Bullet Journal – Nightwolf's Den

Planner Setup for 2023

Another year in my Planners Anon Melodies. Hopefully I might add a third to the line-up this year and have a dedicated Christmas planner (hello Christmas at Home). Maybe even splurge and buy myself a Melody for Spring or Autumn – possibly Sakura for Spring and All for Fall for Autumn. It depends on what Sami brings out this year.

This year I’m shaking things up a bit. I’m using both the strings and rings in the Melody. On the front string I’ve got a B6 TN Undated Monthly Glance from Lights Planner Action for all my monthlies, monthly goals, important dates
On the rings I have 4 dividers set up. The first is Yearly which contains my Master Birthday & Anniversary list and my 23 goals for 2023. I’ll be adding moon phases, yearly oracle reading, yearly numerology & corresponding Tarot in here too.
Next is my weeklies. I printed a bunch of dot grid paper which I downloaded. There is a blank page and the front and back of each month so I can decorate the front and do a monthly roundup on the back.
Third divider houses my trackers – mood, sleep and period. I have a master habit tracker on my Google Drive that I purchased from Thyme is Honey. I’m thinking I’ll add a paper habit tracker to this section and just transfer the data at the end of each month.
The forth, and last divider, is my Misc section. Movies to watch & have watched. Books to read and have read. TV shows and Podcasts
On the back string I have a planner pocket from Planners Anon I’m using to store the stickers I use every week (like my rubbish bin stickers from Luscious Labels)

Here’s a quick flick through (& sneak peak of some of my January pages)

You can see my previous setups in these posts – 2022 | 2021

Catching up – the rest of 2022 in my planner

September sees me move into my Spring/Summer planner which is a Planners Anonymous B6 melody from the Note to Self range.
I changed up my planner inserts a bit for the remainder of the year – a mix of boxed, bullet journal and even had a go at designing my own.

September was the boxed Masquerade insert from Planners Anonymous, October was the insert I designed using the Planners Anon For the Boos digital creative kit, November was Planners Anon Dream Chaser luxe bujo insert and December was another bujo insert from Planners Anon (I can’t remember which one). I have to admit I am really loving playing with bullet journal spreads again.

Catching up – My Winter planner 2022

July and August were still in my Planner Anonymous Northern Lights melody cover. Inserts are from Planners Anonymous as well with
July being a bujo insert (I can’t remember which one) and August was Dream Chaser.

September sees me move back into my Spring/Summer planner – the Planners Anonymous Note to Self melody.

Planning in 2020

After 3 years in a bound book type bullet journal I’ve decided to change things up a bit for 2020. I’m going Traveller’s Notebook!

To be honest I was bitten by the bug last year but didn’t want to dive in fully so I did a frankenplanner for the last few months of 2019. My bound book bullet journal in an A5 ring binder converted to a stringed Traveller’s Notebook. I blogged about my DIY in 2017, tried it out a bit, wasn’t sold. Tried it again in 2018 for a bit and still not sold. Finally subbed to Planners Anonymous and then I tried their B6 sized inserts (without a TN cover) and loved the more portable size. So I made myself a laminated TN cover and ran 2 planners for the remainder of 2019.

Towards the end of the year, Sami released the gorgeous Planner Babe B6 TN and I decided I really wanted to buy it. I’m not a pink girl but Planner Babe is one of my favourite kits so far. (I’m excited that there might be a Northern Lights TN coming soon, after all a girl needs to swap out her TNs with the seasons right? Right!)

So that’s what we’re in for 2020. My inserts so far are:

2020 Single Page Monthly + Tracker Printable Insert from Annie Plans Printables
Luxe subscriber undated insert from Planners Anonymous. This is my weekly insert. It changes each month depending what the PA kit is. January is Northern Lights. February is most likely going to be Books & Botanicals.
Planners Anonymous Dot Grid Insert for collections. Currently using the Northern Lights one. May add the Books & Botanicals one as a way of tracking the books I read this year.
Custom made B6 blank page insert. I’m using this to create my 2020 vision boards. A Vision journal if you will
The vegan leather envelope that came with the Planner Babe kit. Currently empty. Not sure if I will keep it there or add another insert.

Bullet Journaling–2 years in

Wait. What? Two years? I never stick with a planner system for that long. Today marks exactly 2 years & 3 days of using the Bullet Journal system. So what have I learned in that 2 years and what information would I pass on to someone who’s thinking about getting started with the system?

1. Visit bulletjournal.com and read everything on the site but make sure you start with the Learn section so you learn and understand the basics. Read Ryder’s book (released on Oct 23, 2018). Immerse yourself in the origins of the bullet journal before branching out.

2. You don’t need to buy all the supplies. I started with a book (I splurged and bought a Bullet Journal Leuchtturm1917 but you could start in any notebook you have), a black pen and raided my scrapbook stash

3. DO NOT go on Instagram/Pinterest looking at bullet journal spreads. Well actually do, because they are an awesome source of inspiration. But don’t compare yourself to those people. It’s your book, it doesn’t have to look like theirs!
This leads me to my next point…

4. Don’t give up. Mistakes happen. Cover it up, rub it out. Try again. Keep going.

(Thanks Bob! *thumbs up*)

5. You can always create in pencil first.

What I’ve learned.

I like to change up my monthly and weekly spreads every now and then. I do find myself coming back to Ryder’s monthly log calendar though.

I love doing cover pages each month. Even if I don’t do one every month.

I do prefer to keep things minimalist. Just a few stickers here or there, maybe some washi tape or a doodle or two.

I work better if I keep my collections in a separate journal, especially if it’s something I’d add to over multiple journals. Some of the collections I have in my Long Term Collections book are:

Podcasts
TV Series
Books I’ve read
Movies I’ve watched
Twitch Streams I watch
101 in 1001 days
Bill payments
Solar panel info
When did I last

My setup for the remainder of 2018/2019
I’ll be switching to my purple Leuchtturm1917 in January which feels strange as both my previous books have started in October/November

I’ll be creating an TN style setup in my old Inner-B planner (which I bloggers about here), it will houses my Leuchtturm1917, my Collections insert, my blog insert, and my Christmas insert (which I’ll share about in another post).

So that’s my first 2 years in a nutshell. I’ll be back with more of my bullet journal adventures in the future

The continuing adventures in my bullet journal

As we continue on in the adventure that is my bullet journal I’m sharing my December pages, my Christmas pages, my end of year pages and my cover page for January

Starting in December…

Changed my weekly layout slightly and added a bunch of stickers each week. I’m really liking this new layout and will continue it for a bit until I get sick of it. Big upside is it makes laying out the next week really easy on a Sunday evening.

I added some Christmas pages again. Plans for our elf Glitter, Christmas pressies and stocking stuffer ideas

At the end of each year I like to do a recap of the year – big news stories, fads, hashtags, celebrity deaths and then a page closing out the year and welcoming the new year.

I haven’t done my cover page for 2018. Not really sure what I want to do as yet. This year I decided to incorporate a few of my favourite bits from Leonie Dawson’s Shining Year books – a list of 100 things (which I blogged here) and a yearly oracle card reading. I use the free online Earth Magic oracle cards by Steven D. Farmer but I am thinking I might buy the set of cards this year.

And finally my January cover

Loving the little calendar month markers that I found on Pinterest. If you would like to get yourself a set head here.

Goodbye to the old and Hello to the new

For the first time in nearly forever I have actually filled a planner! No stopping halfway through a year because I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. 12 months in and I admit I still love my bullet journal and the system just works for me.

I really would have liked to start my new journal in January but space didn’t allow and that’s the beauty of a bullet journal – start when you are. So without further ado, here’s to my new journal and how I migrated.

I started off doing some searching into migrating to a new journal and ended up mainly using the tips from BohoBerry and Page Flutter. I created a spread of what I wanted to move, spreads to create and spreads to move to my ‘Long Term Collection’ TN insert.

Then I just cracked open the new book and got started!

Trying out a new format for my Future Log. Stuffed it up by not doing it pencil first and what I planned didn’t fit in the space I had. Stickers to the rescue!!

Next spread is Birthdays and Holidays I need to remember in the next 12 months

I’m going to try the Year in Pixels spread and see how it goes instead of tracking my moods weekly. I’ve also set up a tracker for my period, cause you know, it’s good to track these things. Oh and I can track the relationship between my headaches and my cycle.

I was going to do a step tracker but I am yet to find an idea I like to track my daily steps for 12 months. At this stage I will keep tracking them on my weekly spread. Another go at the 26 Pay savings challenge. We didn’t get very far this year due to a few large purchases. I’ve left the next 2 pages blank as I’m planning on adding a 2 page moon phase spread similar to the one I saw on this post on Boho Berry.

Then we’ve got my shipment tracker cause I love to keep track of all my purchases online. After all that we’re into my November pages. I’ve kept my monthly the same as previous but plan on trying a few new weekly spreads over the coming months. November’s weekly spreads are based on this one. I’ll be tracking the daily weather, my daily housework tasks, what we ate for tea as well as leaving a little space for random notes. Upside so far is that I’ve done the layout for the whole of November.

Make your own Travellers Notebook

I’m a bit in love with my Traveller’s Notebook I bought off AliExpress BUT I can’t fit my LT into it – which was the main reason I wanted to buy a TN. So what’s a girl to do? Why go look on YouTube for inspiration and see a video about converting a ring binder to a TN!

Looked like a project for me. I had a pink planner and a lilac Kikki K gathering dust so thought I’d try it out on the pink one first. So after some searching on YouTube I found a video that showed how to remove the rings without drilling. You can check it out here. And then some more searching on how to thread the elastic (this video). Now I am the proud owner of a TN that fits my LT.

At this stage I have my new Emerald LT, my long term collections TN insert and my new garden TN insert (which I am currently making).

Later I’ll be sharing how I migrated from my first bullet journal over to my new LT and my new spreads for the month.

July & August bujo bits

Just sharing my July cover and some of the bits I’m trying out this month

Got some new feather washi so I decided to go with a feathery theme for my cover

At the end of the month I added my little tribute to Chester Bennington. Little digi doodle by me and the lyrics to One More Light.

August I’m trying a few new things but first my cover…

tying it in with my tribute page with the candles and August is also Miss A’s 3rd birthday. Instead of doing a full page tracker I’m trying boxes and I’m also adding a weekly mood tracker sticker to track my moods. Wil see how it goes and if I continue this way next month.

Talking bout planners….

I’ve been using my Bullet Journal now since mid October last year and I’m definitely sold! I love how flexible it is and how I can just add what I like, I’m not stuck with a set layout each week. It can be as fancy r as plain as I want it to be. But recently I started thinking…. I’m nearly at the end of my first journal and I don’t really love the idea of having to migrate half finished collections to my new book. So what’s a girl to do?

Then Kara at Boho Berry posted a video on how she’s transferring her bullet journal to a traveller’s notebook set up (you can read about it and watch the video here). This really sold me on the idea and I thought this could be the solution to my planner problems. I can keep using my Leuchtturm, add an insert for my collections and have an insert for my scrapbook planner which is lying abandoned somewhere in my room because realistically I can’t use more than one planner.

Now to find me a cover and some inserts, maybe have a go at making my own.
ETA: before I decided to hit post I had a go at making my own insert using this tutorial and using this YouTube video for the binding

Will your still here I might as well share some spreads I’ve created since December.