Creative Bullet Journal Spreads and Ideas That Will Change your Life

Creative Bullet Journal Spreads and Ideas That Will Change your Life

• Saturday

The bullet journal method has been a popular form of planning, reflecting and organising your goals for the past years. For those of you who haven’t heard of this term before, bullet journals are basically a tailored planner and diary that you create from scratch on a simple dotted notebook. They include ‘spreads’ or really one or two-page concepts to help you track your daily habits, plan your week, your month, etc. Whilst these agenda-type bullet journal spreads are the main thing people use their BUJO for, there are other super creative and mind-blowing spreads you can incorporate in your BUJO planner.   

In this article I’ll mention a few of the crazy and cool spreads that I’ve been including in my bullet journal since I discovered it in 2018. These bullet journal spreads have helped me be more organized, meet my short-term and long-term goals and helped me keep a record of all the cool things I’ve accomplished and done in a year. Take into account that you do not have to wait until the new year to start your journal. They are 100% customizable which means you can start it whenever you feel like it!
If you’ve already started yours, keep reading to discover new bullet journal ideas to add to your planner that will change your life.

1. Bullet journal habit tracker

Even if this spread is one of the traditional BUJO monthly spreads that pretty much everyone includes in their planner, it is a great way to hold you accountable and one I could simply not forget to mention. So despite there being plenty of useful designs to help you put together your habit tracker, my one includes a mood tracker as well as my must-do daily tasks that I have to tick off (or rather colour in) at the end of the day.
It is hard to get carried away when you’ve just started out by jotting down a list of 10 daily habits you want to tick off each day. When I started my first bullet journal, I had habits such as ‘reading 30 minutes a day’, ‘working out daily’ or ‘study 1 hour a day’ that I simply didn’t have time to do every single day taking into consideration I was at university and working part-time. So now I’m more realistic and I’ve cut down to two daily tasks that I know I can accomplish when working a 9 to 5 job.

2. Savings tracker

This BUJO yearly spread keeps me on track with my savings. The concept comes down to this abstract jar that I have to ‘put money into’ every month in order to fill it up when the year ends. You can use this bullet journal tracker for a specific item or trip you want to pay for or simply as a yearly saving goal like I do. This is definitely one of the bullet journal spreads that I am most excited to see accomplished by the end of the year! 
If you’re looking for useful things to put in your bullet journal, you can’t forget your savings tracker. The way I plan and design mine is: I decide on a realistic amount of money I will for sure be able to set a side every single month for 12 months. I take into consideration my income and expenses and I then colour the jar in every time I put money in it. The key to this is to plan as realistically as possible and save the same amount of money every month to keep a balance and be able to track your goal accurately. So instead of having the mindset of ‘let’s see how much money I can save in a year’ you are working towards saving X amount of money and making sure you reach that goal.

3. Challenges for short-term goals

This is one of the bullet journal spreads that I include in my BUJO here and there. I only create these challenges if I want to get back on track with my exercise routine or if there’s a habit like drinking 1.5L of water each day that I can’t bring myself to do. Again, it’s all about the satisfaction of ticking off every day until you complete that challenge. Some of these challenges that I’ve set for myself are ‘reading 20 minutes every day for a week’ or ‘doing a 1-minute plank a day to get back to exercising ’.
It does take some time and a good mindset to develop a new habit, and I’ve found that trying something out for a week helps me realise I do have the time to do that task during my day. And doing it for 7 days straight makes me more prone to continue doing a task after a week and make it a habit.

4. Travel and other memories spread

Besides using my BUJO as my planner, I use it also as a diary for any trips I take or any cool activities I do throughout the year. I don’t think having a separate diary or travel notebook would work for me as I really only stick pictures and Polaroids when I feel like it on special days or holidays. In a way I still think daily to-do tasks are sort of memories because it’s fun to look back on your bullet journal spreads and see what you were doing that day a year ago. And having everything condensed in one single notebook is just brilliant, time-saving and saves you space!