December 2018 Bullet Journal Setup and New Bullet Journal

My new bullet journal - Exceed brand from Wal-Mart

I'm a little late showing you my bullet journal setup for December, but we were on vacation during the first week and I tweaked a few things the second week. So I'm finally ready to show you what's currently working for me in my bullet journal.

First of all, I needed a new notebook this month. It's a little odd to switch notebooks in December, but hopefully somewhere down the road I'll switch at a more normal month.

I do like the Michaels Artist Loft notebooks, but I saw this yellow Exceed notebook at Wal-Mart and just had to try it. I love yellow, but I don't want to have to pay $20 for a yellow bullet journal. (Michaels doesn't carry their notebooks in yellow.)

I personalized the outside with a vinyl monogram an online friend made for me.

I'm also carrying my bullet journal without the Create 365 organizer I've been carting around that holds all of my pens and markers. I like being able to just throw this in my purse and not have another handle to hold onto. So far, the elastic loop is holding up well having it double as a pen holder (see the picture above). My last Artist Loft notebook elastic snapped pretty fast when I tried this.

New sleep log

This notebook is a slightly different size than what I was using, so my old sleep log layout wouldn't work. There aren't enough spaces horizontally to fit every hour of the day, as well as the date and day. (There are only 24 spaces across.) So I decided to track the number of hours I sleep, rather than the actual hours. It works for this notebook, although I have to admit that I like the old layout better.

I'm trying an entirely new layout for my weeklies. Since I'm trying to be more mindful of my health, I decided to track everything I eat in a day. I can't eat a lot at one sitting, so I tend to eat smaller meals - and more than three a day. This gives me space to record six meals/snacks. It has been working perfectly for me these last two weeks.

I love Dutch doors for my dailies, and I really love having tabs to make it easier to turn the pages.

I used some Christmas car/truck accents from a $5 Hot Buy paper pad from Michaels. The washi tape is from Dollar Tree, if I remember correctly. It's been awhile since I bought it.

After all of my dailies, I have space to record my daily workouts. I'm not into working out like some people, so this amount of space is perfect for what I need.

The rest of the elements (to-do list, menu and small calendar) are carry-overs from previous weekly layouts that I liked.

So far, I'm enjoying this notebook. The pages are more cream than white, and I thought that would bother me. But since my preferred pen (Uni-Ball Signo 207) doesn't stay wet for any length of time, it's a good trade-off in my mind. I used to have to add blotting pages in my Artist Loft book every time I wrote something and then had to turn the page within a minute or so.

I'm also enjoying the dot grid pages rather than the graph-lined pages I've been using. I'll probably be sticking with dot grid from now on. I like how the dots give me enough structure to design my pages and write straight, but they don't get in the way visually.

I'm already having difficulty drawing my lines at the spine of the book, so we'll see if that gets worse or stays about the same. If it stays the same, it won't be a dealbreaker. If it gets worse, it will be.

I hope you've enjoyed the peek into my new bullet journal!