2021 Bullet Journal Setup & January Plan with Me

Happy New Year, everyone!

For the last year, I had a standard planner, and the year before that, I had a bullet journal. And while I love both of them, I think it’s time to go back to using a bullet journal. I love the flexibility that creating my own spreads gives me. I also like creating complex journal spreads, but I don’t really reach for my journal too often. So I feel like this will be a nice medium for me to be creative again.

Will it be tough keeping up with a reading journal and a bullet journal? I’m sure. Will my spreads likely look less pretty as time goes on? It’s likely. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. 

If some months are extremely minimal, I’m fine with that. But I would like to dedicate more time doing things that don’t involve a screen, and just putting creative energy into something I enjoy. Either way, it allows me to make spreads that align with my goals a bit better, rather than sticking post-it notes everywhere in my planner when I want to section off something.

So I’m excited to use my new bullet journal, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my spreads evolve as my goals change throughout the year. Here’s how I set it up!

The Journal

Because Instagram makes me buy basically everything, I stumbled across this Compoco cat journal and absolutely had to have it as my bullet journal for this year. I love all of the features and details it has inside – including a pocket! It’s 100 GSM, which is not as thick as my reading journal, but still enough that I’m not noticing a ton of bleedthrough. It was something that I was concerned about when I did a pen test with it, but now that I’ve drawn out all of the spreads I realized it’s really not bad, especially for what I’m using it for.

Something else I really like about this little book is its size. It’s a standard A5 notebook, but my last planner was so thick, it was hard to bring anywhere. So I’m looking forward to having something that’s much more portable for when I (eventually!) travel.

I attempted to make my yearly spreads themed in a similar way to the cover, but now that it’s done I’m not quite sure how to describe it!

2021 Title Page and At-A-Glance

As you can see, this is just a massive collection of tape, stickers, stamps, and memo pads. The theme is a bit all over the place, but I think it came out kind of cool!

I also did a yearly spread, which took a while to do, but this is one I really like to reference. I know I can always get this from my phone, but I like the ability to get some things without reaching for my phone.

Grid Spacer and Word of the Year

This is my first time using a grid spacer, and it’s been such a game-changer so far! When I put together my monthly and weekly spreads it was so quick to put them together. There’s many different ways to set this spread up, but I mainly followed Jolie’s spread here.

Then I have a word of the year, which I pick to influence what my goals are for 2021. This year is balance, because I take on too many things and I need to be more intentional about what I put most of my time and energy into.

Goals & Memories

After putting my word of the year spread together, I wanted to have my goals for 2021 on the next page. In hindsight, I wish I would have put some action steps in here. But I am also implementing some action steps on my monthly spreads, so I guess that works too!

The next spread is for 2021 memories. I had this one in my past bullet journals, and I love looking back on it, especially if I’m not having the best of days. It also makes me look forward to what 2021 will bring!

Future Log

Another bullet journal must! I’m actually combining this spread with birthdays and anniversaries as well so it will be a nice at-a-glance. I realize that starting this in February and ending it with a 2022 log would have made the most sense, but I’m sure I can fit 2022 in if I need to use it. 

And now it’s time for the January spreads! I just acquired some stamps that I felt were quite woodsy, and I also have some memo pads of trees, so I went for a forest theme this month. I love how it turned out and I can’t wait to use it in a couple days! 

Title Page & Calendar

I absolutely love the way this looks, and all I really did was put together some decorative pages, stickers, tape, and stamps. Even if I have some busier months and keep the weekly spreads minimal, I think I’ll still do cover pages similar to this. 

I recently got a Phomemo T02 for Christmas, which I also really love! I used it in this spread as well by printing out my goals in the top left corner. These are the action steps for the goals i listed earlier. This will make an easy reference for when I’m planning my weeks out. I had no monthly goals in my planner, and I think I was doing better at hitting long-term goals when I had something like this in my older bullet journals, so I really wanted to include this. 

Then I have a little monthly calendar on the right, which was so easy to set up thanks to the grid spacer spread. It is on the small side, but I’m not having a hard time writing in it since I tend to write small. In my planners, I like to use my monthly at-a-glance calendars to highlight bigger events, birthdays, deadlines, and anything outside of usual tasks.

Weekly Spread

Here’s one of four of my weekly spreads. It’s mostly like a regular planner spread, but with a few additions!

On the left I have a ‘This Week’ section, where I’ll be setting goals and intentions for the week. This is something I didn’t have in my last planner and I find that it really helps for staying on top of my work and goals.

Then on the bottom right I have two trackers. One of my goals is to build muscle and get stronger this year, and something that helped me while I was doing fitness coaching was weekly check-ins. I’m personally not concerned with the numbers, but I do want to make sure that there’s an upward trend so I know that I’m fueling my body enough to get stronger. Then I have a ‘Next week’ section, where I’ll set something I want to do for the next week, such as eating more protein, attempting to add resistance in a particular workout, etc.

The last tracker is a little chart for my mood. I have clinical depression, and I feel like when I have medical check-ins for this I’m not as prepared to explain what I’ve been experiencing over certain periods of time. And while this is a weekly spread instead of something long-term, this should help me be more intentional about checking in to this and see if there are any situational issues that need to be addressed as well.

That’s everything for my bullet journal so far. Do you like to use a planner? What do you use? Let me know. 

I’m excited to be sharing these spreads throughout the year in addition to my reading journal, and I hope that they inspire you as well! Here’s to an organized 2021! 🖤

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