Bullet journal 2018 setup – January

Have you guys heard of bullet journaling? Its a basic system where you can keep track of the essentials in your life – I am the person who always lands up with piles of notes (both on my phone and otherwise), nothing in order. Bullet journals allow you to keep everything in one place.

2017 was the first bullet journal that I kept, but I got overwhelmed with all the different pages, all the doodles that you can do (and my lack of drawing abilities).

So i decided to make things easier this year – and at the same time, share it with you. I’ve created some cool printables for your journals – check them out and let me know what you think! I’ve printed these out on sticker paper – for a quick and easy add to my journal, but you can print them on printer paper and glue them into your journal quite easily! (no drawing skills necessary! You can use colour pens, markers or even glitter to customize them)

DotDashDoodle bullet Journal Yearly Calendar January

DotDashDoodle bullet Journal Yearly Calendar2018

Habit tracker

So where do you start?

Well the whole idea is to keep track of things important to you, here are some of the basic ones that I will be doing for January – I’m going to add sections or trackers as I go, but keeping things simple to start off with!

The first few pages are used as a yearly overview and can include things like:

Yearly calendar – A great way to have the year at a glance, I like to keep this upfront and use it as reference as the year goes by. This especially helps for planning!

Yearly goals – what was your new years resolution? Or what goals do you hope to achieve this year?

Project ideas – I have tons of projects that I come up with, but always fail to complete them! This year I want to make a list of projects and ideas that I want to do and use this list to help me follow through.

Other things that people also include, and maybe will interest you are wish lists, reading lists (of books you have your eye on), movies to watch, birthday trackers etc. The list is really endless and should reflect you.

On a monthly basis, each month has a cover page (included in the printables) as well as

Mood tracker – This tracker is great to give perspective to how your mood changes through the month. Every day can be tracked – from happy, anxious, stressed, sad. By keeping tabs on how you are feeling, you can start to be more aware and improve on yourself.

Habit tracker – Track good habits that you are wanting to keep up with. Whether it’s reminding yourself to drink 8 glasses (or more) of water or take your medicine, this one is great to help you along!

Daily spread – Keep track of your daily tasks. Next month I will be including a printable version for the daily spread.

You can also include two open pages for photos taken in that month (may need to try this one!) as well as expense trackers, meal planning and preparation, fitness and workout plans.

And if you do a quick search, you will see that there are many great artists out there, with some super doodles (my drawing skills give me anxiety trying to copy some!). But this year, my plan is to be organised, so here are the monthly themes that I will be doing. Each month I will update you on my progress (and hopefully get some great feedback from how you are doing!) as well as share some more printables for the new month – so if you have an idea, share it with me and I can add it to the list.

January: Sparkles and stars (new year and all!)

February: Love

March: Ferns

April: Lanterns

May: Gems

June: Beach

July: Coffee

August: succulents

September: Spring

October: Halloween

November: Unicorns

December: Christmas