Twisting Letters : Bullet Journaling: Setting Up my new Journal

Planners and I: a love story
I have always loved being organized. It gives me a sense of security. So to be as organized as possible I have kept a shit load of calendars in my life. It all started when I was six, with a "homework-book"(a small book that you are required to keep in school). But not only did I kept track of my homework, I also wrote down what I wanted to do that day, when Pokémon came on TV that day or when my grandparents would be in town. From that on, year for year I looked forward to buying a new planner at the beginning of the year. The older I got, the more intricate the planing got, I started to decorate my weeks and develop a color code for my homework. Then I discovered the Filofax community on YouTube. I was blown away by all those people having the same hobby as me. For my 18th birthday I got my first Filofax. It was bright orange and I loved it.
I started to collect washi tape and to track/plan everything I did. Then I finished school. I transitioned my Filofax to University but soon I had to admit that it did not fit my needs anymore. It took to much time and was way to bulky to take with me. So I switched to a normal student planner from muji. I liked it, but it was not flexible enough for me. Then a friend introduced me to Bullet Journaling. And again I fell into a rabbit hole.

Bullet Journaling
If you aren't familiar with the concept of Bullet Journaling, I highly suggest to watch this video first. The following will make a lot more sense of you do.
If you don't want to watch it, thats to bad but I will explain what a Bullet Journal is here:
Basically a Bullet Journal is a highly flexible planner system, that combines calendar and To Do lists in one place. To keep everything organized you use a specific set of symbols (your key) to mark different events or tasks. If you do only that, Bullet Journaling is supposed to be the fastest way of tracking your time.
Those are de basics, but you can do more with it. Because it is so flexible (and humans are very creative) there has been a development within the Bullet Journaling community to create wonderfully designed, highly functional planners, tailored to the users specific needs.
The best part about this system is, that you only need a notebook and a pen.

My Bullet Journaling Journey
I set up my first Journal in late January 2017. I loved it, but it took me a few month and a bunch of different weekly spreads to find out what worked for me. I also discovered, that my Bullet Journal would not look look like the ones I saw online. In my case, I like it to me cute and I like to spend time working on it but the functionality comes always first for me. So over the last two month I found a fast and easy way to achieve both, beauty and function. (I will explain this in a later post). My first Bullet Journal was a wonderful mess that, looking back now, shows a process of growth in my abilities. Here are some of my favorite spreads from that Journal.

My Reading List

Memory Pages

A De-Stress-Mandala I was working on the past months

The Page where I kept track of my writing

August Coverpage and Month-at-a-glance

Setting up my second Bullet Journal
In September I will start a new chapter in my personal life. I took that (and Leuchtums launch of a yellow notebook) as an opportunity to start a new Journal. In my old one are still twenty pages left, but that would not be enough to put all of September in it. With the old Journal nearing its end, I stated to think about how to set up a new Journal. Heres how to do it:

Migration
Within the Bullet Journal jargon (this is one of the most pretentious things I ever wrote) Migration means the action of transferring tasks or events to different days or months. This is often accomplished by drawing an arrow through the task. Since that is not possible with a whole book and I did not want to search through my whole Journal once it came to setting up the new one, I started a spread where I collected everything I wanted in my new Journal. It looked a little something like this:

As you can see, this page is not very neat or pretty, that is because I needed to set it up fast and fulfill its function. Here I wrote down Appointments that take place after September first and I also brainstormed on what worked well in this Journal (that the stuff I also put in the new one) and what did not work so well. I also planed out a new finances spread since I was unsatisfied with my current set up.

Inspiration
After I knew what was working for me I went on to find some more Inspiration to see if there where any spreads that I could incorporate or try out.
If you are in need of Bullet Journal Inspiration there are a hundred sources to get inspired by. There is Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube. (all of those are links that will take you directly into Inspiration-City)
But I want to recommend some YouTube Channels I especially like:

It is worth noting, that most of these women create contend that expands over the topic of Bullet Journals but check out their Bullet Journal videos!

Here is also a link to a Playlist with my favorite videos for inspiration.

Materials
Now that we are inspired its time to get started. Wether this is your first, second or your hundred Bullet Journal there are a few materials required to start.
As mentioned above the basic things one need are:

a notebook
a pen

thats it. Some other utensils that might come in handy are:

a ruler
whiteout

Some nice but unnecessary items:

washi-tape
stickers
highlighters and or colored pens
pageflags
post-it-notes
glue
scissors

But what notebook you ask? Anyone will do in the beginning. It is not worth investing in a high quality notebook if you do not know wether you like it or not. Muji as some nice inexpensive Notebooks.

Most Bullet Journalers use a notebook by the brand Leuchtturm 1917 (also mostly with dotted paper).

Their notebooks look a litte something like this:

The black one is a special Notebook specifically for Bullet Journaling. I bought it once I knew I would keep doing this. In hindsight the few special features were not worth the extra money I payed. So this time around I decided to buy a normal, dotted notebook by Leuchtturm1917 in the color lemon.

Once you open the book you are greeted by a few thank you cards and a catalogue of Leuchturm's products.

Next come three pages for the table of content.

The dotted paper

In the back of every Leuchtturm there is a pocket. In it are a few stickers to label your book.

The Set-Up
Now on to my new set up. You will see it in its blank stage so you can still see spreads that will later hold private information.

I decided to fill up the book from both ends, my calendar will start from the front...

... and my collections and other miscellaneous stuff will start from the back.

Then my "future log" starts. I skipped my year-at-a-glance this time because
I did not use it.
I also enlarged my month at a glance to write more in it, because lack of space
bothered me most in my last set up.

These big monthly overviews stop with the end of 2017.

Instead I did some smaller ones for Jan. and Feb. 2018.
If I still have space in my journal by then I will make bigger monthlys further
back.
I also designed Septembers Cover page. I am trying out a goal setting this month.

Next up are my habit taker and my blog plan.
I have tracked my habits now for over six months and I am very happy with
the results. However: I am not happy with the setup. I have tried many but still
no right fit

This is my new finance-tracker. It is subdivided into the following categories:

monthly expenses
groceries
necessary expenses
social budged
other

This is a weekly spread. On the left side of each day I write my appointments
and on the right my to dos.

After the weeklies I have some recurring spreads. This one tracks my reading.
I want to start to take notes while reading , so I'm trying this spread out.

This is a project planner. Inspired by: Caitlin's Corner .
In September I am working on a big Uni-Project. So this is where I will plan it.

I am currently writing on a book. To track the progress I am making I write
down how many words I have written that day. I also take notes in this space.
You have seen a filled out spread above.

This is going to become a Memories Page.

Now we have reached the end of the September Set-Up. The following spreads are at the end of the journal and will be uses throughout the next four to six months.