Ask anyone I know: I’m organized as all hell, or at least it looks that way. Color coded notes? Calendars? Dates and times planned well in advance? Oh yeah, definitely. And that’s mostly because of my bullet journal, so I figure today is as good a day as any to give you a peek at that!
(… Pardon the fuzzy picture quality. I don’t have the steadiest of hands or the best of phone cameras.)
Books I’ve Read
This is one of my favorite spreads. Yeah, Goodreads technically serves this purpose, but I really like having this list ready at hand in the front of my bujo. It feels good to see it in written form, since GR shows a list of images that you have to click a button to expand in order to see them all. It’s also a good way for me to keep track of the order I’ve read books in this year, since I try to write them down in the exact order I read them whenever possible.
Blog Stats
I started on this page in June, right after I got back on my feet after a hiatus early into blogging. It’s handy for tracking follower growth, though you’ll see I’ve crossed one field out. That was my book Tumblr, which I found wasn’t really good for much except reblogging edits, which isn’t really my field anyway. My reviews got so little traction there, and my other posts got just about nothing at all.
Anyway, it’s really neat to look where I started with May stats, and then to look where I’m at based on my end of July stats (which aren’t in this photo because I took it early, whoops). I’m really looking forward to how small this page might look after a couple years, providing I blog that long (which I hope I will!). That, and I get to see that my blog is always growing, even if it grows slowly!
New Releases
I actually just introduced this spread as of August, but I’m planning to include it in full when I get around to my 2019 journal. It’s awesome to see what’s coming out that I’m looking forward to well in advance so I can budget for pre-orders or contact my library about pre-ordering it for their collection when I don’t have the money to do it myself. Also, any ARCs I get, I make sure to put down here so that I can review them close to their release date, and hype them on Twitter if I enjoyed them! It keeps all the important dates in a bunch without getting them mixed in with birthdays and appointments that go in my future log.
Bonus Round: Google Drive
Technically, Drive doesn’t do a thing for my bullet journal. I tried a digital bujo once and it was a nightmare, so I’m never doing that again. For book blogging, though, Drive is awesome. I keep a link to the blogger network spreadsheet I’m a part of so I can follow newbies to the network, as well as a folder for templates (for reviews, weekly wraps, and monthly wraps), and a folder of to-do materials. Then the to-do folder includes an awesome TBR spreadsheet that Evelina @ Avalinah’s Books has providedΒ (it’s so satisfying to change the red bars to green as I finish reading and scheduling things!), as well as a 2018 calendar spreadsheet that I use to schedule my own posts. June actually looked like this when I was all done…
…but when I’m in the process of writing, days without a post are white, days with an idea are turned yellow, and days that have been written and scheduled are turned green. If I cancel a post, I usually just delete it rather than turn the box red, especially since a day can (on occasion) have multiple posts. That way, it’s easy to see at a glance what I have left to do for the month, and it motivates me to get that scheduled post count way up. Nothing like seeing more than 20 scheduled posts in my WordPress queue!
What kind of bullet journaling tricks do you use in your blogging life, if at all? Or are you someone who likes to wing it as you go? Let’s share our bujo secrets. It’s for the greater good.
oh man, i love bullet journals. it’s funny, at least a third of my tumblr and instagram feeds are bujo posts, and i adore looking at them, but i could never keep up with trying them on my own! that’s a personal self-discipline problem, though, oopsβi’ve never even been able to keep up with a planner. i’ve always wanted to try digital bullet journaling, but the only good software for it is unfortunately for ios/mac only (can’t remember if one or both) and i don’t use apple products.
i keep a habit tracker on my whiteboard instead, for the time being, and it works semidecently because i’m a sucker for color-coding, which i use in my course notes as well. bought a huge box of discount gel pens for those purposes lol.
good luck with yours and definitely update us more on it!
They’re so pretty sometimes, and I have to admit I envy the ones filled with all kinds of doodles and things. I don’t have nearly the discipline or artistic talent for those.
But hey, a whiteboard is a good way to go! And gel pens! I hope that works out for you. c:
I enjoyed looking at your bullet journal! I have one too but I haven’t used it much lately and I’ve been wanting to get back to using it, especially for blogging and reading. So this kind of inspired me to start using it again.
I wish I could do the gorgeous artsy doodle stuff too! I just use a lot of stickers. I look up bujo inspiration on Pinterest there’s a lot of great stuff on there.
Aw, I’m glad to hear this has pushed you to pick it up again! I hope it helps you out and you find you can stick with it. π
Pinterest is a minefield of good inspo, if sketchy about sourcing. I usually poke around there for ideas for new spreads or easy doodles.
Wowwwww….that is really beautiful. I haven’t a hope of keeping a bullet journal myself as I’m too disorganized/inconsistent lol, but I do enjoy looking through others’ progress! You sure have read a lot this year, and your handwriting is super nice btw! The artwork too is very lovely. π
It’s hard to keep up with sometimes, so I totally get not keeping one and just quietly watching everyone else lol. But thank you so much!! β€
<3
So I’m going through my comments and just found a pinback from forever ago xD I meant to come and thank you for linking my post! But I was on vacation π so glad my spreadsheet could help you out. I am also totally nerding out about your bujo and all the stats tracking! I can sooooo relate. That’s half of what’s good about blogging π (the other half is the community!) (well okay, then there’s reading too. LOL)
Haha, better late than never! And you’re welcome! I really do love that spreadsheet a lot. β€
It is! Stats and people and books. That’s all we need in life, right? π