BuJo // February Set Up

I have majorly reduced my monthly spread in February. I've found myself not using my bullet journal as much as I was and I'm hoping that by taking it right back to basics it might encourage me to pick it up everyday again.

 I'm sticking with my monthly spread as it has been for a good while now because it works perfectly for me.

 My daily spreads have been dramatically reduced to just one page per week. I'm actually really liking this, my one issue is that the set up for it is more effort than I want to put in (which admittedly isn't very much).

And that's it, very short and sweet this month.

Hopefully next month I'll have more to show you!

Kate // SK

January Set Up // BuJo

New year New....Bullet Journal!

I admit to having some space left in my previous notebook but I like the idea of a fresh notebook for a fresh year.

Again I apologise for the rather awful picture quality, my camera is still not a happy bunny!

So I've not filled these in yet, but this is my 2017 overview. It's something I used a tonne last year. I basically use it as a future planner for the months I don't have set up yet. 

This spread is my 2017 goals/promises to myself. I've actually made an entire blogpost about my New Year promises which you can check out here.
The other side of the spread is my 2017 Saving Goals.

My monthly spreads are staying the exact same because I love how they look and they work for me as they are.

The biggest change to my bullet journal set up is my weekly layout which I have completely changed. If you look back at my Bullet Journal // Weekly Evolutions blog post here you will see that I change my layout for weekly spreads quite a lot. I thought a new bullet journal was the perfect chance to try something completely different. I'm no longer doing monthly trackers but this layout allows me to track sleep and steps which for the moment I think is enough.

So that's my January layout and we'll see next month how I like the new layout!

Kate // SK

New Year Promises // Kate

Last year I made several new years resolutions. They went okay. A solid C+ effort.

I'm not going to make resolutions this year.

Instead I am going to make promises to myself.

1. I will make time to read books

Every year I read less books than I want to. I spend more time watching Netflix or finding weird parts of YouTube than I do settled down with a good book. And the book always makes me feel better.

2. I will make myself meals

I have now moved out from my parents house so there are no longer any excuses for not making myself meals rather than buying sandwiches or take out. NO MORE EXCUSES KATE!

3. I will make time for learning

I'm a year and a half out of university and my goodness do I miss lectures and essays. I never want to get out of the habit of learning and teaching myself. I'm promising to take myself to museums and conferences, I'll listen to sermons and Ted Talks and read non-fiction books. I will feed my brain.

4. I will make use of my days off

Following on from my previous promise I will take myself to places I've never been, I will find new second hand bookshops, I will visit friends and go for walks. I will not spend my very rare days off doing errands and sleeping.

5. I will find a way of exercising that I enjoy

I owe it to myself. I feel better when I exercise but I hate running and I can't afford a gym membership and walking for no reason makes me irritated. This year I want to promise myself that I will try other ways of exercising until I find one that fits for me.

Have you made yourself new year resolutions? promises?

Let us know @SimplyKarah10

Kate // SK

Books I Want To Read In 2017

2017 is almost upon us and I've decided to have a good think about what books I want to read in the coming year.

Every year I set a reading goal on Goodreads. Last month I deleted my goodreads and created a new one. I just felt like my old account was messy and unorganised and in all honesty I could not be bothered sorting out. So, I decided to start again fresh.

So this coming year my Goodreads reading goal will be 52 books. I'm not going to list all 52 books I want to read because I don't know them all. I don't want to lock myself into that sort of commitment.

What I do want to do is reduce my TBR pile, I want to end 2017 with less books on my TBR than I started with. Fingers crossed.

Re-reads

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

3. A Lineage of Grace - Francine Rivers

4. The Fault in Our Stars - John Green

5. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

DNF's

1. The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear - Walter Moers

2. Redeeming Sex - Debra Hirsch

3. Everyday Sexism - Laura Bates

4. The Hourglass Factory - Lucy Ribchester

5. Belgravia - Julian Fellowes

TBR

1. Moranthology - Caitlin Moran

2. Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens

3. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

4. Us - David Nicholls

5. Atonement - Ian McEwan

And there we have it my 2017 reading goals.

Now all I need to do is actually hold myself to it...

Kate // Sk

December // BuJo Set Up

Wow. December already. I'm taking things easy bullet journal wise this month. What with potentially moving house and Christmas being a very busy time of year when you work at a Church I'm not even going to attempt to do any kind of tracking.

But I thought I may as well show you my set up anyway. I've added in a little "Present To Buy/Bought" list where my tracker would usually be. But seeing as I've already filled it in with all my present buying ideas I can't show you it. Sorry!

Exact same monthly spread as always because I love it so why change it. Although I did add fairy lights to add a festive feel..

 As you can probably tell I have completely changed my weekly layout and while it looks a heck of a lot better it's a bit of a pain to set up so I don't know if I'll be continuing with it in January. I've added four tracker boxes on each day to replace my monthly tracker. So we have steps per day, sleep per night, did I read today, and breakfast, lunch and dinner checks. Let me know what you think about this layout and whether or not I should stick with it.


You may have noticed that the images today were not the best and I can only apologise. Apparently my camera has given up being a camera and now only likes taking dark photos with some random dots in the middle of the photo. So I'm using an old iPhone to take the photos on a very grey day. Sorry!

Kate // SK

Move Out With Us // Preparing to Move

Exciting times ahead for Bekah and I. We potentially have a house to move into!!

Fingers crossed all the paperwork goes ahead and we can be moved in by Christmas.

Today I thought I would talk to you guys about preparing to move. And of course because I love bullet journaling so much I have a spread to go along with what I want to talk about.

 So this is the first of what I am guessing will be multiple bullet journal spreads in the coming weeks. I set this up today to get my head around the packing and bills that need to be sorted before we move into the house.

Most of this spread are ideas I found on a couple of other people's moving bullet journal posts so I'll link those at the bottom of this post for you to check out.

So this a very not to scale and not accurate map of the upstairs of our little house. I have colour coded the rooms relevant to me, the plan is the to colour code the boxes I pack for ease of unpacking.

Moving onto the downstairs and another not to scale map of our kitchen and living spaces which are again colour coded.

This checklist is full of the things which need to be done before/as we move in. Very small boxes representing ALOT of work.

This will become a running record of the packing being done day by day on the run up to the move. I'll finish setting this up once we have a move in date.

Furniture?

So Bekah and I have decided to move into an unfurnished house which means that before we can properly move in we needed to buy beds and sofa's and bookshelves etc.

So look out for house hauls and more moving posts coming soon!

Kate // SK

Inspiration from:

Moving Insider

Creative Pineapple

November Set Up // BuJo

So somehow it's the end of October and time to set up my bullet journal for November.

Nothing dramatically different this month, a couple of changes here and there but if I'm honest I'm saving my big changes for January and my new bullet journal.

This month I have slacked a little on my tracker, the last couple of weeks have been so busy that the last thing I have time for is tracking how little sleep I'm getting!

Setting up November has given me a new burst of love for my bullet journal so fingers crossed November will be a month where I use it loads!

As always if you have a bullet journal I would love to see it!

 My November monthly spread is no different than my previous few. The only difference is that it's much busier than it usually is before the month's even started!

 After really struggling to be bothered to fill in the tracker in October I have opted for a very reduced tracker this month. I'll see how I get on with this and then decide whether the tracker is something I want to keep at all.

Since getting rid of my monthly challenge this page has been sadly neglected. This month I decided to try something new and I've given myself a word of the month. Grace is the first word that popped into my mind when I thought about a word that I could reflect on this month so I'm going with it!

Kate // SK

Move Out With Us // Furnished v Unfurnished

Initially Bekah and I were set on a furnished home, then we decided that maybe part furnished would be okay and now unfurnished is something we're definitely considering.

So why the change?

Move Out With Us // Finding the Perfect Place

Did you know Bekah and I are moving out together? We currently both live with our parents but we've decided it's time to leave the nest (again in my case) and move in together.

There are ALOT of things to consider when you decide to move house. So we thought it would be cool to take you on this journey with us.

I've lived away from home before. As a student I lived in student halls as well as flats and houses. I've lived in homes with 7 people, 6 people, 4 people and 2 people and I moved house every year at uni (long story). So I do have some experience of flat hunting and moving out.

Bekah and I are currently at the planning stage so we thought we would share with you what we're doing and how we're doing it.

What are we looking for?

2 bedrooms of a similarish size

Easy walk or public transport for me to get to work

cat friendly

not on the main street of a town

Where are we looking?

zoopla

s1rentals

local letting agents

Gumtree

The important thing to remember when looking for a new place is to know what you'll compromise on and what you will not budge on. So for me I will live in a place with a bit of trek to work if it's perfect in every other way. I will not live somewhere where my cat can't come.

So come with us on our journey as we move in together into what will  hopefully be the perfect place for us.

Anyone else moving house soon? Any tips?

Kate // SK

p.s. just to clarify in case anyone is wondering Bekah and I are just friends. We're also single so any guys who would like to apply give us a call...(I joke, I joke..unless you are Tom Hardy then please call me.)

October Set Up // BuJo

October. It's officially Autumn and I am a happy happy girl. Here's my monthly set up.

So my monthly set up is the same as every month. I love this layout and I don't think I can face changing it. Although I do HATE that October has 6 rows rather than the usual 5, so annoying to fit on the page.

The October tracker, I've finally reduced the number of things in my tracker and it makes me very happy and way more into tracking every day.

I've merged my dailies and weeklies to form one spread which has made it so much better for me to use my bullet journal. I've been in a bit of a slump recently and I think reducing the number of things I need to fill in every day will help.

So that's October. Have you made any changes to your Bullet Journal recently?

Tweet us @SimplyKarah10

Kate // SK

BuJo Evolution // Monthly Trackers

Welcome to my last (for now) instalment of my Evolution of my Bullet Journal series. I thought I would finish off with my tracker evolution. I have a love hate relationship with my monthly tracker so I'm always striving to make it better.

 To say I was optimistic in January would be an understatement. Look how many things I tried to track! Unbelievable. I also used dots which look so mega ugly. January was not a good month for the tracker.

 In February I tracked a lot less and it was much more successful.

In April I have an example of an experiment that didn't go well. I tried to track tidying and failed miserably. But that's okay, in fact I'm really glad I gave it a go. 

 In May I got rid of the tidying tracker and everything else stayed the same.

 The main change to July was the reorganisation of the order of which I put the things I tracked. I tried to arrange them so that they made more sense and were next to the ones which were connected.

So far I've not made any major changes to the tracker. My plan for October is to reduce the number of things I track. Stay tuned for my October set up video to see what stays and what goes!

How do you use your monthly tracker? Any advice?

Kate // SK

BuJo Evolution // Dailies

Another post from my "Evolution of my Bullet Journal" series. This week I'm looking at my dailies. When I first started my bullet journal I didn't have a clue how I wanted my dailies to look, so for the first few months I tried out different designs sand different ways of organising my day to day life.

January

I started off in January tracking the weather and the high and low temperatures of the day. This was a chore and I didn't really care about it so it didn't last long. I also used the squares and circles to highlight tasks and events but I definitely made them a tad big!

BuJo Evolution // Weeklies

How have my weekly spreads changed over the past 9 months? Let's find out.

 I started doing weekly spreads at the end of February this year. The idea was to have a column of events and a column of to do's as well as lists of to do's with no particular day attached on the other side of the spread. I love the added organisation a weekly spread has added to my bullet journal.

BuJo Evolution // Monthly Layouts

I thought today it would be interesting to see how my bullet journal has evolved over the past 9 months. As I've used it and adapted it to suit my needs I've obviously changed things here and there.

So here we go from January to September. 9 months of monthly layouts. Let's see how things have changed.

January - March

BuJo // September Set Up

My goodness, how on earth did it get to be September already? This year has gone crazy quick!

No major changes this month but we are back to our usual full layout rather than last months reduced spreads. It feels good to be back to normality.

 No changes for September's monthly layout. Why change it if it's working as is?

Collections #4 // Bullet Journal

Collections #3 // Bullet Journal

As you may have gathered by now I have been trying to save money this year.

I made saving goals for a number of areas and put them into a bullet journal spread so I could track them more easily. As you can see some areas have been more successful than others!

BuJo // August Set Up

So this is normally the time when I would show you guys my August set up and talk about what's changing and what's staying the same. But this month is a bit different.

I am away ALOT in August, in fact I'm only at home for 8 days of August. Because of this, I will not be using my bullet journal much this month so setting up a daily tracker or daily memories spread would make no sense. Instead I've done some things a bit different.

 So as you can see I'm not at home much but I wanted to do an August calendar anyway so I could keep track of things.

Collections #1 // Bullet Journal

Something that is 'big' in the Bullet Journal community are collections. And by collections we mean something which isn't for daily, weekly or monthly use but is something we will constantly flick back to as we use our bullet journal. I thought it would be good to show you all some of the collections or spreads I have in my bullet journal.

Bullet Journal // July Set Up

 Well it's officially the summer, not that you would guess it from the weather here in Scotland! July is already a week in and I'm only just getting round to doing my set up blog post, sorry! But not much as changed and if you are inspired then save the inspiration for next month!