Quick Monthly Bullet Journal Ideas for Busy Creatives
The Problem With Bullet Journal Setups
Smash Mouth wasn’t messing around when they said, “The years start coming and they don’t stop coming.” The older I get, the faster time seems to pass. It’s an odd sensation to think that yesterday we were in February, but today we’re in August.
That means we shouldn’t get bogged down with things that aren’t important.
Things like taking too much time to set up your bullet journal or your planner. I’ve been caught in the spiral of wanting my bullet journal to look pretty, but not having the time to set up bullet journal spreads like I wanted to.
I had to figure out how to create easy bullet journal setup ideas because I was spending more time decorating my bullet journal than I was using it. I streamlined my process with printables and bullet journal stickers.
Between layout research, choosing a color scheme, drawing everything out, and adding in final touches, setting up my weekly spreads used to take me roughly 3 hours per week. My monthly pages took me even longer. Now? I spend about 3 hours per month setting up my bullet journal monthly and weekly spreads.
But what is the best way to make easy bullet journal spreads? Stickers are an incredible tool when making bullet journal setups. Decorative stickers can make it easy to create a lovely bullet journal layout without much effort. Functional stickers can help you stay on track when tracking goals and habits. A mix of both? The layouts practically make themselves.
Stickers help me with that, and they can help you too.
How Monthly Bullet Journal Spreads Can Feel Overwhelming
If you’re in the beginning stages of setting up your bullet journal, I’ve got you covered. Check out my post when you’re ready to get started.
The monthly spread or monthly dashboard is the cornerstone of my bullet journal experience. While my day-to-day life is in the weekly pages, the monthly pages carry a wealth of information that helps me plan my goals.
Having a monthly bullet journal spread that’s set up well can make a big difference in your planning life.
The issue with a monthly bullet journal spread is the same as its greatest asset: flexibility and customization.
There are plenty of options for what can be added to a monthly bullet journal spread, from what the calendar looks like (or is even included!) to what sections go on the monthly spread. On top of that, the monthly spread is the spread you’ll be looking at all month, so if you’re the kind of person who needs their bullet journal to be decorative (guilty!), you need to make more even decisions on color and theme.
Factor in any drawing you want to include, and it can add up to a lot of time. It added up to a lot of time for me, time that I ended up growing grumpy because I was so aware of the amount of time it took. It also made me grumpy that my skills weren’t where I wanted them to be.
I would draw something I thought was simple and even have a great reference image, but my hands were shaky at times, so my lines ended up crooked and my colors were outside the lines. I didn’t like the result, and worst of all, I wasn’t having fun.
I was feeling overwhelmed. I didn’t realize why my setups were causing me more stress than alleviating it.
If this sounds anything like you, I’ve been where you are. And I’ve found a tool that makes my bullet journal setups so easy and quick.
Simple Steps to an Easier Monthly Bullet Journal Setup
We’ll focus on setting up a quick bullet journal layout for the month. Admittedly, the way I do my bullet journal layouts, the monthly spreads take longer than the weekly spreads, so it might end up being the same for you. Let’s break this monthly bullet journal spread into steps.
Choose a Calendar Layout
Consider if you want to include a calendar in your spread. There are a few ways a calendar can be represented on a monthly layout page. You may want to write down 1-30 or 1-31 vertically and list the events next to the appropriate date. Maybe you want a mini calendar to reference. You could make a calendar to take up some or all of the monthly spread. Take a look at these monthly bullet journal spreads for calendar inspiration.
After you’ve chosen your calendar look, add your dates.
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Choose Additional Sections
Many options can be included in a monthly dashboard, but below are just a few of my favorites:
- Event log
- Habit tracker
- Mood log
- Monthly chores
- Gratitude log
- Budget tracker
- Goal check-in
- Notes
Pick 2-3 areas you want to include in your monthly bullet journal spread and set up your sections. You may wish to use vertical number strips for sections like the even log or gratitude log, mini blank calendars for habit trackers, or colorable stickers for an easy doodled mood log.
Give Your Monthly Bullet Journal Spread Some Personality
Now that you’ve got the bones of your monthly bullet journal spread setup, it’s time to give it some life. Pick some bullet journal stickers and a few matching colors from your marker or highlighter stash (here are some color palette ideas).
Highlight the section titles and the numbers on your calendar to give it a pop of color and layer on some stickers where there’s blank space.
My advice is to give yourself a bit of a limit when doing this part, you don’t want to get caught up in choosing decorative elements, because then we’d be back to our original issue of our spread taking too long to set up.
Your New Favorite Time-Saving Tools
While you can make a bullet journal layout with just a pen, you can use these tools below to make quick bullet journal layouts to make it easy to set up your spreads.
Functional Stickers
Use functional bullet journal stickers to breeze through your bullet journal setups.
You can use vertical number strips for Gratitude Logs or One Line a Day sections. In my bullet journal, vertical stickers are the perfect add-in for my Highlight of the Day section.
Blank mini calendars are an essential part of my Habit Tracker. Making mini calendars is such a boring task for me; I’d rather just skip it altogether.
Yearly mini calendars help me set up my Year at a Glance page in minutes. I don’t have to worry about paying careful attention to writing down all the months correctly, and my hand doesn’t cramp up from writing all 365 dates.
Weekly lettering stickers help me change up the look of my weekly bullet journal spreads without spending a ton of time trying to match my lettering from page to page.
Printable Templates
Similar to how much I dislike setting up a Year at a Glance spread, I greatly dislike setting up a Year in Pixels spread. A Year in Pixels spread is an excellent way to track over an entire year on one page.
The annoying thing about a Year in Pixels spread is drawing all of the lines that make up the year-long tracker. Using a free printable template makes it easy to set up a Year in Pixels spread.
Decorative Stickers
Decorative stickers allow you to add color and personality to your spreads without spending time drawing things out yourself.
There are plenty of bullet journal sticker designs where each sticker sheet has at least 31 stickers per sheet, enough to last you an entire month! These sticker sheets have small stickers that are perfect for filling small white spaces in bullet journal spreads.
For a bigger size, these die-cut bullet journal stickers make the perfect sticker to fill in larger white spaces in bullet journal spreads while perfectly matching the smaller stickers from the sticker sheets.
An excellent add-on is these matching decorative sticker sheets that include washi-like strips, flags, decorative dots, and a notes sticker.
Colorable Stickers
Color-your-own bullet journal stickers are my secret weapon for easy bullet journal monthly spreads. These stickers are perfect for mood logs. I can set up a fully doodled bullet journal mood log in the time it takes me to stick down 31 stickers. That time is exponentially less than making 31 doodles by hand.
Plus, these stickers can be colored with markers, highlighters, color pencils, and crayons. Colorable stickers are great for mood logs, but there are other great uses for colorable bullet journal stickers, too.
Want to Skip Set Up Completely?
If setting up your monthly and weekly bullet journal spreads still seems overwhelming, you might want to consider an alternative.
Something like a pre-made planner will have all of the spreads you need to get started: a calendar, a notes section, a gratitude log, a mood log, a habit tracker, a budget page, a brain dump page, and enough weekly spreads to get you through the month.
The pre-made planners at Tablet & Quill were made to feel like a bullet journal. Every month has its own unique theme with illustrations drawn by me. I wanted to create a planner that felt like a bullet journal, but without all the time and effort it takes to set one up.
I’ve done all the setup work for you, so you can get to the part that matters the most: getting sh*t done. Planners come in a dated 12-month version or an undated 6-month version, so you can have a planner that works best for your needs.
FAQs
How can I set up monthly bullet journal spreads quickly?
Use functional stickers to make setup quick, and decorative stickers to give your bullet journal spreads personality.
What are functional bullet journal stickers?
Stickers such as vertical number strips, habit trackers, and weekday headers to help streamline your layout setup.
Can I get a beautifully themed journal without designing it myself?
Yes! You can use decorative stickers to create cohesive themes in your journals, or you can use premade planners that come with everything structured, illustrated, and ready to use.
Bullet Journal Setups Don’t Have to Be Complicated
A beautiful and functional journal is within your reach! Whether you take a couple of hours a month to set something up or you opt for a pre-made planner, your bullet journal can be a pleasant and functional tool to help you reach your goals and organize your daily life.
If you do decide to make a bullet journal spread using the tips from this post, I would love to see what you come up with! You can leave a comment below or find me as TabletAndQuill on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
If you’re in the beginning stages of setting up your bullet journal, I’ve got you covered. Check out my post when you’re ready to get started.
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