life comes at you fast, get a bullet journal (redux)
manifesting a kickass new year
It’s New Years Eve and I’m setting up my bullet journal for 2025 (!!!) and so I thought I’d reshare this post on bullet journaling in case you’re thinking that this is the year of the bullet journal for you! Happy New Year, friends!!! Let’s manifest all the things in 2025!
My favorite thing to do during the dead week between Christmas and New Years, when time is just a construct and sitting on the couch in the same pants for days is basically required, is to envision Future Adrienne absolutely slaying the new year.
It doesn’t matter that Current Adrienne is a total sloth who’s living on pizza, Chex Mix, and Married at First Sight. Or that her hair smells because she refuses to wash it. Because in 2024, Future Adrienne has boundless energy. In 2024, she pops out of bed at five am on the dot. Slays a workout. Pounds some green juice—just so I know, where does one source green juice??? Whole Foods?—future Adrienne hits the ground running, happily commuting, working, writing, mothering.
Truly, I love lying here braless, thinking about 2024, fresh and clean, all the possibilities endless. None of my dreams have been tainted yet by an oh my fucking god I’m so tired or The English teacher called… or it’s time to replace your IUD or your sixty thousand mile service is due or can i have a playstation gift card????????? At some point this week, I will scrape myself from the couch and channel all my 2024 optimism into a concrete task: a roadmap for Future Adrienne’s slay.
A fresh bullet journal.
My bestie Rachel introduced me to bullet journaling five or six years ago and because I’m an Enneagram 3 who loves to self flagellate with goal setting, I absolutely love it. Essentially a bujo is just a personalized organizational strategy. A suped up to do list / habit tracker / journal. Some people get really into it, with special pens and markers and drawings and charts and displays.
But the best thing about a bujo is you can set it up however you want. (Here are some ideas.) I absolutely do not have the time or the interest to illustrate my skincare routine. But I do rely on my bujo to keep me on track with my twelve hundred full time jobs and responsibilities. Over the years, I’ve tried different notebooks and formats and I’ve settled into a simple bujo routine that I espouse to everyone who asks how I stay organized. (And they do ask. It’s like that old adage—need something done? Ask a busy person.)
So here are all my bujo tips and tricks! ‘Cause maybe you’re also lying here thinking about your future self and that bitch is slaying.
the notebook
I like an old school composition book for my bujo because 1) it lies flat which makes it better for writing and reviewing 2) the lined pages are big enough for my handwriting and 3) they’re easily obtainable and always the same. I jazz up the covers with stickers that make me happy every time I see them. (Cheers to more Phil Collins in 2024!!!) You can use whatever notebook you want, I’ve definitely been a person making special trips to PaperSource looking for the perfect new-year-new-notebook. But always I seem to come back to the composition book, it’s my jam.
Then, for the inside, I’ve stuck to pretty much the same format for the past few years—
#inspo
I know, I know, secretly I’m a cheeseball. I start every bullet journal with inspirational quotes. <shame bell> For the past few years, I’ve led specifically with this Charlie Kaufman quote about writing. My mind is filled to the brim with so much bullshit about writing and worth, and when I read this quote I remember it’s all just noise and none of it matters. I am the only thing I have to offer and I want to offer something. Simple! I don’t read my inspo quotes every day, but they’re always there for me when I need them.
After a few pages of wisdom I’ve got my—
goal setting
I used to write out my goals like 1, 2, 3, lose weight, save money, publish a book, etc. But thanks to therapy and a clearer understanding of how I process the world as an Enneagram 3, I’ve moved away from writing goals like a drill sergeant and to a softer, gentler process that focuses more on journey and manifestation. I know right, so woo woo!!! But, trust me, it’s easy to make goals about how terrible you are, which is just like NO, MA’AM, that’s not the energy we’re bringing into 2024.
While I used to write GOALS 20XX at the top of the page, now I write MANIFEST 2024. It’s a small shift in thinking but it’s helped me to focus more on the journey and what kind of qualities I want to manifest in myself versus what sort of achievements I want to achieve. For example, instead of PUBLISH A BOOK, which is very black and white and also, um, difficult, my writing goal for 2023 was:
Approach new projects with the freedom to explore. It won’t be perfect. Explore what excites you and enjoy the journey of creation. Take pride in your work ethic and endurance.
I know, I can’t believe I wrote that either. BARF.
reading log
Here I track all the books I’ve read in a year. I star the ones I loved and heart the ones I really liked. Easy peasy. You can also track movies, or restaurants, or knitting projects, or travel, or whatever you’re into! Just make a list! Why do you have to track any of these things? You don’t! I love revisiting all the books I read in a year, so that’s why I do it!
household projects
Just a list of stuff I want to do around the house like refinish my bathtub. Sounds dumb, but helpful to have all in one place.
hell yeahs!
I used to call this section ACCOMPLISHMENTS, but, ugh, gross. I’m telling you I got really into goal setting as a way to punish myself for never being good enough and you can imagine the torture of writing accomplishments, like I rarely wrote things here because nothing was ever good enough. Did I lose fifty pounds? No? Then nothing was accomplished.
ICK, YUCK, don’t live like that.
Moving this section to the more expansive HELL YEAHS! has allowed me to remind myself of all the ways my life continues to move forward and celebrate the moments I’m proud of.
Some highlights from 2023:
Launched a newsletter!
Swam with my kiddo and stingrays in Mexico!
Quit my job and took three months off!
Launched a new season of my podcast!
Started a new job!
Signed a two book deal with Hachette / Grand Central Publishing!
Got on Emgality and finally got my migraines under control! (Ask your Dr. for Emgality and Nurtec today!)
The kiddo started high school!
My bestie Taylor moved to Chicago!
Had a blast at Laura’s wedding with the DZ’s in Mexico!
Revised and turned in my novel!
Hosted my family for the holidays!
2023 was a huge fucking year. There was so much change and a lot of it was scary. And when I felt like everything was a mess and I had no idea what I was doing, I would go look at this list and be like, girl, get a grip, you went to Mexico twice.
weekly / daily organization
It should be noted, you can organize your opening sections however you want. The above are just my tried and true sections that work for me and that I know I will come back to throughout the year. I track my budget in a Google spreadsheet rather than here, but in the past I’ve had a debt snowball page to keep me focused on eliminating credit card debt, etc. You can do whatever you want, that’s the beauty of it! Just Google bujo ideas and a million things will come up. But once you’ve finished your opening pages, you’re ready for your day to day organization.
I go with a simple THIS WEEK and then day-to-day format like below:
With THIS WEEK, I focus on tracking my priorities for the week. I take a look at my calendar on Sunday or Monday morning and I build out my priorities for the week. Then I use the day-to-day tracking to focus on making it happen. Every morning I write the date on the top of the page and then my priorities / tasks for the day. I do a simple box that I check off fully if the task is complete and a half slash if I made progress but it’s not all the way there. I also keep an “UPCOMING” list on the THIS WEEK page to store all the shit I want to do but that I know I will not do this week. For example, I want to have Comcast come out and replace my router, and that’s been on my upcoming list for months, lol.
I also do something similar in a separate notebook for my work life!
You can also do your journaling in this notebook, but generally I prefer to use a separate one because I can be very embarrassed by my dramatic thoughts and don’t like to be confronted with them when I’m trying to be productive lolololol.
And that’s the bujo! It takes a minute to set up, but once you’re in the flow, checking in with it every morning (or right before bed to organize the next day), helps get a handle on what’s going on in your world. And it’s a nice check and balance, for example, if my day to day stuff has nothing to do with the goals I wrote on my manifest pages, then oops, I’ve run amok and I know it’s time to make some changes.
Happy New Year!! :heart::heart: