[bullet journal] February review: what I started and stopped doing.

3.3.18

Leuchtturm bullet journal February cover page
I know February only had 28 days, but it honestly only felt like the month was two weeks long?
Leuchtturm bullet journal floral layout
I switched things up quite a bit in my February bullet journal spread, taking inspiration from here and there.  Some changes worked out and others didn't - I thought it might be helpful to document what worked out for me and I will continue doing in March, and what bullet journal experiments are better left in February. 

Let's start with what worked out:

Leuchtturm bullet journal February monthly layout project mind maps
Leuchtturm bullet journal February to do list doodles
Mind maps: This is, hands down, the best layout I've added to my bullet journal. I shamelessly stole this idea from the brilliant Evy so I'm not even going to try and take credit. I mostly use the mindmap to keep track of art projects, blog posts, and shop updates. I'm a very visual person, so seeing my project map grow and connect is a great way for me to keep track of things. It's also less structured than a to-do list, which is great when it's a constantly growing list. I wonder if I can incorporate this into my daily layout...

Embracing coloursMy bullet journal has always been very black and white - with the only colours being my colour-coded systems. But February was the month I started experimenting with watercolours, which carried over to my bullet journal spreads. I'm still on the fence about using watercolours in my bullet journal as the pages tend to warp. BUT I'm definitely loving the idea of incorporating more colours into my layout. It's a quick way to add some "quirk" and "personality" into layouts. 

Incorporating more doodles: I started a visual to-do list at the start of the month (I only got to check off 3 of the 6 things...). This is definitely something I want to carry over into March, and hopefully do more "daily doodles" throughout the month as well. 

There are also some things that just didn't work out: 

Habit Trackers: I'm terrible at this and honestly, I don't think it did much for me. I was quite diligent the first three days - tracking my water intake and exercise on time, at the end of the day. And then things started falling apart from day 4 - let's just say that it was more of a memory exercise than anything. Do you know how hard it is to recall how much water you had each day the past week? I didn't have much luck with this - maybe it's because I'm terrible at remembering to fill in the habit tracker - but it's something that I'm leaving behind for now. 


Leuchtturm January monthly overview vertical layout bullet journal
Leuchtturm bullet journal stars habit tracker

Vertical Calendar Layout: Okay, technically this is something that I did in January and ditched right after the month ended. But as beautiful as a vertical monthly layout is, I still prefer the traditional 7 days a week, horizontal monthly layout. Again, I'm a visual person, so being able to see events and dates marked out in a calendar gives me an idea of when it's happening - on which day and which week - at a glance. Whereas it felt like I was reading a list with the vertical monthly layout. 

Something I want to try out in my March spread: 

Space things out: Right now, all of my weekly spreads are across two pages, which works out most of the time. But I want to try the dutch door system and space my weekly spread across four pages - essentially giving me more space to separate my spread into more categories (e.g. work, personal, coffee + scribbles co, misc.) and have more space to doodle. 


I always thought I already found "my bullet journalling system", I didn't realise I was still experimenting with my layouts until I decided to write this post. Turns out, I'm not as predictable as I thought I was. Do you experiment with your bullet journal layouts? If so, what worked or didn't work for you? 

With Love, 
Daphne x

0 comments