Journals, Journalling and Bullet Journalling

          I’ve always kept a journal of some sort. I have journals from when I was in elementary, I’m sure you all remember those small diaries with locks and a small key.

       Then I graduated to simple spiral-bound notebooks and then those dates agendas that had one day per page. I kept that up until 2016 when they no longer worked for me and I started looking for alternatives.

          I wanted papers that I could take in and out without damaging them and after looking around I bought discs from Staples Arch system with their punch and inserts and covers from Jane’s Agenda on Amazon. I had a lot of fun putting my journal together and making my own pages for it and what not but after using it for a bit I wanted something smaller so I started making my own smaller A5 sized covers and paper inserts and used those for a long while.

          Sometime at the end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017, I bought a disc bound notebook from William Hannah and used it all through 2017 and 2018.

I found inserts on Etsy for it as well as inserts I got from the original website. I also made my own inserts and bought a huge stamp for the date lol.

          But by the end of 2018 Disc bound notebooks no longer worked for me and in January 2019 I moved into a Leuchtturm1917 dotted journal. I loved it. I had gotten it from one of my subscription boxes and decided to use it. When it finished around July if I am not mistaken I used a repurposed notebook to finish out the year but it didn’t last. At the end of October, I moved into another notebook which I finished out the year in. Here are a few pages from each of the three notebooks.

          I knew that for this year I wanted to use the notebooks that I got from Ferris Wheel. However, I needed to think about what worked for me and what did not work for me in 2019. I knew that a future log was useless. I also knew that I did not want a year at a glance calendar. I also never really look at the index of the Leuchtturm1917 even though until the Leuchtturm1917 finished I used it. I knew I wanted trackers for certain things and I knew that I wanted to put all the explanations at the beginning of the Journal/year and have the rest of the months with just a cover page and the dailies. I also knew that I wanted a different notebook to track things like my budget, exams, and appointments. So I remembered that I had gotten a diary from one of the subscription boxes (Owlcrate if I am not mistaken) that I had not used and I took a look at it. It was perfect with one minor correction.

          The last page was a book review page but I changed it to a monthly goals review page. However, I bought another planner for my goals (I will review it in a different post) so this page morphed into a motivational board for me to look at every time I look at my planner.

          The page that I glued on is from the same company that I bought my goals journal. They have this on their website and you can fill it out and they send you three different sizes. One for printing (pdf) and one for Instagram and one is a square one which you can laminate and put into your goals journal. I’m not sure if I’ll do that yet but we’ll see.

The notebook also has weekly pages which I will use to track my daily tasks.



          So basically, my Ferris Wheel journals will be to write about my day and to scrapbook stuff that I want to remember as well as track my routines and my studies. And my Calendar journal is for scheduling and keeping track of daily tasks.

          Now let me show you what I did with my Ferris Wheel journal. I'm going to start with the supplies I used.

These are just a few of the supplies I used and I got most of them off Amazon.

These are the first pages of my Journal. My word for the year and my collections page index.

These two pages explain the main pages (collections) that will reoccur each month.

          These two pages didn't come out like I expected them too but that is okay. I was not expecting perfection. Sometimes I will like the end result and sometimes I won't. This time though I really hated the pages so I covered them. I found some wrapping tissue and went to town on the pages. They are still not perfect but I like them a little better. 

          On the left is my blog idea board and on the right are all my trackers. I learned a lot while making the trackers and next month I will do better with spacing. Now, all that is left is to fill them out and that I will leave for another post as an update.

I decided to have a motivational board just before my daily pages. So this is what it looks like.

          The quote on the top I got from the internet while searching for my Word of the Year. And the bottom quote is something that I wrote myself. It is a way for me to strengthen myself when I fall behind and decide to give up on things I really want to accomplish. 

           This is the same printable from Cultivate What Matters website. The background I put it all on is from Jim Holtz idea-ology, which I got from Amazon a long time ago and never used. 

          And this is what my daily looks like. Something simple and nondistracting. It doesn’t mean that it won’t get scrapped to heck and back with pictures or whatnot but for now, this is what I’m going with. You’ll notice I covered up the fold of the page. It was distracting me so I covered it up. I’m thinking this is why I hate traveler’s notebooks lol. The spine is in the middle of my field of vision! But I am committed to this notebook now, I’m just not going to get this size again when it is used up.

There is one more notebook (besides my Powersheets planner)  that I want to talk about that I will be referring too throughout the year: my studies plan notebook. This notebook has a plan for my religious studies as well as my Korean studies mapped out (in the case of my religious studies for the next 2 years and in the case of my Korean studies for the next 4 months.) This will be referred to often and tweaked depending on what gets done and when.

          It is a very simple layout with dates and what book I’ll be studying or in the case of Korean what Unit from what book.

          The journals I’m going to be using so far. Once the Powersheets Journal from Cultivate What Matters website comes in it will be added to the pile.