The Joy in Journaling

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A Worth It Investment

As could be expected from someone who really loves to plan ahead, before December 2021 could start, I already purchased a journal, a simple 80 dotted pages. It’s the same dotted notebook I bought last 2020 which I used for my 2021 Bullet Journal. Although I had a difficulty fitting in all what I need to write from January to December 2021, I thought it’s good enough and I’ll probably not gonna find a decent one in bookstores and school supply areas in Department Stores near me. And not really the type who'll buy online because I have to see and to feel the pages in person. I only bought the One I used for 2021 because a workmate is using the same and I got to see it in person before buying it.

But roughly a week before the super typhoon hit us, I was able to spend a day shopping in SM, bought gifts for the kids, for the party in the office and for myself. Without looking for another one, this journal caught my eyes. I stopped by and took a closer look at it, hoping my cheapskate self will push me not to drop the item inside my shopping cart. But when I saw how spacious the entire journal is and all the possibilities I could do with all the pages, I finally gave in.

It’s beyond any decent dotted journal I’ve seen in years, and it is also hard bounded. When I looked at the price Php 499.00 (roughly $10), there might be a huge difference from the $2 dotted journal I initially bought online. This was an easy decision to make tho, why? My bullet journal is an integral part of ensuring I work out all my goals for the year. A dotted journal is a non-negotiable investment for me. And this year, I invested in pages for the months and days and the goals, tasks, memories I’ll fill those months with.

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New Year, New Journal

Today, I'll be proudly sharing to you my new Bullet Journal and what I have done with it so far.

I've been trying to unleash all the creative genius inside me these past few days. I've been on vacation leave since the 28th and with no electricity and barely any signal in my area (due to the recent Super Typhoon that hit us), setting up my 2022 Bullet Journal had filled my days with peace and delight.

It was encapsulated inside a box with a small incision right in the middle to show a portion of the journal's cover with the design written in Baybayin. If I am not mistaken, when translated in Tagalog, it says "Tugatog" which means peak or summit.

I'm super excited to share this! Let's start!😎

Look at how thick my new journal is. I literally got twice the pages I used to have for a month since this is a 200-paged notebook. Now my only worry is to find the same notebook for my 2023 BuJo! 😔

It came with cute stickers. Some of which I already started using last week.

When I bought the journal which was supposed to be used this year, I also bought some metallic washi tapes. Aren't they lovely? I'm also planning to buy more washi tapes in different colors and design. I'm already having a feeling that this year's BuJo will look more like a scrapbook than a journal. Haha!

Aside from the washi tapes, I recently visited the nearest mall and found some cloth stickers and journaling stickers as well. The wannabe artist in me bought a couple to kickstart my year's attempt in honing my creative side.

You can tell how excited I am to use these stickers to the point I forgot to take a photo before using them haha 😂

Now let me give you a tour of what's inside.

Right after flipping into the first few pages this will welcome you. It's basically a list of holidays in the Philippines. This is what I look out for when a new year starts. It helps me plot when I should travel. I usually solo backpack on long weekends.

Then this page. I have a separate notebook for all my annual goals that's why I left this page blank until now. I listed all the places I want to visit in my goal notebook.

There are also few informative and interactive pages such as these:

And oh before I forgot, there's this cute magnetic bookmark. I find this very helpful especially now that I'll be going through a lot of pages per month. This will surely help! 😁

Aside from the spacious 15 spreads (that's two pages per spread), what I love about this journal is this entire green page:

This page separates a month right after the other's last page. Before, I had to manually create a marker to note the start and end of each month. Now, it's effortless.

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Let the creativity flow

So far, this is what I've done in my journal. I have to be honest, I'm not that creative and I have no innate talent in calligraphy, doodling and drawing in general. Just to set your expectations! 😂

First and foremost, I've set up my year in a glance pages. Those who are very keen to using Bullet Journal terminologies would call this portion Future Log. I called it year in a glance since I can see events, birthdays, holidays and other important activities I have to note for the entire year.

I have mini monthly calendars on top and below it I write things I have to remember.

As mentioned a while back, I also write all my goals for the year in a separate notebook. I keep a goal notebook containing all my goals since college. I thank Ate @danaperez for this tip she gave me a few years back. Well I got it from one of her blogs. I was inspired to do my annual goal planning since then and from there I have migrated my annual goals to my monthly goals. This way I can slowly reach my annual goals by ensuring that I do it as consistently as possible every month or as specified.

_{Below this January Goal heading is where I write all my goals for the month.}

I believe I have shared in details what the following portions are for. So I will just run through on the designs this time.

I also created a month in a spread which looks like this:

And a week in a spread where I do most of the nitty gritty day-to-day planning.

Next is I also allot a page for my daily gratefulness log and one of my favorites in Bullet Journals, brain dump:

It is also essential to note how I feel physically and emotionally everyday so I allotted an entire spread for it:

Another thing is this portion called Habit Tracker.

And lastly because I get to have more space this time, I added my Hive Editorial Calendar. And I couldn't be more thrilled to use this portion of my journal:

I used to work in our Digital Marketing team when it was still starting out. That's when I was introduced to Editorial Calendars. There are plenty of ways how to set up an Editorial Calendar. In my case, I just plotted all the days in a month and I jot down few post specifics such as community, post title, post category (my internal category such as Wellness Wednesdays, Financial Fridays etc.), random ideas about the post, post division, post number. I do this to make sure that I don't run out of things to share and to make sure that on days I'm not motivated to work, there's still something that'll draw me to my laptop; I hate not following through plans so this works best for me. I am not always motivated that's why I have to find ways to deliver whatever the weather is.

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Thanks for reading this. See you in my next post! ❤️

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