Bullet Journal: March Pages

I didn't share my Bullet Journal last month so I thought I'd post a little overview of the pages I'm using this month. You might get some inspiration for your own BuJo.

I actually began the month by looking back at February. I started off looking down my February month planner and then my habit tracker, writing down a little review of the things that happened last month. As with January, I used a traffic light system to highlight the good, the not-so-good, and the bad. I like the fact that if I'm having a bad day I can scan over the review page and see immediately that February was a pretty good month; I'm fairly certain that March will look pretty similar.

When I'm writing something in red, I always try and follow it up with something in orange as a potential positive for the month ahead as well. I also do it the other way if there's something I've written in green but I have a less positive comment to make about it; like my food log.

March saw the start of the grid lined section of my notebook. I've been looking forward to getting to this bit because it makes lining things up much easier and neater than in the straightforward lined section. The grid lines are also much narrower than the lines so I can fit a whole month onto one page.

This month I used the original format for my month overview:

But I'm planning on changing it next month.

This format worked well for me during January and February when things were fairly quiet and I had maybe one or two things to keep track of for a day. This month the social calendar has picked up a bit and also my schedule at work has changed as well (technically it changed last month, but I've finally started plotting it out ahead in my BuJo to make planning appointments easier).

Next month I'm planning on doing something across two pages with columns separating it into different areas. I'm not totally settled on exactly what the columns will be but I suspect it'll be along the lines of work, AM, PM, and notes (or possibly goals for the month since I missed those out this month). I've seen others do this and I think that now I'm on the grid paper it might be slightly more practical.

Of course, I could be posting in a month's time to say it's a complete disaster but that's the beauty of the Bullet Journal. If in a month's time it's not working for me, I can change it. Hell, if it's not working in a week's time there's nothing stopping me from relocating it to the next available page and starting afresh. It's easily my favourite thing about my planner.

The change in paper format also allowed for a change in Tracker layout. A benefit of moving my month overview to a double page spread will be that I'll also have a double page spread for my tracker. I like my current format on the grid paper but I'm missing having my month's goals beside it as a reminder:

As you can see, I'm adopting a rainbow theme at the moment. I'm hoping that 2016 will be the Year of the Rainbow for is, so I decided to start as I meant to go on. I love the effect that this colour scheme has given the page, but some of my targets are a little bit vague. I have discovered that I need a reminder of my target (e.g. 'groom Tara every three days' would probably be a lot more effective for me than just 'groom Tara' is being). If I move this to a double page, I'll have space to list my goals as well as the tracker. I think I'll keep the rainbow though, it's so pretty.

I'm still using my Food Log:

This is another one I'm thinking I might change. Back when I was using lined pages a list like this seemed like the most practical option but on the grid I'm not so impressed with it. I'm thinking I might make a month overview page next month and then do it as a single page for each week. It'll mean some overlap between the beginning and end of the month but it'll give me a little more space and will probably look better too. I just haven't yet decided the form that the month overview should take (perhaps something like my habit tracker but with a traffic light system for how good I think I've been).

One thing I will keep is the colour coding system I use for when I've eaten; black is home (or homelike places, e.g. my in-laws', my Mum's), blue is work (where I eat most of my snacks so have forbidden my husband to put any chocolate in my lunchbox in an attempt to cut down), green is out and about (that can mean lunch in a cafe, dinner in a restaurant, of a meal at a non-family member's house), and I use red to highlight when there have been no snacks (with a smiley face) or a missed meal (with a sad face, skipping meals is bad). It works well for me and as much as anything is about making me more aware of what I'm eating.

This month I've still not bothered with weeklies. While my month overview schedule can look pretty hectic, my weekly overview is rarely alarming. I tend to have the same things on the same days (Mr Click is out on this day, I call my Mum, I finish work early, we're at my in-laws' house) so I don't feel the need to add them to a weekly overview.

I have worked to pretty up my dailies a little though. During January I had a subtle blue theme, February was pinks and reds, and for March I've gone with the rather generic 'Easter colours' theme. And that's where this notebook lets the side down slightly; the grid pages are blue and pastel colours don't show up so well. It'll all look much better when I move into April and everything goes green.

I'm still tracking my fluid intake, but I've been a bit lax in it since mid-February, I suspect this may wind up on my April tracker to help me get back into the habit. I like to write a little review of my day. In the past it's just been a line or two, but as the lines are more closely spaced so sometimes I'm writing a mini essay.

I'm also using it a little like a scrapbook. While I was in Wales I got into the habit of sticking in tickets from the places I had been, it's something I've continued to do now I'm home:

It's just a nice thing to look back on and remind me of what I've been up to (and it saves me collecting random bits of paper in my purse or phone case for purely sentimental reasons).

As I mentioned yesterday, I made a spread for when I went to the hospital. I think I'll do this again for future hospital appointments. I'm also trying to come up with a layout for keeping track of all my IVF stuff. I might end up doing it all on separate pages but making an FET index which helps to tie it all together.

The final page I'll share here is one which has been seeing a fair bit of use recently and is way back in the middle of January, but it's cool seeing how it's changing as we watch the episodes in the series; my House tracker: