Unpopular opinion: I hate fancy weekly spreads and it took me 3 months to admit it
When I first started bullet journaling last summer, I saw all these perfect weekly layouts on Instagram and felt like I had to make mine look like that too. I spent about 2 hours every Sunday drawing boxes, adding washi tape, and trying to make gradients with my markers. After 3 months of this, I realized I was dreading my journal instead of using it. One night I just grabbed a plain notebook and wrote a simple list of tasks for the week, and it took me 10 minutes. The weird thing is I actually got more done that week because I wasn't stressed about making it pretty. Now I use a basic monthly log and daily rapid logging, nothing else. I still see those artsy spreads and feel a tiny pull, but then I remember how much time I wasted. Has anyone else gone through this, where you had to strip it all back to basics to actually enjoy it?
Tbh I went through almost the exact same thing last year, except my breaking point was a Sunday night where I literally cried over a smudged marker line at like 11pm. I had this whole setup with six different pens and a ruler and I was spending more time on the layout than on anything I actually needed to do. Once I switched to just writing the date and a plain to-do list, my stress about journaling basically vanished overnight. It's funny how the simple version ended up being the one that actually works, and the fact that you get more done now proves it. The pull toward pretty spreads never fully goes away for me either, but I just remind myself that a journal is supposed to help me, not be a craft project I have to finish every week.