Pen to Paper: Mid-Year Bullet Journal Update

I have been really inconsistent with these posts but I thought since we are halfway through the year I would give you and update on my bullet journal, especially the book pages. I am definitely finding out which tracker pages I am using and which ones I am not using.  So here is a little peek at my bullet journal for tracking my reading as well as a little glance at how I have been setting up my month/weekly spreads lately. If you want to look back at how I set it up originally you can look HERE and then I have an update from April HERE

So first let's take a look at my monthly set up:

I try to start with something fun at the start of each month, I am not super artistic without stamps and stickers so lately I have been using some die cuts from my mountains of craft supplies. I wanted July to have a beach theme.

I then set up my month at a glance, I haven't been real great about filling this in with my appointments or events but it is still nice to have that full month on 2 pages to use for reference.

Then I have a page dedicated to my reading and blog, here I list my blog posts and plan ahead, as well as list any challenges/ readathons happening or any hashtags I want to use for Instagram

Then on to my weekly spread, I have changed things up a bit and I really am enjoying this set up. I have been trying to focus on only giving myself 3 tasks a day that I have to get done, otherwise I really tend to overbook myself and get myself stressed out.  On the left side I add appointments or events and on the right I list my daily tasks. On the opposite page I also list any other tasks I need to get done during the week if time allows, and track my reading. I also have started using a weekly habit tracker because I wasn't flipping back each day to fill it out on a full month spread.  I am currently only tracking No Spend, Dishes, Daily Wipe Down, and Exercising (I am only doing halfway decent on the daily wipe down and dishes).

So now how about we go to my reading trackers, one of the main reasons for my bullet journal . . .

I have only one page bookmarked but it is the start of all of my reading trackers and that is my ratings and page counts. I have really been enjoying this spread, each month has a different color and I simply use hash marks to tally the book ratings and page counts. I have definitely noticed that I have a sweet spot for length of audio books and also that I don't give out 1 star ratings, if it is going to be that low I just DNF it.

I then have a quote page, which I am not great about using. I had plans to do a little doodle to symbolize the book the quotes are from but I never have time to do that and then I am also worries about messing up the page with my bad handwriting. So sticky notes it is but that is better than nothing and it allows for endless space. (Before this page there is actually a page for my favorite books with shelves doodled to put my favorite books on but I decided to hold off until near the end of the year before filling that page in).

Then we have the start of my challenge pages, here I list out the titles of the books for each challenge and highlight them according to the month I read them in. This is also really cool to see when I am reading books for which challenge. I did initially add the ratings as well but my stars are super sloppy and I think I would rather leave them off or use a stamp to add them later. 

  The last page of my challenges is the list of books I have added to my shelves, this is slightly different because I am tracking more than the month I read them in.  I list them in order and highlight the number with the month they were purchased, then I go back and add my star rating when I read each book and then highlight it the month it was read in (does that make sense).

 My final book tracking page is my anticipated releases. I started off crossing the ones that were read and reviewed but I didn't like the look of that so I added arrows instead. I also did not fill in the entire year because new books come up that interest me and other books have release dates pushed back, so I use a sticky note until the month gets closer.

So there you have my updated bullet journal pages.  I hope that maybe you found some of this helpful in planning your own bullet journal or maybe inspirational. I keep my pretty utilitarian just because I don't have a lot of time to use it. I don't have a lot of collection lists or other trackers. I did originally set up movie trackers, tv show trackers, savings trackers etc. but I haven't even looked at them again. I do have a couple of lists at the back of the book for purging and organizing tips but those are so I don't loose those notes. Otherwise it is kept to just the pages I use on a daily basis.

Do you use a bullet journal or some other planning system?  Do you track your reading in your planning?