Moving into my New Bullet Journal Midyear
The year’s almost half over, which sounds like a great excuse for a new notebook to me! My mid-year setup isn’t quite as involved as my initial one, but it’s essential all the same! Scroll down to read on, or watch the Plan With Me video below:
Since I set up some of my trackers at the beginning of the year to cover the entire year’s worth of data, I’ll be keeping those where they are and just continuing to fill them out in my old notebook for the rest of 2022. That means my social media, reading and cashflow trackers aren’t coming with me into my new book, but I will be adding a 6 month future log, a fresh goals page, and my handy old pen swatch. I’m also bringing in some new pages and spreads to help me with some other tasks!
Grid Spacing page - an absolute must for any bullet journal
If you’re not familiar with the concept of a grid spacing page, let me blow your mind. The idea here is that you dedicate a page to the measurements you’re most likely to need the most often later in your journal. I like to number the spaces vertically and horizontally so I don’t need to count them all the time, determine the centre of the page (including the numbers in the spaces either side - again so I don’t need to count them again later) and then add colour coded lines to show the page divided into half, thirds and quarters, both horizontally and vertically. Say for instance I want to make a weekly page with eight boxes - two columns of four boxes - I can flick to my Grid Spacing page and quickly refer to my half-page measurements on the horizontal and quarter-page measurements on the vertical. Too easy!
Future Log & Goals Page
My work requires me to plan things really far in advance - sometimes more than a year ahead - so I always always ALWAYS need a future log. I haven’t added a header onto this one, since I figure calendars with space between them are pretty self-explanatory. All important dates go into the space beside the appropriate month, and I’ll refer back to my future log each time I set up a monthly calendar page so I know exactly what’s going on.
I also love taking the second half of the year as a chance to check in on my goals. Have I reached some already? Are some no longer relevant? Am I on track to the ones that are left? I run three businesses so I like to have mine categorised - this time I’ve gone for the headings personal, financial, business and side-hustle.
Content Planner - A Social Media Must-Have
Since February I’ve been very into my monthly content calendar spreads helping me plan out my social media content for the month - so I figured it was time to step it up a level and add an overall content planner too. It’s six months again, just like the future log, and if it goes well and I get good use out of it then I’ll include a full year content planner in my 2023 journal.
When Did I Last + a Handy Pen Swatch Page
Another new challenger is my “When Did I Last…?” page! I’ve seen some similar ideas around online and thought it was a great way to keep track of tasks that are a bit more spaced out than the ones you’d add to a monthly habit tracker. I’m talking things like cleaning out your fridge, giving pets monthly flea treatments, decluttering your wardrobe and so on. Each time I complete one of these tasks, I’ll add the date in so that later, when I’m wondering if it’s time to change the water filter yet, I can check when I last changed it and know for sure if it’s time for a new one or not.
The pen swatch page is a fun one. I find lots of pen’s actual ink colours don’t match the colour of their barrel or cap, so swatching them all out like this really helps see what the colour looks like on the page. My last notebook was from a different company and was also a different colour, so I wanted to make sure I had a new pen swatch page to refer to when I’m putting together colour schemes for future layouts… and also I’d acquired a few new pens that needed swatching too!
Bullet Journal Goodies - What I Used to Make These Pages
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I’m moving into my first ever Archer & Olive notebook - the stunning lilac April Showers book, which I bought back in January but ended up being SO 2022 appropriate - my city has had near constant rain all year, and even a huge flood at the beginning of April! It doesn’t appear to be available on the A&O website anymore, but Aussie bujo babes can still grab it on Paper Kooka right here (which is where I got mine).
Once you go Sakura you never go back - I’ve used my new fav Pigma Micron 03 pen for all my fineliner needs (the borders, text, numbers etc). I added the coloured grid spacing lines with these Peter Pauper Press acrylic paint pens, and I used the Tombow dual brush pens in 603 periwinkle and 620 lilac, as well as 090 baby yellow for accents. I used a white Posca paint marker to fix all my mistakes!
My upper case letter stamps* can be found on Stationery Pal here, and I used Artistro’s brush tip paint markers* to ink my stamps. It’s much faster with a nice broad brush tip than the tiny fine tips of the Peter Pauper Press ones!
I have barely put down the Washi Tape Shop’s Delicate Floral Wreaths washi tape sticker set* since I got it, and this month is no exception. They’re the perfect tiny stickers to dress up an otherwise minimal setup, and I cut up a couple of the wreaths to make garlands too!
*gifted
