So if you’ve followed me on Instagram you’ve probably noticed that I keep an Erin Condren planner and while I do enjoy using it, it just stopped working for me. At least in some ways, I even tried switching to an Erin Condren hourly life planner but that didn’t really help me. I can’t just carry my life planner around with me, it’s too heavy for my purse. I know, you’re probably saying ‘why not use your phone’, Chris asks me that all the time, I’m just not a phone calendar person. I silence all my alarms and don’t pay attention to my phone during the day. So I started researching what was working for other people in the planner community and came across bullet journaling. This isn’t the answer to not only my planner problem but my multiple-half-started-notebook problem. What can I say, I love writing stuff down.
So back in June, I started my bullet journal and started tracking all sorts of things that my Life Planner couldn’t handle. I started tracking my migraines, anxiety attacks, weight loss, and a bunch of other stuff. I know it’s a lot of things mixed together in one journal. Which works for me. PLUS each spread really lets me be creative, I can doodle on the spread, colour my spreads in if I want. It’s personalized in a way I needed it to be. But anyways, here are some ideas for your bullet journals.
Calendar at a view
I started my journal in June so I wrote out a calendar view from June 2017 to May 2018.
Special Dates & Birthdays
This spread is perfect when I need to quickly remind myself of somebody’s birthday or a holiday.
Book List & Ratings
Back in January, I made a new year resolution to read a book a month, so far, I’ve been really doing well with this resolution. Here’s the section of my journal that I track my progress and rate my read.
**If you’re a fan of Carrie Fisher or a Star Wars geek, I definitely recommend The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher. She was such a brilliant writer and actor. I honestly didn’t put this book down, I finished it in two days…
Get Healthy Section
Weight Loss
Beachbody T25 Tracker
I kept misplacing the tracker that actually came with the program, so I made my own in my journal. I found the idea on Pinterest and just modified slightly.
Running & Yoga Spread
I started a version of couch to 5k recently, called Zombies, Run! 5k which I’m really enjoying. ALTHOUGH! It’s a bit creepy to hear zombie sounds as I’m running with Lady at 5 am…The other activity I want to focus more on is my yoga practice. So I’ve made a commitment to go at least 3x a week. The following spread is how I track all of this.
Migraine Tracker
I’ve been a migraine sufferer since I was 12 years old, so migraines are nothing new to me. When I was pregnant with Wendy, I had two or three migraines during those 9 months, so I was pretty happy about that, but after having her, oh man did they really start up again. So much so, that I decided to start tracking them and their severity.
Anxiety Attack Tracker
Since being diagnosed with PTSD, I had never really had constant anxiety attacks. I remember having two as a teenager but nothing really after that until April 2017. I started to really experience them on a weekly, sometimes, daily basis, and it was just getting too much. So I started tracking them. While I track them like this in my bullet journal, I actually use my Erin Condren hourly to track the time of day I have them. I’ve been trying to pinpoint if I’m being triggered and not realizing it and by what because I had started having anxiety attacks in my car, coming out of the shower, in the bath, late at night, early morning, middle of the night, you name it. So I came up with this simple tracker.
Monthly Habit Tracker
I kept seeing these habit trackers all over my Instagram feed so I decided to give it a try. It’s great for tracking daily activities/habits. Also great for tracking how often you do laundry, run the dishwasher, or eat out…
Saving Goals
Year in Pixels/Mood Tracker
I’m generally a pretty happy person, but I haven’t felt like that in a long time. So I wanted to start tracking my moods daily. I’ve seen some really beautiful mood trackers which looked like artwork, but I wanted to try something simple, at least this year.
Series Tracker & Movie Tracker
We watch a lot of movies and a lot of Netflix so I started to track them. Mostly because it’s fun, but also because I’m forgetful, so I don’t always remember what season or episode I’m on, or what movie I have watched.
Whole 30 Information Spread
I actually completed a whole 30 session two years ago and loved it. Then I experienced another miscarriage , the holidays hit, and then I found out I was pregnant with Wendy…from there I haven’t been able to complete another session. So I’m preparing to do one in January 2018. I’m preparing now because there is no way I’m going to complete a session during the holidays.
Hashtags for Instagram
Bucket Lists
A great way to track my travel bucket list and my Disney World bucket list.
Blog Post Ideas
This is where I started using my journal as a blog post idea dump, which helped to eliminate the need to have so many half-started notebooks.
Grace in Small Things
Tracking small things that put a smile on my face from the first snow to Wendy’s giggle. It’s also a great way to remind yourself that you have so many things in your life to be grateful for.
I would love to see your bullet journal spreads, or your planner spreads. Tag me in your Instagram photos (@withlovefrombex). How do you stay organized?
Check this post out for more!
I’m 67 3/4 years old. I’m attempting to use a bullet journal so I came across your blog on Pinterest. I too suffered debilitating migraines….the worst from about age 19 into my late 50s. And depression and anxiety attacks. I no longer get migraines( an absolute life changing miracle!) and with help from therapy and medication the other things are under control as well. One book I read: Heal Your Migraines by David Bucholtz was helpful. Particularly in understanding triggers. As you probably know there can be many triggers. But sometimes what stared a migraine one time didn’t the next. His hypothesis is that we have a tolerance level…once we reach that from whatever source we get the migraine. So it’s to some extent a balance game. Too much sleep, not enough, chocolate, onions …what ever combination. That is what makes it difficult to pin down triggers. There seem to be much more available to help migraines and the rest! I hope you find good help and I pray for healing. Those were very tough years for me.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I will most definitely look up that book you mentioned. I sometimes find it incredibly difficult to figure out my migraine triggers but I’ve found tracking them, along with my food intake, weather, sleep, mood, and stress levels, I think I’ve managed to become a little more aware of my possible triggers. Thank you for the good wishes and prayers, glad to hear you no longer suffer from migraines!
I saw that you planned to start a Whole 30 this month. Did you keep track in any way besides the above information in your bullet journal? If so, how did you set up your pages? Thanks
Hi! I did keep track, I had a countdown of my 30 days, that I would simply cross off. I then created a two-page spread to track & plan my meals. I also used some of the space to track my feelings at the end of each day, as well as any non-scale victories. If you are interested, I will be doing a post on how my whole 30 went and how I tracked my progress. I’ll be posting my whole30 spreads in that post in February 🙂