I love bullet journaling. I love the flexibility to make it what you want or need. I’ve been extremely minimalist lately because I can throw together this monthly layout in just a few minutes and it serves nearly all of my needs for the entire month. No getting out a ruler and trying to draw perfect lines. No worrying that my calendar is off by a day. I don’t have to constantly re-write my daily or weekly tasks every Sunday night (or even worse, do it late on a Tuesday and then try to catch up).
This monthly spread was inspired by one of my favorite Instagram users, @honeyrozes. It’s dead simple, but brilliant. Just list whatever you need or want to track for the month, notate how often you want to get them done with a dot, and then place an “x” when it’s done. Boom.
Reading & Writing
We’ll start here, since this might be the most interesting for my fellow bloggers! I didn’t have any specific goals set for either of these categories, only to read and write just a little every day. In February, I plan to include reading and writing in my tracker more explicitly.
Reading
I’m finding that most of my reading is getting done at night after I put the boys to bed, which usually happens around 7:30. By 8:00pm, you’ll find me curled up in my bed (not the most conducive place for reading) and nursing the baby nonstop to ensure that I can read to my heart’s desire. Not the best plan for sleep training, but it will have to do for now.
Writing
On average, I’m getting an opportunity to write about 4 days a week. I try to squeeze it in after my morning pages, but my littlest birdie doesn’t always cooperate during that time. If I’m lucky, the baby will nap after pre-school drop off, so I’ll have an hour or so to write something until I have to start doing household chores or go pick up the middle one from school. Lately we’ve been having snow days and 2 hour delays, which cancel his school entirely, so that eats up my writing time, too. I typically clock in for my day job during the afternoons, so there’s no opportunity to add to my word count then.
Personal Goals
Flossing
I found that I could be more consistent when I chose to floss in the mornings rather than at night. Probably not dentist recommended, but some flossing is better than no flossing right? I’m not going to track this one in February but if I fall off the wagon, then I’ll get back to it in March. Gross, sorry.
Exercise
I didn’t go on a single blessed walk in January. I’m going to still “track” for three walks a week and play with when and how I’m going to squeeze this in.
Journal
Or morning pages. I stayed really consistent with writing my morning pages and have noticed a difference in my daily life. Really. Truly. In February, I’m not going to set the expectation to write morning pages 7 days a week, only on weekdays. If I happen to wake early enough and the stars align, then I’ll write on the weekend, but I want to give myself the option to sleep past 4:30 every once in a while.
5 Year Book
I may not have written in this every day, but I did fill in every day, even if I had to do it the next morning. This is exciting! Don’t know what a 5 Year Book is? Here’s the one I have. It’s a notebook that allows you to record daily memories for every day of the year. Each page is one day that is broken up into five years. So for example, since I started this year, I will eventually have entries for January 1, 2019, ’20, ’21, ’22, and ’23 all on one page. This is one of those projects that requires a commitment for the long haul!
Household Tasks
I roughly follow the Clean Mama routine and believe that a few household chores every day makes all of the difference. Here’s where I’ve been focusing:
Laundry
I can’t believe that I did at least 30 loads of laundry in January and still felt like I was always behind with it. But doing a load of laundry every day has been crucial to feeling like I’m staying on top of things at home, so I hope to keep it up in February.
Dishes
My goal was to go to bed with an empty sink of dishes every night because we don’t have a dishwasher and they can easily overwhelm me. I did okay, but definitely started slacking towards the end of the month. I like starting fresh each morning and not backtracking to the previous day’s mess, which I’m going to remind myself every night when I stare at the sink and try to decide my next move.
Floors
I’ve discovered that clean floors are the secret to my sanity. Even if everything else is total chaos, if I’ve picked up the floors and vacuumed all of the little bits that my middlest bug has left around, then I feel free. Like a bird.
Counters
This usually goes hand in hand with the dishes. After I wash the dishes, I do a quick wipe down of the counters.
Mail
I’ve been sorting the daily mail after pre-school drop off while I wait for the water in my kettle to boil. This has been working really well! I’m going to plan to only check the mail Monday-Friday in February. My goal is to not let mail pile up – sort and process right away! As soon as it starts to stack on the counter, it just snowballs.
What a month! It was crazy busy, but I feel like I pretty much stayed on track. How about you?
The Cozy Burrow 
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