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Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal

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Whatever problem you have, there is a Bullet Journal page idea for that, and today we’ll be talking about a page that can really be a game changer for you and your journal.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by life right now? Well, you’re not alone; it’s hard to keep up with everything going on. That’s why I want to share one simple tip that I’ve found incredibly helpful in managing all the chaos: introducing a monthly review!

A monthly review Bullet Journal page can provide structure and promote reflection for any chaotic month, no matter how busy or stressful it might be.

In this blog post, I’ll show you exactly what goes into creating an effective review page and why having one every month is so beneficial for staying organized no matter what’s up with your life.

There are so many Bullet Journal page ideas! It all depends on the person, and really, each one of us uses something different.

The important thing here is not to get overwhelmed and to try to use ALL the pages. You don’t need them all, keep things simple and pick just things that align with you.

That’s why I don’t usually say “you have to have this page in your Bullet Journal”. However, I believe there are pages that benefit everyone, disregarding their goals or the ways they use their Bullet Journals. One of these pages is a monthly review.

Let me walk you through everything you need to know about a monthly review page and why you should consider adding one to your Bullet Journal.

Be sure to scroll until the end to get your freebies and more resources.

What Is A Monthly Review?

A Monthly review spread is a page with an overview of your month. It’s a place for you to summarize the month and reflect on different aspects of your life.

This is a place for you to take all the information from your weeklies, trackers, monthly logs, and such and condense it all to just one page. 

Moreover, this can also be a place for you to plan your next month since looking at your monthly review, you’ll know what you have to do in your life and what changes you might need in your Bullet Journal setup.

27 Coffee Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations & My November Plan With Me, Monthly Recap | Masha Plans

Unlike other monthly pages, the monthly review is usually the last page of any monthly setup. Unless, of course, you don’t do things that linear and add it in the beginning, as I did in my November Bullet Journal setup.

Why Do You Need a Month In Review

Think about it – how often do you go back and think about your trackers and journal entries? You put so much effort into creating and filling out these pages that if you never go back to them, what’s the point?

This is where your monthly review comes to play. As the month goes, a lot of information gets forgotten, but if every month you take a minute to look back and reflect on it, this will help you to constantly improve yourself and prevent you from repeating the same mistakes twice.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal | Masha Plans

A monthly review will help you to learn more about yourself, see your patterns and weak points, plan better, and constantly improve yourself and your life

How is it possible – you’ll see as we move through what you could include in your monthly review.

Monthly Review Journal Prompts

Like everything in your Bullet Journal, a monthly review differs from person to person. One thing that is useful to have in mind, though, is to divide your recap into sections. This way, it will be easier to structure the information and later reflect on it.

Personally, I’ve been playing around with different versions of monthly reviews and eventually came up with these categories: 

  • What I did for my goals
  • What made me happy
  • Monthly gratitude
  • Lessons I learned
  • Monthly Events

Lately, I’ve also been adding my Masha Plans-related statistics and plans to my monthly reviews. This is currently my biggest goal, and it’s very important to me to see it going in the right direction.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal | Masha Plans

Over my experiments, I figured it’s actually pretty useful to keep the same format over some time because when you reflect back, it’s so much easier to follow.

I’m not here to tell you what to include, but I’m definitely here to give you some ideas.

Goals

Of course, the first thing I had to mention is life goals or at least your monthly goals.

Look back at your goals spread at the beginning of the month and see which ones you managed to close and which ones you didn’t.

Then look at your previous monthly goals and see if some goals have been dragging for a long time.

If you closed your goal – fantastic! you go, girl! Or Dude! We don’t discriminate in this Blog! If not, ask yourself these questions:

  • What stopped me from reaching the goal?
  • How can I divide the goal into smaller pieces?
  • Is it at all something I still want?

Think about it when you set your next month’s goals. If something doesn’t work, it might be time for adjustments.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal, spread by @craftyenginerd l | Masha Plans
Credit: @craftyenginerd

Meanwhile, here are some goal-related categories you could add to your monthly review:

  • Win of the month
  • Things you want to change
  • Career progress
  • Personal development
  • Lessons learned

Make sure you review your goals in a positive key and reward yourself for your wins. Instead of writing how bad you were in something, form it in a positive way as a list of things to improve.

All The Good Things

Your monthly review can also be a place for you to write down your best memories and experiences. Here are a few categories you can add:

  • Best this month
  • Reading
  • Favorite song
  • Favorite movie
  • Watching
  • Loving
  • Favorite outfit
  • Eating
  • Creating
  • Wishing for
  • New things I tried
Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal, spread by @emilystudying l | Masha Plans
Credit: @emilystudying

Notes

This is a place for everything and anything. Personally, I think it’s a nice place to do some journaling or to write down some other reflections.

It could also be an action plan for next month or maybe just a space for doodles and a cute motivational quote.

Next Month Bullet Journal Setup

One more thing you could add to your monthly review is an action plan for the next month’s Bullet Journal setup. It can be pretty easy – just write down the theme and what pages you want to add. You can start, of course, by reflecting on your previous month.

First, take a look at your habit trackers. Habit trackers are a useful tool, and we spend so much time filling them out. But this actually is just half of the work you should do with these.

The second step when working with habit trackers is reviewing how you did it. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Which habits I haven’t followed through
  • Which habits I’ve been dragging from month to month
  • Which things have already become a habit, and I don’t need to track
  • How can I change the habits I don’t follow through with to start doing them
  • This will allow you to see your patterns and realize how far you went with your development. It’s so satisfying to realize that some things are already a habit and don’t need to be tracked.

It will also help you think of adjustments you might need to make in your habits. Like if you can’t go to the gym every day, but that’s what you’re tracking, you might end up just not going at all. So decide to go once a week and see your tracker filling out!

Once you’ve reflected on this, you’ll know how you should change your tracking in the next month to make it work better for you.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal, spread by @bluenittany l | Masha Plans
Credit: @bluenittany

Then it’s time to think of your goals and what new spreads you might need to create to work on them better next month. Maybe you need an extra collection or more space for your weekly layouts. Or maybe it’s better for you to switch to dailies.

Look through your previous monthly spreads and reflect on what improvements and changes you might need to make next month to make your Bullet Journal work better for you.

Here are some monthly reflection questions:

  • Which weekly / daily layouts were most functional?
  • Should you use a daily task list or have an hourly schedule?
  • What pages didn’t you use at all?
  • What pages felt like a chore to fill out?
  • What pages helped you to be more productive?

Use all this information to plan your next month better!

What are the Benefits of a Monthly Review?

I hope by now you agree with me that a monthly review can be an incredibly useful tool, but let’s go over some of the benefits again.

It helps us to learn from our actions. On day to day basis, we’re too busy, and we do a lot of things automatically, without even thinking. 

By taking the time to review the month, you put your intentions into it and start seeing the patterns and mistakes you made. This can help you to make changes next month and avoid the same mistakes.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal, spread by @bujo.brookie | Masha Plans
Credit: @bujo.brookie

Also, reflecting on the month and filling out your monthly review with positive memories and achievements helps you to be more grateful. 

I don’t know about you, but I know I take a lot of things for granted. Like good air and clean water – all of these, for me, were just obvious must-haves. Plus, all the other fantastic things and people around me. As life goes on it, all becomes an “of course” kind of thing. 

My life experience has taught me not to take anything for granted, and I do my best always to be grateful. That’s why you can always find some gratitude log in my monthly setups. 

Doing a monthly review has a similar effect – you end up remembering so many good things that you just can’t but feel grateful.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal, spread by @cayaline | Masha Plans
Credit: @cayaline

A monthly review also helps you to develop positive thinking. This is really something I used to struggle with a lot since I’m more of a glass-half-empty person, but a monthly review really helps!

You’ll start to see all your victories and achievements. Even if these are small ones and at that point, they didn’t seem like a big deal, in the monthly log, they look glorious and shiny.

Secondly, by intentionally being positive about your monthly review, you develop a muscle to be generally more positive. As time goes by, the glass starts to look fuller and fuller to me.

Monthly Review Spread - Masha Plans

Here is my monthly review page from March 2022.

I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself, so here I also added a section with lessons and discoveries I made about myself.

Why You Need A Monthly Review Page In Your Bullet Journal, spread by @stephiejournals | Masha Plans
Credit: @stephiejournals

Finally, your monthly review will help you to plan better, especially if you’re a beginner and just trying to figure out the Bullet Journal method and how it can serve you better.

By doing a review of your monthly setup, your goals, and your habit trackers, you learn how you can improve your journaling and create a better planner for yourself.

This post may contain affiliate links. They will be of no extra expense for you, but I receive a small credit. Please see my Disclosure for more details. Thank you for supporting Masha Plans!

Free Bullet Journal Printable

Ready to add a monthly review spread to your Bullet Journal but don’t have time? Don’t you worry! I have you covered.

We have quite a few monthly review printables in our free Resources Vault, you can download them in “Goals and Productivity” section.

If you’re not a part of Planning Mashers yet, be sure to join us in the signup form at the end of the post and get access to a wonderful community and 100+ FREE printables for your Bullet Journal.

If you’ve never used printables before, be sure to check my post How To Use Printables In Your Bullet Journal.

It’s pretty basic, and you can find all the supplies you need in my post Supplies For Using Bullet Journal Printables.

More Resources

A monthly review is a great page to add to your Bullet Journal, and, as you can see, it can help you with so many things, not only planning-related.

Here are a few more posts on pages and concepts that I think will help you move forward with your life and goals:

Hope this post was useful; if you find it so, please share! If you enjoy my content and want to show your appreciation, please consider supporting me with a cup of coffee.

And always remember! Keep Bullet Journaling, and don’t be a Blob! 

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