ONE YEAR WITH A MOLESKINE BULLET JOURNAL || MY IMPRESSIONS AND HOW MY NEXT BULLET JOURNAL WILL BE DI

ONE YEAR WITH A MOLESKINE BULLET JOURNAL || MY IMPRESSIONS AND HOW MY NEXT BULLET JOURNAL WILL BE DIFFERENT

Hey guys! It’s been a while- I’ve been swamped in exams and various things after, but I’m back now! Also, a little disclaimer: sorry about the lighting and the background in the pictures here- I’m currently working at my summer job helping to edit the translation of a book, and I don’t have access to my usual lighting and background conditions, but without further ado, let’s get into it!

I’m going to go through a bit of what I thought about the bullet journal I used this year, and then talk a little about what I’m going to change for this coming year based on the experience that I had this year.

Bullet Journal: July 2018 to June 2019

(Side note- I run my bullet journal in these months as it covers a summer and an academic year, which gives me time to set a journal up over summer and record my experiences without having to switch journal right in the middle of an academic year)

So, the notebook that I was using this year in order to make my bullet journal was a blue, lined A5 softcover Moleskine notebook that someone gave to me as a present for the express purpose of making a bullet journal. I wasn’t super hot on the idea of using this notebook for this purpose initially, because I was more keen on the idea of buying a Leuchtturm dotted 1917 for this purpose, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. Besides, I quite liked the feel of the softcover notebook and this way I didn’t have to buy any more supplies to get myself started.

The notebook itself was nice, and the quality of paper was alright: there was a bit of ghosting as you can see in the picture above (the ink from other pages can be seen but it has not bled through). My main issue with this notebook, however, was the fact that over the course of the year, the actual structural integrity was damaged, and the cover came detached from the spine and the bookmark ribbon soon followed, as you can see above. This was mostly due to the fact that the book was softcover and therefore possibly more likely to get damaged, but on the whole the rest of the notebook stayed together quite well.

One thing I did really like about how I did the bullet journal this year, partially prompted by the fact that there were lines rather than dots in the notebook, was the space I left for reflecting and doing actual journally things in the notebook. I experimented a bit with art journal things as well on a couple of pages (but those pages have too many personal details and photos on to be worth sharing), and I really like the way that I could record my experience of my first year at uni in a space that also served a functional purpose for managing my expenses and my daily tasks and events. If you take a look at previous bullet journal posts I’ve made, you can see my weekly spreads, which are a very traditional calendar layout, and that system worked for me as I needed an easy setup that I could lay out quickly.

I messed around a lot with the front section of my months: here’s what my spread looked like in July (with my spending more or less blurred out). I like the inspirational quotes, although towards the end of this year I found it hard to keep coming up with new quotes. I quickly lost my “things to be excited about” and “things I am not looking forward to but will conquer nonetheless” boxes because although they were a nice thought, the content was sort of covered in the reflection at the start of each month, and they were taking up room where I needed to record my spending. I also stopped using the habit trackers that I laid out (which took me ages but oh well) because I found that they weren’t particularly useful for me personally. Going forward, I’m keeping the spending section, and I’m replacing the whole right hand page of this spread with a “line-a-day” section, which I introduced in November of 2018 and I found it to be a really good way of keeping track of the important things that I’ve been doing and experiences I’ve been having without taking up masses of my time.

With regards to the notebook, I left a lot of pages blank at the back, which was a shame, especially because I could have spent at least some time writing longer actual journal entries about particularly important events and travels and things, but there realistically weren’t that many pages that were left blank, so it might have been a bit odd. The book was also a bit too narrow for my liking, but that’s sort of by the by. As you can see in the bottom of the pages in the above pictures, I put page numbers in as I thought I should do that when I was first setting this up, but in reality this really did nothing and I’m not going to bother adding page numbers to bullet journals where the notebooks don’t already provide them).

In summary:

The notebook was ok, but I didn’t like how narrow it was, and the fact that it was softcover meant that it was more susceptible to damage and did get damaged
Having lines wasn’t hugely problematic, although for the art pages I’d rather have a dot grid. It did let me do some more proper journalling, which I realise I want to do more of in the coming year.
The habit trackers were really just a waste of time for me in the end
There are spreads that will stay, like the year at a glance spreads as well as the layout of the weekly spreads as being similar to those of a traditional planner

Bullet Journal- July 2019 to June 2020

I’ve opted this time around for a Leuchtturm 1917 hard cover journal with dotted pages, which is the typical bullet journal notebook, and I can see why. Hopefully the hard cover means it won’t get as beaten up, and the pages are just that bit wider, which allows me to make spreads that look more like planner pages rather than just decorated pages in a notebook. The dot grid has also meant that I’m more comfortable with going a bit further with the art side of things (partly aesthetic, partly stress relief) so get excited for some really funky spreads. I’ve kept the expenses and line-a-day format for the beginning of each month, as well as the full-page monthly reflection that I started in the Moleskine. Because the Leuchtturm has far more pages, I won’t have to compromise on space like I did in the moleskine (outside of term time I had one week to a page instead of across two for space reasons), and there will still be plenty more empty pages left over, which hopefully means I can fit in some proper journal entries. To make a long story short, this upcoming journal is equally as functional for me, but will also be more effective at recording memories as I go into my second year of university.

I’ll have some posts with my latest spreads ready for the start of July, but until I post those on the first, I hope this post was vaguely useful, and as always, you can support what I do below: