Productive Pixie: January 2020

You are super busy! Your bullet journal is supposed to be helping you with your productivity, but instead, you feel like it is making you even less productive. 🙁 You are probably feeling discouraged because this is the system that can be adaptable to anyone. Don't worry!

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

Side Note - This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy something from one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. For more information, you can read my privacy policy. Thank you for supporting my blog. :)

Updated for 2024

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

The tips in this post will hopefully help you to decide on what you can do to make your bullet journal work for you again. :)

Keep reading for some tips to help you with your bullet journal!

Make a Planning Routine

If you never plan at the same time every day or if you are having trouble turning using your bullet journal into a habit, then this might need to be your first thing to try.

If you forget about your bullet journal and then remember days later. Then you probably won't want to use it because you are going to have to spend so much time refilling in your layouts, but if you write down your tasks first thing for five minutes every morning or night, then this will never happen.

I have a whole post on how to make a routine for your planner or bullet journal. Check it out if you are interested!

Simplify Your Layouts

An easy way to make your bullet journal take less time is to simplify your layouts. Make it minimal. Minimal layouts don't have to be boring though. I like to think of my bullet journal as on the more minimal side.

Bringing your bullet journal back to the basics will cut down on your planning time so you have more time to conquer your to-do list.

If you really like your cute colorful spreads though and they motivate you, then there are still ways to make those layouts quicker.

Use Stencils (You can even make a stencil for the whole layout! This works for layouts you make over and over again.)
Washi Tape (I just started adding more washi tape to my layouts and it looks so cute! If you feel like a layout is too plain, but you don't have much time, just add a strip or two of washi tape to your layout in the corner or on one of the sides. I like to overlap mine a little.)
Stamps (I have never used stamps in my bullet journal, but this might be something you may want to look into. Stamps can be used for days of the week, habit trackers, and more.)
Stickers
Printables (If you like to decorate your layouts, but don't like drawing the basic outline, then you can use a printable and then decorate it.)
Sticky Notes (Add a sticky note to make your page more colorful!)

If you are really busy, then making your layouts easier to draw will help you find more time. :)

Don't Try to Make Your Layouts Absolutely Perfect

If you try to make your layouts absolutely perfect. It will take up a lot of time. I have been trying to do the lettering in my new bullet journal more freehand instead of perfecting it in pencil before I use a pen on top.

I still might do a rough sketch, just to see how the lettering will look, but I don't try to make it look perfect in pencil. If it doesn't look exactly how I wanted it to, when I write it in pen, then I can use a white gel pen on top and try again! If not, I just smile and move on. It does not have to be exactly centered.

For my weekly layouts, I don't use a pencil usually. I just draw it in and see how it looks. If I am going to be using it for longer, then I am more careful, but like I said a white gel pen is great to have on hand to fix small mistakes.

If you just cannot bear to make a mistake, then you could make a mechanical pencil your go-to writing utensil. Erasable pens are also something for you to check out!

Simplify Your Trackers

Now, this does not just apply to trackers, it applies to everything that isn't necessary for YOU. If you go to bed at the same time every night and wake up with an alarm every morning, then why are you trying to track your sleeping hours?

I made this mistake in my first bullet journal and that is why I stopped bullet journaling for a while. I tracked a lot of things I didn't need: food, sleep, mood. It got to being too much. If you want to track more things, then add in a few at a time.

Put it on your habit tracker. Put writing in your bullet journal on your habit tracker too. If checking the box helps to motivate you, then this should help you be more productive when using your bullet journal.

Cut Out Pages You Don't Need + Overlapping Pages

This one is similar to the one above, but I wanted to include it as a separate item because it is a little different. I am talking more about weekly, monthly, daily spreads versus trackers and collections.

Find out what planning pages you like best. Maybe you like using monthly and weekly layouts. Maybe you only need daily layouts and a future log.

Don't try to use every page, unless it helps you to picture things, because transferring information from your yearly log to your six-month view to your monthly layout to your weekly layout to your daily layout will become a hassle.

Just pick a few which work for you and then use those. I have never used a daily layout because I know that I don't write that much information down each day. If you are journaling about your day in your bullet journal, this will probably be different.

If you are really busy, do a brain dump/master task list/running to-do list to help you sort out your tasks. When I was really busy last year, I made a very simple running to-do list instead of a weekly layout and then I just concentrated on crossing things off.

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

To me, it all comes down to this. If your bullet journal is not working for you, then go back to basic layouts, and cut out everything which isn't necessary. Make time for your bullet journal. Start a planning routine that will help you keep everything up to date. Simplifying your layouts will help with keeping everything up to date. :)

I hope you liked this post. Give your bullet journal another try and see if it will help you to be more productive.

Are there tips that you would add to this post? Thanks for reading!

Share it with your friends. :)

January 25, 2020 No comments

I am sure if you have been in the bullet journal community for even a month, then by now, you have heard of the Tombow Brush Pens. They are amazing! I just got the pastel pack and I have been using them a ton. Now I can do blending like I did for my "2020 at a Glance" in the picture below. :)

Updated for 2024

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review (Pastel Pack)

You can buy the pastel pack for under $20 on Amazon, at the time of writing this post. It comes with ten dual brush pens, which means each pen has two sides.

One side is a brush tip, which you can use to make thicks and thins and the other side is a regular pointed tip. (I used the regular tip to put a line through the name of the month for each monthly calendar and the brush tip was used for the header.)

You are probably looking at this picture and thinking, "But one of them is clear?" and that is correct. If you put it on paper, you will not be able to see it. That is why it is perfect for blending your markers together because it will add extra liquid to blend them, and you won't be able to see it.

Something I love about these markers is that they have a little ridge on the brush side of the cap. It makes so when you set it down it won't roll right out of your reach! Maybe even onto the floor. With the ridge on the side though, that won't be a problem at all because the ridge prevents it from rolling too far.

If you want to get started in brush calligraphy, but don't know where to begin, then I would start by practicing with the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens first before buying the Tombow Dual Brush Pens only because the tips on these are more flexible.

I started out using the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens and I really like them. I practiced my hand-lettering almost every day last summer and my calligraphy improved a lot. It also takes me less time to make the lettering how I want it. I used the Tombow Fudenosuke Hard Tip Brush Pen to write the word "swatches" in the picture below.

After using the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens for a while, then feel free to move on to the Tombow Dual Brush Pens. With every new pen style you get, it will take a while to get used to it, so don't worry if yours doesn't look how you want it to.

The Tombow Dual Brush Pens will create a watercolor effect if you add multiple layers. I have found out that they ghost a little bit, but they won't bleed through the page unless you use the blender pen on them like in my "2020 at a Glance" layout.

It might be different in your book depending on the thickness of the paper. The ghosting doesn't bother me though and I have made the bleeding through the page less noticeable by using a white gel pen on it.

I used the light purple Tombow Dual Brush Pen to make the header for this layout. This layout is not finished, but when it is, I might do a full post on it. The markers I am planning on adding to this page are as follows.

Pastel Tombow Dual Brush Pens (Of course)
Crayola Super Tips (50-Pack)
Tombow Fudesonuke Brush Pens (Soft and Hard Tip)
Zebra Mildliners (I hope to get these soon!)

Something really nice about the Tombow Dual Brush Pens is that the marker cap is the actual color of the marker. This is not the case for the Crayola Super Tips because some of them are off-color making it harder to pick a color for a layout.

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review (Pastel Pack)

The Tombow Dual Brush Pens are a new favorite of mine! The overall main theme for some of my pages is by blending the light pink and the dark blue like in the "2020 at a Glance" layout to create an effect that reminds me of a sunset. :)

To learn how to blend Tombow Dual Brush Pens, simply look up "How to Blend Tombow Brush Pens" on Youtube and then you can see it step-by-step. That is how I learned how to use a blender pen!

If you want to see how the layouts, I used the Tombow Dual Brush Pens on, then check out How I am Goal Setting for 2020 in my Bullet Journal.

Overall, I am really happy that I got these because they have a brush tip and a marker tip so I can use them for multiple purposes in my bullet journal. The price is a little bit expensive for ten markers, but I think they were worth it. The pastel colors are really pretty too! :)

Check out these posts if you liked this one.

Thank you so much for reading this post! Let me know in the comments if you use Tombow Brush Pens too.

If you have a second share it with your friends to help me reach my 2020 goals. Thank you. :)

January 18, 2020 2 comments

Are you looking to start bullet journaling? You probably can't justify pulling out your purse and handing over $30 or more for a new hobby. Especially if you think of all of the money you may have already paid for planning systems that were supposed to help you be 100% organized.

Updated for 2024 - The binding on this bullet journal broke in one spot so if you do buy it, be careful about how far you open it, how much stuff you add to the pages etc.

A Pretty Bullet Journal for Under $10

But you are in luck! I didn't want to have to buy an expensive bullet journal when I started either. When I started, I used a composition notebook with lined pages, which made it a lot harder for me to make layouts.

When you start, you will want to begin in a cheap book, because you won't know which layouts work for you or even if you like bullet journaling.

After a while, I gave it up, because it was too hard to make layouts in a book with lined pages which were rather thin as well.

Then I used my ring-bound planner for a combination of bullet journaling and planning. And now I just got this beautiful Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook to use for my bullet journal collections!

A Good Quality Bullet Journal for Under $10

This is how mine came from Amazon and it was covered in plastic to keep it from being scratched or damaged which is always a plus. it is terrible to be super excited to receive a product and then have it be damaged when you get it.

I did not receive this product for free. All of the opinions in this post are my own. :)

Details About the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook

Hard Bound - The book is hardbound, which I love because it makes it super easy to carry around and it is not bulky at all. It may become bulky if you tend to add elements (such as washi tape or photos) to your bullet journal so keep this in mind.

Dotted Paper - The paper is dotted, and the dots are not to light or too dark. The dots won't stand out after you make your layout. They make it super easy to just turn the page and get right in without having to measure the page. It all depends on whether you like to sketch out your page or whether you want guidelines. If you look at my "Gratitude 365" layout below, then you can see that the dots are not noticeable.

100gsm Paper - Having smooth off-white 100gsm paper, makes it easy for you to use a lot of different pens on it. I find that if I blend Tombow Brush Pens, then it will bleed through, but other than that, so far, I have only experienced minor ghosting, which doesn't really bother me. The paper is really smooth, which I love. :)

Elastic Closure - If you are using your bullet journal to organize all areas of your life, then you won't want anything falling out or pages getting crumpled if you drop it so having an elastic closure is a lifesaver.

A Pocket - It comes with a pocket in the back, which I haven't tried out yet. I don't know if I will because I don't need it, but it is good to know about if you want a pocket to hold some stationery supplies in it.

192 Pages - The bullet journal comes with 192 dotted pages. It doesn't come with an index or any extra already made pages, but I wanted to make all of my own pages, so it was perfect for me. The pages are also not numbered, which might annoy some people, but I don't mind because I can number the pages whenever I create a new layout. Not having numbered pages is almost a plus for me because then I can leave pages that I don't want on the index unnumbered.

Bookmark Ribbon - One ribbon is included, which you can use to mark your most-used page or your monthly etc. The ribbon for my bullet journal was the same color as the rest of the journal.

Size - The size of the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook is 5 inches by 8 1/3 inches. I really like the size, which is bigger than the pages I could add to my ring-bound planner, so it is perfect to add collections to.

At first, I thought the color was a little bit more like lilac than pink, but then I realized it was just the light I had it in. :)

I like the elastic closure and the ribbon bookmark, but I hope that the elastic closure doesn't get stretched out.

This is the first thing you see when you open the cover of the book. It has lines for your name and address, but I chose to add my name and contact information instead. I added my blog URL too because there was enough room!

On the other side, is the Minimalism Art Logo and plenty of space for you to add a bullet journal key, or a motivational quote. There are no dots on this page so anything you add you will have to measure.

As you can see, my bullet journal won't lay quite all the way flat yet, but I think as I use it more it will open up. When I am writing or drawing in it, I don't have a problem with it closing. :)

When I turn the page with my information on it, the next page is my title page. The left side of this page has no dots on it, so it is the perfect page to add a quote to. My word for the year is "create" so I made sure that it was in my quote. You can see how I did goal setting for 2020 in my bullet journal here.

If you are interested in recreating this page for your own bullet journal, the supplies I used are put below.

Tombow Dual Brush Tips - The Pastel Pack
Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens (I used the hard tip one)
Crayola Supertips - (I used the black one for the word

On the word "create" the ink bled through the page a little bit because I blended it. When this happens, I have been using my gel pen on the other side to cover some of it up. As long as you aren't using too much ink all over the page, you shouldn't have any problems with ink bleeding through.

My Overall Thoughts About the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook

I recommend this bullet journal to everyone whether you are new to bullet journaling, or even more advanced. The pages are smooth. The dots aren't too light or too dark. It has an elastic closure and a bookmark ribbon, and you can buy it for under $10!

If you are on a budget, then this might be a great option for you! I love how my layouts look in this journal and it doesn't bother me that the paper is slightly off-white either. :)

If you liked this post, then read these ones too.

What bullet journal notebook do you use? Do you use a Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Pin this post to let me know you liked it. :)

January 11, 2020 No comments

First of all Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday or break. Now it is time to start goal setting for the new year! :) In this post, I am going to show you how I am goal setting in my bullet journal for 2020.

Updated for 2024

How I am Goal Setting for 2020 in My Bullet Journal

The new year is a great time to set goals for the new year because it feels like a new beginning. You can start fresh on your goals. You can step back and reevaluate what you want for your life and make some changes. :)

If you read my blog often, then you probably notice that I am using a new notebook. I have wanted to try out a traditional bullet journal for a while now, so I decided to get one which I am going to put all of my collections in and see how it works.

In the planner I have now, I can't really make two-page layouts and so it wasn't that great for two-page layouts because the rings get in the way. Also, the rings get in the way when I write on the left side of the page. But the biggest thing for me is that when I want to make a new page, I have to go print, cut, and hole punch a page before I can actually start it. I figured I would make more collections if I didn't have to do that every single time I wanted to make a new page.

So what am I using my planner binder for now? I am using it for my monthly and weekly layouts and for any printed papers like my capsule wardrobe planner. All of my collections go into my new bullet journal.

My new bullet journal is a Minimalism Art Classic Notebook in light pink, and I will do a review on it later. I love how smooth the paper is and the color of the journal! :)

That was a rather long tangent, but now on to how I am goal setting for 2020!

1. Word of the Year

I haven't done a word of the year before, so I am trying it out this year. So far I really like it. My word for the year is "create". I wrote my word in the middle, and then the definition underneath. I looked in two different dictionaries so I could get more definitions. After that, I put on some cute gold foil washi tape which is from Michaels I am pretty sure. Then I wrote out how I am going to "create" throughout the year.

On my title page, I wrote a quote with my word "create" in it too.

I don't know if I can really count this as a goal-setting page, but it is something to help you see what you are working towards throughout 2020.

2. 21 Before 2021

This is my main method of goal setting for this year. I picked 21 goals in different areas of my life, and I am going to work towards them. Some of them are fun goals like you probably noticed number 18 is "go on vacation" because it is important to remember that you need a break too. I also didn't have 21 serious goals I wanted to do.

As you can see my new bullet journal doesn't lay all the way flat, but if you are writing on it, then it will.

I used Tombow Dual Brush Tips (I just got them!) to do the lettering for "21" and "2021" and I am so happy with how it turned out. The watercolor blended look isn't super hard to achieve, even though it looks pretty hard (to me at least 😊). Just search for "how to blend Tombow Brush Pens" on YouTube and you can see exactly how it is done.

When I finish a goal, I might also do the same technique to fill in the circle with the number of the goal on it, but I haven't decided yet. I am hoping that I will be able to finish all of my new year's goals! If you want to help, then follow me on Pinterest. Thank you!

3. Master Plan

This year I didn't want to do too many different types of goal tracking, because I feel like it is too much, so I am only using these three pages for my yearly goals.

My master plan is what it sounds like it is. On here I have how I am going to reach my goals. Some of my goals are not on here. They are things I just need to do once, and I don't really need to plan for them other than go out and do it. Goals like "Read 30 Books" though need a tracker so it goes on this page. This way at a glance I can see how close I am to finishing my goals.

Goal Setting in my Bullet Journal for 2020

For my goals this year I didn't do any weekly, monthly, or daily goals. Last year when I did, it was just too much. Then when I missed once, then I couldn't get that goal. I am going to be working on habits during the year. I am not going to be doing it so rigidly because then when something comes up and you can't do that habit, then you don't have to stress about it. :)

If you liked this post, then you can read some of my other goal-setting posts too.

Thank you for reading! I hope you have a productive, healthy, and happy year!

Share this post with your friends. :)

January 04, 2020 No comments

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

Make a Planning Routine

Simplify Your Layouts

Don't Try to Make Your Layouts Absolutely Perfect

Simplify Your Trackers

Cut Out Pages You Don't Need + Overlapping Pages

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review (Pastel Pack)

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review (Pastel Pack)

A Pretty Bullet Journal for Under $10

Details About the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook

My Overall Thoughts About the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook

How I am Goal Setting for 2020 in My Bullet Journal

1. Word of the Year

2. 21 Before 2021

3. Master Plan

Goal Setting in my Bullet Journal for 2020

About Me

Categories

Blog Archive

Contact Me!

recent posts

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

Make a Planning Routine

Simplify Your Layouts

Don't Try to Make Your Layouts Absolutely Perfect

Simplify Your Trackers

Cut Out Pages You Don't Need + Overlapping Pages

How to Bullet Journal Even When You are Super Busy

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review (Pastel Pack)

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Review (Pastel Pack)

A Pretty Bullet Journal for Under $10

Details About the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook

My Overall Thoughts About the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook

How I am Goal Setting for 2020 in My Bullet Journal

1. Word of the Year

2. 21 Before 2021

3. Master Plan

Goal Setting in my Bullet Journal for 2020

About Me

Categories

Blog Archive

Contact Me!

recent posts

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