Creative planning in my bullet journal

It’s time for another peek inside my bullet journal! I’ve continued this year in the same A5 dotted notebook as last year, adding spreads and lists as I go. I really like the flexibility of an undated planner – if I miss a week here or there there are no big empty pages staring at me and if I want to add a tracker mid month, or include a random page of notes I can! I know lots of people prefer the structure of a dated planner, but I prefer to just go with the flow and add whatever I feel like adding, in whatever order.

I’ve been following the same format as last year’s journal, with a monthly calendar at the start of each month followed by weekly spreads. I treat the monthly spreads as part calendar, and part scrapbook! I’ll add in important reminders but I’ll also add other memory keeping bits and pieces throughout the month too.

With the start of a new year, I also decided to add some trackers to my bullet journal. I’ve seen lots of amazing bujo trackers but I wasn’t convinced that I’d stick with them through a whole year so I thought I’d try a few simple ones to begin with and see if I kept them up to date! So far, so good – I’ve found that I tend to update them in batches but I’m pretty much keeping up with them.

(The Greatest Showman is our favourite film of the year to date, in case you were wondering!)

I’ve also struck to the same weekly layout as most of my last year’s spreads. The format works well for me and I can always extra boxes if I need them, or add extra decoration if I want to! Sometimes I will work in themes and others I’ll just draw something relevant to whatever is happening that week. I had a big Harry Potter phase earlier in the year that I really enjoyed, I think I will have to revisit this theme soon!

Supplies Used:

I’m still using the same basic supplies in my journal, I find that having a limited range of stuff to use helps me to decide what I am going to do each week much more quickly! (You can find all my favourite Bullet Journal supplies here). Here’s what I used for these pages:

Scribbles That Matter A5 dot grid journal
Markers: Tombow Dual Brush pens and Sakura Koi brush pens
Coloured pencils: Prismacolour Premier and Derwent Studio pencils
Fineliners: Uni-Pin fineliner pens (various sizes)
Date stamps from Waffle Flower and Studio L2E, alphabet stamps from Lawn Fawn and Avery Elle

If you’d like to see more planner spreads as I post them you might like to follow me on Instagram where I share all my adventures in bullet journaling! If you’re interested in learning more about creative planning, check out the Quirky Heart Community group on Facebook for lots of arty ideas and planner tips from the creative planning guru, Michelle Baxter.