Bullet journalling has changed my daily life. I cannot say otherwise.

Last month, since the notebook I was using had only a few pages left, I decided to not really set up for August. I just did a monthly page with the month’s calendar and an expense tracker, leaving the rest of the empty pages for daily journalling.

Guess what. My August was SO CLUTTERED. I didn’t really even pick up my bullet journal except to note down my expenses and plan blog posts. The month was a disaster, to be honest. I was so disorganized, I couldn’t wait to start bullet journalling properly again.

First, let me introduce you to my new notebook.

I started a new notebook this month. Its from personal-planner.com, a website where you can customize your notebook and have it shipped to yourself for free.

Here is my notebook:

 

Specifications:

• Spiral notebook of size “Classic A5”, dimensions 147x205mm and 160 pages.
• I contemplated a lot about what image I want in the front. In the end, I decided to put a simple picture for the front that I took on Snapchat with a filter and added a small quote below. It says “I begin with an idea and it becomes something else” said by Pablo Picasso.
• On the back, I have a coordinating coloured background and the names of several books I really love. The names go vertically so you have to start at the top and read downwards and from left to right columns. The spaces are added to separate book names. So each book title has no spaces between it’s words. Some of the books I’ve mentioned are Where Rainbows End, Before We Were Strangers, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
• The pages inside are tinted blue. When I saw the option, I had to have it. Blue is my favourite colour.
• The book is divided into four quarters. I chose the first and last quarters to have dotted pages and the middle two quarters to have plain pages. Although honestly even the dotted pages look plain unless you look VERY close, even in real life.
• The notebook also comes with a matching scale which is removable for convenience. I can put it for whichever page I want it.
• It also comes with a transparent removable folder which, like the scale, can be removed and put in whichever place as convenient.

• I also chose to get a sheet of small stickers and a pen along with the notebook.

So, that’s my notebook. Isn’t it pretty awesome? Especially with the tinted pages?

Now, onto the setup for this month.

I’ve been waiting for what feels like FOREVER for my previous notebook to finish so I can get to this one. It’s almost the end of 2018, sadly, for me to start using a notebook with 2018 written on the front.

Anyway, the major challenges I had with this book were coordinating with the background blue tint (I needed to choose colour pens that matched the colour or complemented it) and getting used to the size (which I’ve never had before.) It took a few tries, and multiple pages getting ripped out, but I managed it in the end.

I wanted the first page to have my favorite poem, so I wrote it.

It was after this point that I discovered the ghosting and very slight bleeding my brush pens caused on the paper. So then I had to tread lightly.

 

I didn’t want to start the trackers immediately after the events so I just made up a goals page. Not sure if I’ll stick to it, but we’ll see.

Since the pages are pretty small, and I liked drawing borders on the pages, I had to make these two small and “cute”.

I intentionally left out habit trackers this month because I didn’t think I’d have enough mental energy to bother with trackers except the commenting challenge.

As usual, I have my monthly blog post schedule in the back for any planning so I can do multiple months at once (if required).

Now that I see, the pages look white lol. I promise, they’re tinted blue. The blueness idn’t seen after I increased the brightness of the photos.

And that’s it! It’s going to take a while for me to get used to this book. Until then, I’m just going to experiment and try things.

Have you started anything new this month? Maybe school, exercise, sport, journalling? Let me know in the comments! Also do tell me your opinions on my notebook and spreads.