Settin' Up January

Once you have started your bullet journal, it is time to start a new month. Depending on the overall theme of your bullet journal, you may want to pick a theme for the month. For my bullet journal, I don't necessarily have an overall theme, so each month can look a little different. In this case, we are starting January.

When I am picking a theme, I think of some characteristics of that month, whether that be a big holiday, the weather, or colors. For January I like the color yellow, as it reminds me of light in the new year. From there, I decided a lightbulb theme for 2021's January. The lightbulbs also make me think of new ideas. New Year, New Me as they say. This time we are adding New Ideas!

I also like to look to Pinterest for theme ideas.

I also really like to draw lightbulbs. I think they are a rather easy thing to doodle, so I can do it over and over without taking too much time. They also can all look a little different, which I love.

To start, I like to distinguish each month with a Cover Page. I like to have some continuity between the months with the general pages I like to include, but these cover pages are where my creativity comes out!

For this page I used one of my Crayola SuperTip Markers (which you can get online HERE and use code "madelynbickel" for 10% off) to write "January" across the middle. Yes, the A's are the only thing not capitalized.... I like the look of some lowercase letters more than their upper case partners, such as A's and E's. Yes, it is kinda odd, but yes, I will continue to do it anyway. Your bullet journal, your rules!!!

Then I drew the lightbulbs coming down from straight lines to look like wires, which I randomly placed. I added some star and dot details across the place to fill up the empty space. I love adding those details; I think it really completes the page! I used that same yellow SuperTip marker to color some things in.

These next few pages are some pages I like to include in most of my months, depending on how much time I have to prepare at the end of the month for the next. These next 3 pages are all rather similar, since they are all some sort of "tracker." Trackers are one of my favorite type of bullet journal pages, since they are super easy to mark up throughout the month and fun to look back at.

This first tracker is usually the most popular on my TikTok page: the Mood Tracker. Each month I have this page. There are 31 sections (one for each day) to color in based on my mood. For January, I chose to have 31 lightbulbs I would color in various shades of yellow-orange. Sometimes the Key includes moods like happy, sad, productive, etc, but for this month I went for the more simple version of Good, Medium, Bad show with faces.

For these pages, I used the Zebra Sarasa Speedy Gel Pen 0.5 mm (you can also use code "madelynbickel" here for 10% off). I really like this black gel pen, but it does bleed if you use markers on top of it, even when dry. That can be slightly frustrating, so I usually try to avoid using markers above the gel pens. I like to use the markers first, and pen on top. That typically isn't too difficult to do, but in some cases, like this mood tracker, I wanted the lightbulbs drawn before they were colored in.

For this next tracker, it is a Sleep Log. I like looking at this page at the end of the month to see how my sleeping schedule was.

I mean, more like how messed up it is....

This page is super easy to make. I write numbers 1-31 down the left side for each of the days of the month. Across the top I write numbers down for the time of day. I like to start with 7:00 pm because I would never go to bed earlier than that. I end it with 6:00 pm mostly because I like to finish out the page (it looks better), and I would not, at least I would hope, sleep past 6pm.

You can set this up whichever way makes the most sense for you, but I like to mark the hours on #1 for the night of January 1st into the morning of January 2nd. Yes, it is technically over 2 days, and can get a little confusing, but filling it out every day can make it a little easier.

This Habit Tracker is definitely a page that is super customizable. This month I wanted to track a bunch of things, so I picked 12 categories.

1. drinking enough water

2. sticking to a gluten free diet

3. eating healthy foods

4. workout

5. stretch

6. close the move ring on my apple watch

7. reading for fun

8. journaling

9. didn't spend money all day

10. went to bed early

11. washed my hair

12. saw a friend

On the days in which I do these things, I fill in the box corresponding with that day. The boxes are shaped like the month of January, from Sunday-Saturday. Looking back at this page helps me see how much of a month I completed something. The categories can be anything, good or bad habits, depending on what you want to track.

Overall, I like to finish these pages before the month starts, so I can start tracking everything on each day. Sometimes when I am busy, I come back to the pages to fill them out multiple days at a time. February is going to look different from January, and that is what makes a bullet journal so interesting! By changing up how I organize my pages, I can figure out what works best for me!