it, and taped it onto one of the early pages in my Leuchtturm 1917. I have to say that I don't think I'll do the same thing again. Though it's cute, it doesn't have enough space to write author's name on the book, too. I want to do that next time.

The quote on the next page reminds me that my bujo (or anything for that matter) doesn't have to be perfect to still be good.

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The heart of a bujo, and what keeps it useful and not just a bunch of unfindable stuff in a notebook, is the table of contents. The Leuchtturm comes with the pages already numbered, so this is a lot easier than the previous book I had. I like to keep the yearly, monthly, weekly page lists on the right side seperate from other pages I make along the way such as notes about books and talks.

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The Key is also key to knowing what you have in your bujo.     

(Did you see what I did there? Clever, right?! Ok, not so very.)

These symbols are my bullets that go to the left of each entry on the daily to do lists. I'm also playing around with color-coding. More on that below.

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Since I got this book at the start of the school I just made enough of a year calendar to finish out 2018. I plan to make a 2019 calendar when I get to that point in the monthly pages. Again, I keep it simple and highlight only certain dates.

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Another "gotta have" feature of a bujo is the Future Log page where you list what's coming up over the next few months or year.

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For this month calendar I tried my hand at a little drawing with the sunflower, but have decided that stickers is a perfectly acceptable option for decor. And they don't cost too much because I don't feel like they have to be the archival scrapbooking kind...just the pretty kind. I've also begun to collect some little stencils made for planners that I noticed at the craft store.

I tried keeping a habit tracker to help me get better at things like exercising, making time to sew daily, doing my kitchen clean-up every night, etc., but as you see, I'm not tied enough to the bujo to remember to color the blocks when I do the thing. I've decided that having a time-block in the daily schedule for the habits works much better for me than trying to color in a habit tracker block. So I don't need to make a habit tracker anymore (timesaver right there!).

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So October's calendar blocks are able to be much bigger for more writing since I'm not making a habit tracker.

 Again, stickers are my friends.

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I tried this weekly layout where I made four blocks on the upper left page for "Home Care," "School Stuff," "Money-Making," and "Creativity." I don't know if I like it or not. Might try that again.  

But I do like the little bunny rubber stamp that added some cuteness to the page. I hope to add more rubber stamping to the journal since I have quite a collection of stamps.

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Here I show some notes I took on a book I was studying - The Miracle Morning.

Previously, I'd have taken notes on 4x6 cards or notebook paper and then they'd been scattered across my desk or reading table. This way they are collected in one place and findable because of the table of contents. And I don't have to worry that my weekly calendar pages are interrupted by other stuff because they, too, are findable. And the bookmark and sticky tabs help to mark stuff, too.

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 Notes from the Straw Bale Gardening book I've recently studied.

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This is the very simple weekly layout that I usually go with. Up at the top of the pages I put my weekly goals. Then I divide them into the particular days when it would work best to get them done.

I don't always get the weekly goals all written out if I don't make sure I have my "desk time." Sometimes they just get written whereever they need to be. Sometimes the day's list is written the morning of that day. 

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These are the pens I'm using. I love color.

They do not bleed through the paper, but they do "ghost" a little as you can see below.  It's not usually a problem for me.

  

Find them on Amazon

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As mentioned above, I'm experimenting with color-coding using this plan. I'm not sure yet if it's efficient or just more bother. Time will tell.

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So this is what my weekly page looks like when bare. Not fancy, but very useable.

On the left of the day's block I put (color-coded) my daughters' work schedules so I know where people are when and what cars might be available or not. (The music note is voice lesson.)

 

Here are some of my week's goals for this week.

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These post-it notes are currently stuck on the cover of my bujo. Sometime when I have time to play a little in my book I hope to add at least some of these pages.

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So that's my super simple bullet journal/brain.

Do you have something similar? Tell me about it.