Uncategorized

Bullet Journal – How to Create a Weekly Spread

Awhile back I posted about my monthly spread.  Now I want to share with you all my weekly spread!  For a brief description of what a bullet journal is, check out the first part of the monthly spread post.  In a future post I’ll go into more details about bullet journaling.  For now, let’s dig right into my bullet journal weekly spread!

My current book is 8″x10″ and is generally larger than what I think most people use.  You can find the one I am using for this post here (currently NOT an affiliated link).  I have enjoyed it quite a bit as my first bullet journal notebook.  The larger size has given me plenty of wiggle room to do what I want with the pages and fine tune it to what I really want.  Plus, how can you not love the cover?!

bullet journal

My younger sister just recently bought me this (currently NOT an affiliated link) one and I’m excited to try it out!  Since it is smaller I will have to make some adjustments, but I like the idea of more portability with the smaller one, and the hard cover to keep corner from becoming bent or worn over time.

“Alright crazy lady, get on with the weekly spread,” is probably what you are thinking at this point.  You are right…let’s move on!

So, what is a weekly spread?  To put it simply, it’s a layout for the 7 days of a week placed onto 1-2 pages.  It can include many other sections, but the jest of it is a layout of 7 days, thus the term “weekly spread.”  Since my current bullet journal has the larger pages, I’m able to fit 5 additional sections.  We’ll get into them in just a bit.

bullet journal, weekly spread

 

As with the monthly spread, I create my own dot grid for each section I need on the pages.  This lets me know exactly where I need to draw lines, reducing the risk of major screw ups.  As you will read in pretty much all my bullet journal posts, I seriously lack in artistic ability.  I can’t even draw a straight line WITH a ruler.  So I need all the help I can get.

 

Once I’ve created my own dot grid, I play connect the dots with a ruler and pen.  Since I like to create a months worth of weeklies in one sitting, I do the dot grid and connecting the dots for each week before I move on.  For me, this is the most time consuming part so I get that out of the way before the start of a new month.  Sometimes the labeling of each box I’ll do just before the week starts incase I need to change the name of one of the extra sections.  This lets me cater it to my needs for each week as they come.

The above image gives you the big picture of what the whole weekly spread looks like in my bullet journal.  I’ll break the pages down in a moment with a bit more details.  First, I want to explain something.  On my monthly spread, I have the calendar drawn out as Sunday-Saturday.  This helps reduce mistakes as I copy an actual calendar.  However, when it comes to the weekly spread, I go Monday-Sunday.  For me, I see a new week as starting on Monday.  When I plan a lot of house projects, or anything else (outside of my day job) that requires a lot of time, I plan it over the weekend.  So it makes sense to me to have Saturday and Sunday near each other in the same week.  On top of that, we generally grocery shop on the weekends, so my menu planning starts for Monday.

Ok, now to explain exactly what I put on these pages.

 

On the first page, I have Monday-Wednesday at the top as well as the date range for the full week.  (I’m sorry friends, I know my handwriting is terrible!  I really did try!)  On the bottom half of the page I have “Brain Dump,” “Goals,” and “Victories and Struggles.”

If you haven’t heard of brain dumping, I highly encourage you check it out and try it.  It’s basically where you just jot every thought that comes to your head.  It doesn’t have to make sense, they don’t have to go together.  You just get them out of your head.  Maybe you go back to the thoughts later when your head is clear, or maybe you just needed to get it out of your head to clear room for more important thoughts.  It is whatever you make it.  The main rule is to just write and not really put too much thought into it.  You can organize it later.

Goals is pretty self explanatory.  Sometimes this becomes more of a goal/tasks section.  It just depends on the week.  But the main purpose of the box is to write down what is most important to focus on that week.  Hmmmm….perhaps I should change that section next week and start labeling it “Focus on.”  I like that idea!

And then there is victories & struggles.  Over the last 6 months or so that I have been bullet journaling, this section has been the “what the heck do I do with this empty box?” section.  I finally decided it would be helpful for me to list things during the week that I struggle with, but overcome.  Or things that maybe I didn’t overcome this week, but will admit defeat on this week and turn it into a victory next week.  It’s like, my “I am human, I fall down.  But I will figure out how to pick myself up again” section.  I haven’t used it a lot yet because it is new in my bullet journal, but I think it’ll be a huge help for me in the long run.

 

Now for the second page of the weekly spread in my bullet journal.  This side I get most excited about!  1.  It has the weekend listed, which is when I have more time to do the things I either need to do outside of my day job, or I get the time to do the things I’m most passionate about! 2.  It has the menu planner for the week!

On my menu planner, I have Monday-Sunday, as stated before.  This is just for dinner, and I just list the main course and side(s).  If it’s coming from a book, I’ll abbreviate the book name and the page number to for a quick reference.  If I have time to find a food related quote, I like to jot that down in the top section of the menu.  Ever since I have created this, it has been easier to keep track of what I plan and when to do prep work.  Monday-Friday is the most important.  With limited time on week nights, I need to know what meats to thaw and when.  I also use this to guide my daily tasks through out the week so I know what ingredients to prep, or if something needs to be cooked the night before.

The last section is just labeled “Notes.”  This is kind of the catch all section of the week.  Maybe it’s a reminder that doesn’t fit under a specific day.  Maybe I feel like jotting down a thought or even that happened that week I don’t want to forget.  Someday it might get a new label, or maybe I’ll get rid of it all together.  But for now it will be where I toss the miscellaneous items that have no home.

Do you currently use a bullet journal?  If so, what is your favorite section in your weekly spread?  If you don’t currently use one, have you thought about what you would put in your weekly spread?

 

 

%d bloggers like this: