October Bullet Journal Setup

The big thing I always go on about when it comes to bullet journals, honestly the main reason I love them really, is the fact that they are so versatile. And by that I don’t just mean each individual can adapt the basic bujo principles to fit their lifestyle and mindset (although this is a wonderful thing too) but that you can adapt the detail and rigidity of your journal each month to fit perfectly with your current needs and desires.

Last month, my bullet journal was pretty detailed. I had a lot of monthly spreads and things were meticulously planned in. If you missed that post, here’s a taster…

…and you can head on over here to check out the whole thing. I decided to plan September in that way for several reasons: first of all, I had the time at the end of August to dedicate to it. Secondly, it was the first month in my new journal and so I wanted it to be a good one. And finally, I wasn’t really sure how September was going to play out in terms of organisation, particularly towards the tail end of the month, and so I felt like including various options to see what would work.

However, October is different. Very different. If you read my September Reflections post, you’ll know that I’ve now moved to university. There’s really not much about my daily routine that has remained constant. I will now be busy in a way I wasn’t before – during my pre-university days, I had a lot of things to do but not much that was fixed to a certain day or time. Now, I have to stick to timetables other people have decided for me and fit everything else around that. I have decided to scale back my bullet journal a little, in order to make room for these new commitments.

October’s pages are all about spending the least amount of time possible flicking backwards and forwards updating things; I’m trying to find a system which is efficiently useful (but also not boring to look at, if possible). So knowing the mindset behind the design of these pages, I present to you my October bullet journal setup…

Monthly spread

I’m keeping this month decorative yet simple, using a kind of solar system theme. I’m not really sure why I went for this, perhaps because October always makes me think of the days getting dark earlier, and the night sky becoming a more prominent feature in everyday life. As usual, I have a simple calendar on the right but apart from that this page isn’t really there to be used much – just to act as an overview of the whole month.

A Line A Day

The idea behind this page is to jot down a thought or two each evening about what happened that day. I liked this concept last month, although I didn’t stick to it every single day, and so I thought I’d keep it in for October.

Food diary

I mentioned before how I’m not much of a fan of food diaries, but it’s a good idea to keep one if, like me, you sometimes struggle with stomach pains. I’m notoriously bad at keeping this updated but the intention is there so we’ll see.

First Weekly Spread

And that brings us to the first seven-day layout for the month! I think I will be utilising these a lot more now that I have a more rigid timetable and for scheduling in events over the week.

And that’s it! I will still be using the wellbeing tracker I set up at the start of my journal to record my mental and physical health at the end of every day so it is not quite as minimal as it seems. But it still feels like a lot less than last month, and it feels good to mix it up a bit.

I hope everyone has a wonderful October ❤

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