I started bullet journaling in the fall of 2016. I've tried to make journaling a habit for at least two decades at this point. I've also struggled a lot with finding a functional, flexible, and aesthetically pleasing way to manage my time and keep track of my goals. I literally have a box full of partially completed random scribbles of schedules, dear diary-type entries in which I pour out my heart or contemplate the absurdity of human behavior and social order systems, and random poetic verses commenting on those contemplations. I feel lucky and super thankful when there's a date or obviously dating content so I can transport back in time for a moment. Of course sometimes I'll come across mortifying moments, but after that initial feeling of reliving that anguish, I like to remind myself of how that moment contributed to developing who I am today, and who I continue to strive to be.

Clearly, my life and my records of it are all over the place and I've been on a hunt for a better way for as long as I can remember.

ENTER. Bullet Journaling and BohoBerry on YouTube. I'm pretty sure I started seeing bullet journal spreads on Pinterest, but it could've been recommended videos on YouTube from the planner ladies that I follow. I was super curious when it started popping up in my feeds and fell in love with the basic elements of the bullet journal system and the flexibility to change formats and express my creativity as much or as little as I desire...or have time to create

A note about weekly spreads

I actually didn't use weekly spreads when I first started bullet journaling. I had a month at a glance view, some monthly trackers, and my rapid log daily spreads. OK, they weren't strictly rapid log, I was inspired early on by BohoBerry's time bar and easy faux-calligraphy, but they were basically just my daily task and appointment lists. If you're interested in a post about my daily tracking journey, let me know in the comments.

My Weekly Spreads

Once I started using a weekly spread in my regular planning I realized that I really wanted to fit a lot onto it. This is pretty characteristic sunshine behavior, if I'm gonna do it, I'll over do it. That's how you know you're alive (comment below if you know that reference).

So in this weekly spread I included:

color code
mini-month at a glance
week at a glance view with wake/sleep time, workout, a space to note activity on a blog I had not yet created, and a space to note activity on my Instagram
time bar with my time management goal represented in the aforementioned color code
task box
project box
next week box
dinners of the week box
habit tracker

I mean, maybe someone else can manage a planner layout like this, but I am not that woman. It was just too busy. I like tracking habits and planning out my days based on my task list but this layout was just too busy for me.

Balancing Week-Day Planning

These two spreads are from April 2017, and you can see how much I love the flexibility in format in this journaling method. The elements that I listed above are more or less consistent with a few variations. Here, I'm still trying to figure out my needs and usage of the weekly tracking, week at a glance planning, and daily pages.

I love my little mini-month. I like the time bar, although at this point whether or not I colored it was sporadic. I use it more as a guide than a goal.

In the daily breakdown, I added notes for tracking gratitude, reading, and music listening. I extended my tracking list A LOT. Apparently I'm still learning my lesson about overwhelming myself. In addition to the tasks, projects, and notes boxes, I added a box to make specific goals for creativity. This was one of my best innovations to my weekly spreads. Overall, I really liked having my goals, boxes, and lists on a separate page from my week at a glance.

This picture reminds me why I should shoot pictures outside more. This week I decided I didn't have to use up more room on my weekly spread if I was just filling space to fill space with unnecessary or just too much planning/tracking for me to actually utilize. So I condensed my week at a glance into a little horizontal list, called it my Day 2 Day section, and wrote up my cleaning schedule, music practice and creative time goals. Then I just went straight into my daily planning.

Simplifying the Layout

From May through July, I really wanted to simplify my layout. I loved the elements in my spreads, but it still felt too busy. I also missed having a space to note my gratitude, without being bound to a daily note. It's something I like to think of daily, and one I like to see on a grander scale than in my daily pages, but not quite so physically distant from my daily pages as my monthly spreads. What you don't see in this first image is my tracker and my gratitude section. I basically divided the blank space on the left into two sections horizontally. The page on the left became home to my week at a glance and my tasks, projects, notes, and horizon boxes. These list boxes performed many a switch-a-roo over the course of May and June. The elements remained the same though.

By mid-July, I think I made a breakthrough. For the last few months I fell off the habit of using color in my BuJo. I also moved and took a cross-country road trip vacation to the west coast...so the regular planning changed a bit. In July I found my footing again and made some GREAT changes.

At this point, my time bar has moved from only on my daily pages, to the middle of my weekly spread, then to the top, and now to the left border of my weekly spread. In order to fit all 24-hours on the 38-space dot grid of my Leuchtturm 1917, I use only one space for sleeping hours, and two for awake/working hours. I, of course, have my mini-month and my dinner plan. I have my gratitude, notes & horizon, and tracker on the left side of the spread. In my gratitude section I either make a little doodle or write a person, idea, experience, or thing, then draw a little heart behind the text. I collapsed my notes and horizon sections together, as I don't usually fill either. I even managed to condense my tracker list significantly.

The right side of my spread houses my week at a glance and my tasks broken into area of my life, rather than type of task. Be Sunshine is for all of my creative, administrative, and professional tasks. My home box is for cleaning tasks and house projects. The personal section is basically for everything else.

Where to from here...

As much as I'm loving my current spread now, I also know how much I loved all the others as I created them. Life is about change, and I like that my planning method is flexible to adapt to that change.

Share your planning successes and conundrums in the comments below