Bullet journal ideas: Books to read

I recently re-reading the Rei Shimura series by Sujata Massey and I felt a bit bereft when it was over, so I immediately began searching for some other series that have similarities in Asian location or theme to keep me going. After a lot of searching online I came across the Mas Arai books by Naomi Hirahara, a couple of series by Ovidia Yu, Diane Wei Liang’s Mei Wang books, the Perveen Mistry books by Sujata Massey, and some others.

I wanted to keep track of all these books and series that I'd come across, so I created some pages in my bullet journal. I started with the Rei Shimura series itself, checking on Amazon and Wordery when I'd first purchased each of the books.

Opposite this I made a list of other books and series that I'd come across, marking squares to show how many books there were in a series.

Once I started tracking some of the books down on abebooks, I needed a better way to keep track of each series, with the names of each book, so I created a double-page spread to record these.

Making Memories

After Christmas I bought myself the book The Art of Making Memories by Meik Wiking. I have enjoyed Meik Wiking’s other books, and my friend Marceline had told me that she felt that she and I both create and record our memories in many of the ways recommended in the book, so I was interested to read about this subject. 

I took lots of notes from the book, then transferred them to my bullet journal (the bullet journal itself being one of the many ways that I plan memorable experiences and record them) - I took so many notes that I needed a couple of double-page spreads to write them down! I also record my memories in lots of other ways like my diary, blog, photos, moleskine sketchbook, travel journals, and collecting souvenirs. Zoom in on the pictures above to see the things I found most interesting in the book. I based my drawings on the lovely illustrations in the book.

One of my favourite concepts in the book was the idea of the hippocampus in the brain as a hippo that is a film director, and the idea of feeding that hippo by paying full attention to all aspects of the scene around us.

Bullet journal ideas: clothing challenges

After enjoying Secondhand September, I thought it would be fun to do some other clothing challenges in future. I couldn't find many for the months of the year, so I decided to make up my own!

Stuck for ideas, I turned to AI to give me some suggestions, from the few that I'd thought of. The ones it came up with were so hilarious that I just had to share them! I think it would be a rather depressing year if I followed some of these! Eventually I came up with some better ones!

Bullet journal ideas: Eco swaps

Because I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at good eco friendly habits over the past few months, I decided to record some eco swap ideas in my bullet journal. This really got me thinking about what I’ve already done, and what I still need to do.

Bullet journal ideas: Clothes

When I heard about Secondhand September, I became a bit obsessed with recording data about my clothes in my bullet journal! I have created a number of different pages about my clothes. 

Clothing statistics – I made graphs and statistics of how many items of each category I have in my wardrobe, how many are secondhand or new, and how much I spend. If I spend any more on clothes this year I’ll have to adjust the bar chart, so that’s encouraging me not to spend any!

Wardrobe essentials - all the basic useful items I have in my wardrobe, and those I'm thinking of getting in future.

Clothing log – I have started creating a log of the number of wears each item in my wardrobe gets. I have space to record up to 50 wears for each, and I think that’s a good number to aim for. If I was to do this again, I’d group the items by category, as it’s hard to find things in the list.


The Curated Closet - notes that I took from the book.

Outfit formulae - types of outfit that work well for me.

Secondhand September – I drew all the outfits that I wore for the month 

Old(er) and Unworn October – I’m recording my outfits again. This time I’m trying to wear some of the older items in my wardrobe, and some of the items that I don’t wear very often. Doing Secondhand September got me into wearing a lot of items I hadn’t worn much, or for a while, so I’m looking forward to rediscovering more of my wardrobe!

Joyful notes

When I was reading Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee, I was so inspired by it that I had to take lots of notes. I ended up with pages full in a notebook, and I then categorised everything and transferred it to my bullet journal.

On the first page I wrote down all the pieces of useful information that I'd gleaned from the book, from single words to whole paragraphs. I wrote in coloured circles placed randomly around the page.

The second page had cirles joined together by lines. This is where I placed all the things that make me particularly joyful, organised into categories based on those mentioned in the book.

The third page was where I brought this all together to come up with plans as to how I can make my life more joyful. Again I organised these by categories, and I used yellow on the page as I find it such a joyful colour! This page will be great for when I'm feeling a bit bored and looking for inspiration. And I've already started putting these plans into action by buying some patterned underwear, wearing bright colours, and buying myself flowers.

Bullet journal ideas: Daily Dozen

When I started doing Veganuary, I decided I had to keep track of whether I was eating all the right foods to keep me healthy. I came across the list of the "daily dozen" things that someone eating vegan should eat or do each day, so I made some charts of these in my bullet journal.

2019 goals

I'm back after a month's blogging break! I've recorded my goals for this year in my bullet journal like I did last year. I've decided this is the year of orange - I have synaesthesia, and 9 and 19 are orange numbers to me - so this page and a few other recent ones in my bullet journal are very orange! I'm keeping up with some of the goals from last year, in terms of healthy eating and exercise, but developing them a bit further, so as well as walking a lot I'm planning to do more running (I finished Couch to 5k at the start of this year).

The last time I did Veganuary, a couple of years ago, I kept eating mostly vegan for about 8 months, then my nails started getting really weak and I was due to be having an operation, so I gave it up until such time as I could better plan things to make sure I get all the right nutrients. I'm giving it another try this year, but I will probably allow myself the occasional non-vegan treat (like a really good cheese). I'm keeping a daily dozen chart in my bullet journal to make sure I'm getting all the right sorts of foods each day.

In terms of plastic waste, I'm trying out a shampoo bar at the moment and loving it, so I'll definitely be keeping that going, and I've got myself some metal straws as well as some paper ones.

Have you set any goals for this year, and how did you get on with last year's?

Bullet journal ideas: Stickers, stamps and charms

I've been gathering so many fun stickers recently, so I decided to use them to fill up the back page and pocket of my bullet journal - it's full up already so I'll have to start another page! As well as stickers that I've bought or been given, I have quite the knack of carefully peeling stickers off packaging so that I can stick them in my bullet journal or my diary!

I recently made this bullet journal charm, in shades to match my journal, at a charm jewellery workshop with Nikki McWilliams - more on that in a few days' time! And the stickers I've added to the back of my journal are by her too!

I discovered I had quite a collection of Christmas stamps, so I created a display of these in my bullet journal.

And my inspiration page contains lots of stickers!