It’s time to take a closer look at the anatomy of a monthly journal spread setup.
This includes cover pages, calendars, to-do lists, and so much more!
1. Cover Page
This is a great way to mark the start of a new month! Your cover page can be purely decorative, or a place to house the key dates for the month.
2. Calendar
This is where you will capture all of the events and appointments for the month ahead.
Calendar layouts fall into three main categories:
- Vertical layout – The original Bullet Journal method of monthly setup, with a column of dates for the month (Eg. 1-31) and space to add events and appointment alongside the corresponding date. This can be further split into columns such as am/pm or work/home. (Pictures 1 & 2 below).
- Calendar layout – This follows a more traditional calendar layout, often across two pages. It provides a more visual overview of your month and can be further modified to suit a theme by changing the shape of the daily box (such as to hexagon, circles, etc). (Pictures 3, 4 and 5 below).
- Circular layout – Shown in picture 6 below. This makes a great visual representation of the month and allows habits or mood to be tracked within the rings.
4. Dashboard
A monthly journal dashboard is a place to capture the important information for the month ahead. This may include:
- Key events
- Birthdays
- Priorities
- Projects
- Goals
- Tasks
- Shopping List
- People to Call
5. Trackers
There are many things you may choose to track in your Bullet Journal on a monthly basis, for example: Mood, step count, sleep, water intake, health, etc. Having trackers within your monthly setup gives you the opportunity to theme it as shown in the pictures below.
6. Master To Do List
This is the place where all of your tasks for the month are placed. It can also be referred to as a “Brain Dump”.
At the start of each month, all uncompleted tasks from previous weekly and monthly spreads should be migrated to your new monthly set-up, allowing you to effectively “shut down” the previous month.
We will have more details on this process in a future blog post.
7. Gratitude/Line a Day/Highlights
Including a gratitude or highlights spread in your Bullet Journal monthly set-up allows you to focus on the positive every day!
8. Misc Monthly Projects
Your Bullet Journal should be a reflection of what’s going on in your life at any particular time. Therefore, additional spreads can be added to record projects, goals, or hobbies that will need your focus throughout the month.
9. Music/Films/TV/Books
Another popular thing to record in your monthly bullet journal spreads is the media you have consumed throughout the month! That may include TV, film, music, and books!
Weekly or Daily?
With your main monthly spreads complete, it’s time to decide whether you will include weekly or daily spreads in your setup… Or maybe both?!
10. Weekly Spreads
There are many variations to the weekly setup that you can experiment with. Different spreads can be created depending on how you lay out your daily spaces, whether you include weekly habit trackers, space for meal planning, to-do lists, etc.
I like to mix up my weekly spreads to keep things interesting and provide an opportunity for different decoration and composition.
Here are a few examples you might like to try!
12. Daily Spreads and Rapid Logging
A daily spread is a space to really drill down into that days priorities and focus. It is a place where you can include time blocking, a meal plan or long form journaling.
The alternative to a daily or weekly spread is rapid logging, which involves using your journal signifiers (outlined in your key), to plan and log events and tasks of the day.
12. It’s Up To YOU!
This list is by no means exhaustive, remember there are NO RULES to journaling, if it works for you then include it (or don’t!) in your journal!
I’d love to know some of the more unusual journal spreads you include within your monthly Bullet Journal setup. Pop the details in the comments below!
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