Plan With Me: September Bullet Journal Setup
The year is flying by. I can’t believe it’s already Fall. But I’m super happy about it.
Even though I don’t exactly love Autumn in Beijing, I do enjoy the season and all the amazing things that come with it (red leaves, comfy sweaters, and colorful scarves), which reminds me, it’s time to add some reds and golds to my journal!
Here is what I came up with for my September Bullet Journal theme!
Choosing what to do for this month was a very hard task. I came up with a list of 15 stunning Fall Bullet Journal theme ideas, and I still couldn’t find the one which would tickle my fancy.
And given that my August Unicorn Theme was such a success, I felt a tiny bit pressured. All things considered, though, I think I did a pretty kick-ass job.
Let’s dive into it.
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September Theme for my Bullet Journal
The idea for the general topic came from a sticker company called No Kids Stickers. A while ago, they sent me some stickers for a tryout, and I actually still had a few sheets left.
As you know, I don’t work with stickers that much, but these were extremely adorable and good-looking, so I felt like challenging myself and shaking up things for once.
If you think my theme for September is stickers – you are only half right. The stickers I have are actually animation themed – it’s an artistic take on different animated characters (yes, my theme is an animation). How does this all relates to Fall?
Well it doesn’t really…
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But a lot of the stickers are in Fall color scheme, so I think I made it work.
Bullet Journal Supplies
Here are the supplies I used for my setup this month.
As always my notebook is Nuuna, and I’m still enjoying its large pages (my Nuuna journal is bigger than standard A5, so I can fit all I need for the month in just 2-3 pages!).
For pens, I only used Sakura Pigma Micron. And as for color, I used Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Kuretake Zig Fudebiyori in different orange tones.
Cover Page
This is what I call artistic madness! I just added that huge Tottoro sticker. Then decided I should probably add the name of the month.
Then I thought it needed more Fall colors. And even more. And I just couldn’t control myself and ended up filling the whole page with my own doodles.
I quite like how it turned out. And I know I’ll love this cover page for a long time, since Tottoro is one of my favorite animated movies. Don’t have stickers for your own Tottoro page? Don’t worry, check out the tutorial below.
Monthly Page
I decided to roll with the Gibli studio animated movies theme then, mostly because these ones really went so prettily with the orange I wanted to use for the headers.
As always, I used a very small calendar and left some space to write all the important dates and appointments. The only different thing I did for this month, was leaving a whole half page for my to-do list.
This month I really have a lot of things to do, including something special for the blog. And I realized that last month I didn’t have enough space to write it all. So you can consider this my September Master List.
Monthly Productivity Pages And Habit Tracker
Of course, every month I include certain pages which help me to be more productive and have a happier life. In my case, this means having there a habit tracker and my monthly goals.
These are the only two that stayed with me through all my experiments.
A lot of things have been changing in my life, so I needed to create something new, that would help me to stay on track. Therefore, this month I’m switching back to some old formats, but in a redesigned form.
I have a new habit tracker. This month I have lots of things to track – not because I have new habits I’m working on, but because I have a lot of daily things I just forget to do. Plus, I really want to have a monthly understanding of my working habits.
Therefore in September I decided on a vertical format – it will allow me to track more things and give at a glance impression on how I’m doing. Like my April healthy day tracker, but this time I won’t be tracking just health-related habits.
My goals got an upgrade. To begin with, I decided to make the goals section smaller. I found that some things I write in my goals are actually simply to do’s. So I decided the best way to fight it is to have limited space – this will make me write only the essence of what I plan to achieve that month.
I also added weekly check-ups on my goals. I tried to do weekly reviews in June, but it didn’t work, simply because I had too much space to write and no time to even do something goal-related (yeah, June was rough!). But after I saw a “plan with me video” from Erin, the Petite Planner, I realized that I still can come back to this format, but keep it very simple – just a sentence or two.
My life has been through a lot of changes lately, and with all the chaos surrounding it right now, I still want to keep an eye on my goals and work towards my dream. I hope these weekly recaps will help me stay motivated and change my schedule until I establish that one perfect routine.
And a bit off topic – don’t you just love that little cat! I specifically added it there to watch over my checkups and challenge me to do better next week, with it’s judging stare!
So far all the pages for inspired by studio Ghibli movies. For more inspirations be sure to check my post Studio Ghibli Bullet Journal Ideas.
Content Plan
As a blogger (ok maybe a hobby blogger, but still), I’ve been having a content plan in my every monthly setup. I usually don’t share those, because they are very simple and functional, nothing pretty. But this time I decided to make it more fun!
Lumpy Space Princess is my all-time favorite character on anything and everything! (Disclaimer: I might have exaggerated a little bit with that last statement) So seeing her always brings a smile to my face. But who is there in the middle of the page? Extra point for you if you can guess what a naughty princess this one is!
If you are wondering about the format, let me explain. Planning something for every day didn’t work out for me. Sometimes, on the day, I get a better idea on what to post, or maybe I do research and understand this isn’t the good time for the post I’ve planned. All this piles up and turns into quite a mess on the page.
So what I’ll be doing is writing down all my post and pages ideas, and then choosing on the day. That way, I avoid the mess, and I still get a clear idea of what I did and when.
Other Monthly Pages
To end this post, I wanted to talk a little bit about why I got rid of some elements from my previous months. If you look at my previous months, you’ll notice I usually have many more pages.
I used to play with gratitude logs, sleep and mood trackers, a line a-day, a time tracker, and so many more. Those were all very fun, but something I learned – at one point they became more of a chore, than a thing to help me live a better life.
So I decided to cut out all the spreads and ideas that weren’t really working for me, or helping me in any way, and just kept the most essential ones.
Weekly Spreads
September was a fun month for my weeklies – I tried so many different formats!
That’s about it for September. What about you? Do you have your theme already? What pages do you use on a monthly basis? Looking forward to seeing your replies in the comment section below.
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And remember: Keep Bullet Journaling, and Don’t Be A Blob.
