Monthly BuJo Theme \\ October 2021 Bullet Journal

As you may already know from my Birth Story, I have a little one who takes up all of my time nowadays. Which means that I’ve had to get creative with finding ways to BuJo (bullet journal) as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I also posted a quick, flip through video of this setup on my YouTube channel, if you would like to hear me talk about these spreads in further detail.

Choosing a Theme

The part of journalling that has always taken me the longest is coming up with a theme and planning my layouts. So, this month I chose to base my theme around a single washi tape design and use the same spreads/layouts as I have been for a few months now. And I have to say, I am very pleased with how the spreads turned out and how little time it took me.

Quote & Cover Page

I chose a quote from the book, What We Devour* by Lindsey Miller, which I enjoyed recently. I also highly recommend the audiobook* if that’s your thing. I used my Acrylograph Pens*, a silver metallic sharpie, and some craft paper from the Archer & Olive quarterly subscription box for the quote, then used gel pens and fine liners to doodle around the quote in order to effortlessly give the spread some depth.

I did the same thing for the cover page, except I also added the washi tape across the top and bottom of the page.

Calendar Spread

For my calendar spread, I’ve been really enjoying the larger, two page layout as of late. I also add a column on the far right for goals or monthly tasks, depending on the month. I personally like to begin my weeks on Monday, but I know some people prefer Sunday.

Comment which day you start your week on below!

Content Planning and Line a Day Spreads

Instead of doing a brain dump every month, I have moved to creating a more structured spread with sections for task lists based on a certain area of my life. So I have a section to plan content for this website, a section to plan content for my YouTube Channel, and a section for tasks relating to the TBR Book Club that I run on Instagram. I used Calliograph Pens* for the “web” and “tube” headings, even though I am not good at hand lettering. These pens make it so much easier to hand letter than I expected!

One of my favorite spreads to look back on each year is my line a day. I used to call it my gratitude log or memory a day, but ultimately I just write anything of significance for each day. Some months I even do my mood tracking on this spread with color coded dots next to each date, but I now have an entire journal dedicated to my mental wellbeing, so I no longer need to track my moods in my main journal.

Additionally, I am an extremely forgetful person, so having this line a day spread helps me keep track of the days as a stay at home mom, even if all I write for the day is that I did laundry or made pasta for dinner.

Weekly Spreads

I use the same weekly spreads with tabs on the side each month, because I have found that this setup really works for me. I also love how professional the DIY tabs make my journal look with so little effort. I got this idea from Elizabeth from Plant Based Bride over on YouTube (I adore her channel, you should definitely go follow her).

I split each page into quarters, one per day of the week, with the last one for a weekly to-do list. I added some doodles on the side bars that are exposed no matter which week I’m in, just to tie the pages together in theme. I also made the headers red and used a deep blue gel pen for my daily writing to spice the spread up even more. I find that instead of using a black pen when filling in the spreads, using a gel pen that matches the theme and becomes part of the design really helps with feeling like the month is cohesive and “artistic”. Really, all you did was consider the pen you’d use to fill it in while choosing the other colors of the spread.

This setup is really simple and takes literally 15-20 minutes, but it still looks nice and keeps me motivated to use my journal every day.

Bookish Spreads

I am one of those people who loves to track their reading and have a physical memory to look back on. It is so interesting to see what I was reading at certain times in my life and how much I was reading as well. This may be discouraging or stress inducing for some people, but it makes me feel accomplished, even if I only read one book.

On the left, I have a place to write the title and author of the books I read, in addition to a spot for some key words and a rating. Below that I have my “days read” tracker. I am finding patterns in my reading motivation, and daily tracking encourages me to try to read at least a little every day. Lastly, this page has a spot at the bottom for me to write how many books and pages I read in total for the month.

On the right, I have an entire page for quotes. I like to keep this spread as minimal as possible because the writing really takes the stage here. I love the way the scattered quotes look once this page is completely filled in. I am considering alternating the color of pen for each quote to give the spread more visual appeal.