2021 bullet journal set up

My first blog post of a new year is typically all about my goals but this year I thought I’d combine it with my 2021/January bullet journal set up. I started 2020 journaling every day and, like a lot of people, became very sporadic with my updates as the year went on. I think I actually would have benefitted from maintaining my habit trackers and partaking in a bit of self-reflection, and so I’m determined to keep it up this year.

This year I’m using a Rhodia Goalbook, which I adore. It’s my favourite paper to write on if I’m not incorporating watercolours (then I’m all about Archer & Olive), and I’ve used a mixture of fineliners and brush pens to set up my initial spreads.

I started out wanting to do a midnight blue stars theme (I used the blue Pentel Dual Metallic for the stars) but then fell in love with this mustard/navy/pink colour palette and weaved that through my new year and January spreads (using my Staedtler brush pens – although I used the Pentel Touch Brush Pens for the title page). I’ve set a few goals/intentions/hopes but some are a bit personal to share here. They’re mainly things I want to do more of, such as work on personal creative projects, get outside, read, etc.

I signed up to a kikki.k workshop last week and it was so helpful to think about what I really want to get out of this year. The big thing for me is my word for 2021: Calm. I’ve realised that my favourite time of the year is those few days between Christmas and new year, and I’m trying to add as much of that chill and creativity to the rest of my year as possible.

Sidebar: Scared of journaling in case you make a mistake? Note my spelling of ‘true’ on my calm page, the crease on my mood tracker from rubbing out pencil lines, and the extra tassels on the snowmen’s scarves which I had to add when I made the scarves too long. Embrace the imperfections.

I had a think about the spreads and trackers I’ve been using over the last few years and what’s important (for me) to carry through to the new year. I’ve often set up spreads which I don’t maintain, such as how much water I drink and what books I read. I adore Goodreads and there’s no point replicating everything here, so what I’ve done is add sort of sidebars to my monthly spreads for what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and creating. It allows me to easily see at a glance what I’ve done a lot of and what I might want to focus on next month.

The mood tracker is an important one for me as I like to take some time at the end of the month to reflect on what may have triggered my good and bad days.

I can quite often correlate my good mood with the amount of steps I’ve recorded, as more steps generally means a decent walk. My sleep is often reflected in bad moods but not in the way you might think. It’s easy to presume that little sleep means a bad mood the next day but usually, for me, a bad mood means more sleep the next night.

This year, for the first time, I’ve decided to do trackers for things like self-care, daily walks, and having time to create – things which tend to boost my mood. Hopefully a lot of these dates will be coloured in over the next few weeks.

I’ve also created something a bit different to the usual gratitude tracker and decided to keep a record of the little things which made me smile, or things I’m proud of, as well as a self-care checklist to remind myself of simple activities when I need a boost.

I never set up more than one month at a time because I never know what I might want to adapt. It also gives me the freedom to be inspired by something in the moment (how wanky does that sound?!) when it comes to setting up the next month’s spreads the night before. I refuse to use hearts for February!

What are your key spreads and trackers for 2021/January?