Mid-Year Check-In: Reflecting on 6 Months With Your Bullet Journal

Where has the time gone?

The month is July, and the year? Well, the year is halfway over somehow. If you’re anything like me, you’re surprised that we’ve already been in 2025 for six whole months.

That means we’re at the halfway point of the year, which is the perfect time to pause and reflect on how the year has been going and how we can make the most of the remaining months this year.

In this blog post, we’ll go through why a mid-year or six-month check-in matters, prompts to think about what’s working, prompts to think about what’s not working, and prompts to help you make some changes for the second half of the year. While I may use the term bullet journal throughout this blog post, this post can also easily apply to planners and other planning-adjacent notebooks. Let’s get into it!

Why a Mid-Year Bullet Journal Check-In Matters

A bullet journal or a planner is a tool that’s supposed to help streamline your life and tasks. If it’s not serving you anymore, it’s important to regroup and figure out how to make it a helpful tool again. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a tool that’s hindering rather than helping you?

By checking in with your bullet journal or planner, you can reflect on the goals you’ve set at the beginning of the year and determine some important questions about them. Have you accomplished them? Do you need to adjust them? Do you need to change them altogether? Have your priorities changed, and these initial goals aren’t your goals anymore?

Life is constantly evolving and changing, and the goals and habits that served us at the beginning of the year may not be as beneficial or even worth it now. Sometimes the habits we were so determined to have at the start of the year don’t matter because our lives have changed so much.

To avoid journal burnout or falling off using your journal completely, it’s a good idea to reevaluate what’s actually important to us and what we want to prioritize. Plus, that means you’re able to be more intentional with how you’re moving forward and how you use your bullet journal or planner.

How to Reflect on the Past Six Months of Journaling

There are three different areas to consider when reflecting on how your last six months of journaling have gone and how we want to move forward with it.

If you want the short-and-sweet version of these prompts, you can download a free PDF workbook available in a few different formats so you can pick what’s best for you.

What Worked Well in Your Bullet Journal

Think about what parts of your bullet journal or planner you used consistently. Then, also think about why you used those parts consistently.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of questions to get you started:

• What were your favorite layouts? Layouts that you enjoy using are usually easier to use. Maybe they were decorated to your liking, or maybe they were set up in a straightforward manner where there was zero confusion on filling it out.
• What trackers and logs were easier to keep up with than others? Spreads like a Year in Pixels might be easier to keep up with since these spreads can be low-effort. Think about how you set up your trackers and logs and what you liked about them.
• What spreads did you reference a lot? If you have spreads at the beginning of the journal or throughout the journal, which ones were the ones you flipped back to over and over again? Were they marked with a bookmark or other marker? What made it easy to reference a lot? Was it the information, the location, or how it was bookmarked?
• Did you have sections to fill out for wins, gratitude, highlights, etc.? Having an area to record positive things from your days forces you to look for the good, even when things are rough. When I have an emotionally hard day, I know at the very least my cat will make me smile.
• Were you more likely to use your spreads when they were decorated? Minimally decorated? Somewhere in between? If you’re one of those people who need to have their journal aesthetically pleasing to use it (I’m guilty of this), were the spreads you used decorated how you like?
• What planning tools or stickers helped you stay consistent or inspired? Sticker kits can be a great way to come up with a cohesive look if that’s something you enjoy in your planner. A grid spacing guide is helpful for me when I’m setting up my weekly spreads. What tools support you and make it easier for you to use your journal?
• Did you use your journal at a specific time? Did some time periods work better than others? Lately, I’ve committed to using my bullet journal in the morning before checking any social media. This has allowed me to remember the previous day better. If you’re a night person, maybe you use your journal more in the evening.
• How was your stress level when you used your journal more? Some people rely on their bullet journal or planner more when feeling a lot of stress, since a bullet journal or planner can help organize overwhelming tasks. For other people, it can be more manageable to use a bullet journal or planner when it’s easier to keep up with. Which are you?

What Didn’t Work in Your Bullet Journal

Now let’s think about the parts of your bullet journal or planner that you did not use consistently and why you didn’t use them consistently.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of questions to get you started:

• What layouts were hard or complicated to use? Think about how layouts and spreads were set up, and if they were set up in a confusing or disorganized way. Maybe you decided to use 10 colors for a specific tracker, but then it got annoying to have those 10 colors on hand all the time.
• What trackers and logs didn’t work for you? For habit tracker spreads, if setting up mini calendars by hand got frustrating or time-consuming, it can be easy to drop. Are there tools you can use here to help you set up and use your trackers? Tablet & Quill has mini calendars and other functional stickers that could be helpful here.
• What spreads did you set up but not use? One of the spreads that got abandoned halfway through the year for me was a year-long challenge spread where I would pick a different challenge each month to focus on. This turned out to be too vague, and I dropped it. What spreads or layouts did you drop?
• Did the decoration style of these layouts match the decoration style you prefer? I’m not a fan of minimal spreads. I like my spreads to have stickers, washi tape, decoration, and color. Without these, my journal use really drops. What’s it like for you? If the decision paralysis got you avoiding decorating, maybe it’s time to try minimal spreads. Or if you found plain spreads too boring, maybe it’s time to raid your sticker stash.
• Was your journal hidden away and forgotten? I’m the type of person to forget something exists if it’s not right in front of my eyes. That makes me keep my bullet journal directly in my eyesight all day, so I can use it whenever I need to. If I were to keep my journal in a different room or my bag, I know I would hardly reach for it. Think about how this relates to your experience.
• Was there guilt or shame associated with not using your journal? This one is a bit hard to talk about. I believe bullet journals and planners can be a great tool to use to help keep my life organized and on track. But I also understand that it’s just paper. For pages that are abandoned, you can repurpose them by drawing or collaging over them. Or you can thank them for giving you the space you needed to focus on other stuff and move past it. Either way, you can pick up your journal or planner whenever you’re ready to, without any shame or guilt.
• How was your stress level when you didn’t really use your journal? For some people, being too stressed can lead to dropping a bullet journal or planner since it can seem like too much to keep up with. For others, if there’s not enough going on, it’s hard to remember to use a bullet journal or planner. Which one are you?

What You’d Like to See Change in Your Bullet Journal

Now that you’ve thought about and maybe written out what’s been working and what hasn’t been working in your bullet journal or planner, it’s time to take that information and use it to refresh your journal for the next half of the year.

Here are some questions to consider:

• Do you need to adjust or change your goals? Do you need a new spread for this? Are there any other spreads you need to revisit?
• What can you change to make your journal easier to use? Consider the
  • Journal itself (do you need to switch from a bullet journal to a planner, or vice versa?) If you’re looking to switch to a planner, consider a bullet journal-inspired planner.
  • Physical environment (where you keep it, can you see it throughout the day, do you keep it open and ready to use).
  • Tools you use (are your preferred pens available, are you using too many markers for daily tracking or logging, do your highlighters bleed through the pages, can you add functional stickers to help with setup).
  • Spreads in the journal (can you simplify or get rid of the spreads that don’t serve you, can you change your decoration style to suit what you like, do you need your spreads to be the same or different every week).
• What’s one thing you can commit to in your journal moving forward? Can you set a low-bar daily journaling goal (like checking in with a Year in Pixels style spread)? Can you dedicate 10 minutes a day to using your journal? Can you start keeping your journal within eyesight? Can you commit to weekly check-ins with your goals? You don’t have to do all or any of these, but it’s a good idea to commit to one thing to help improve your use of journaling.

Start Fresh Without Starting Over

You don’t need to get rid of your bullet journal or planner altogether if you’re not feeling it anymore. By doing a reflection spread where you’re at in your journal, you can give your journal a refresh and start doing things differently moving forward.

And if you find you really do need to switch to a new journal or planner, that’s okay too! Whether you’re looking for a bullet journal-inspired premade planner or you’re looking for a new notebook (check out my recommendations here), the important thing is to pick something that will help you use your journal or planner moving forward.

The best thing about this kind of reflection is that you don’t have to do it specifically at the mid-year or six-month point. You can do these reflection questions more often, maybe even on a monthly or quarterly basis!

If you do a mid-year reflection or spread, I would love to see how it goes! You can leave a comment below or find me as TabletAndQuill on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

Don’t forget there’s a short-and-sweet version of the prompts in the blog post in the workbook below. You can download a free PDF of a multi-page workbook or a one-page worksheet to print out.

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