Went back through my old bullet journals from 2019 last night

I found my first bullet journal from 3 years ago and man the difference is wild. Back then I had like 15 different color pens and these crazy art spreads that took forever. Last week I sat down and my whole setup was just a black pen and a ruler. My monthly log from June 2021 has this big street map of Denver where I marked every open house I went to. Now my weekly spread is basically just three lines for health, work, and chores. Has anyone else simplified their system over time or did you go the other way?

2 comments

2 Comments

patriciah5113d ago

Honestly I went the complete opposite direction lol. I started with a simple black Pilot G2 and a spiral notebook in 2019 and now my current bullet journal looks like an art project exploded on it. I've got washi tape borders, hand drawn habit trackers with little icons, and I color code every single entry with like 8 different mildliners. It takes me 20 minutes to set up a weekly spread but I love looking back at the pretty pages more than the actual planning part. My January 2022 spread had a full watercolor galaxy on it and I still flip to that page sometimes just to enjoy it.

mitchell.lee13d ago

Dude YES, that's totally me too! I started with a plain old Moleskine and one black Pilot G2 like you, but then I saw someone's colorful mood tracker on Instagram and spiraled fast. Now my 2022 journal has this huge two-page spread of the Portland Trail Blazers schedule from last season hand-drawn with colored pencils (I'm not even a big basketball fan, I just liked the team colors). The setup takes forever but honestly I get way more joy out of flipping through the old fancy pages than I ever did from the simple lists.