**A New Year, A New Journal: Organizing My Life with a Minimalist Spread**
I'm excited to share my January monthly spread with you all, and I hope it inspires you to try a new way of organizing your life. As some of you may know, I've been using journaling as a tool to track my habits, moods, expenses, and more for several months now. This month, I decided to try something a bit different, with a minimalist theme that I'm really enjoying.
**My Habit Tracker**
First up is my habit tracker. I have a box for every day of the month, each one numbered to make it easy to keep track. The idea is simple: every time I complete a task or habit, I color in that box. It's a great way to see at a glance how well I'm doing and identify areas where I need to improve. This year, I've narrowed down my habits to just four, which I think will make it easier to stick to them. As always, the goal is to be more consistent and productive, so we'll see how this month goes.
**My Mood Tracker**
Next is my mood tracker, a little squiggly of steam that represents each day of the month. I have a color guide at the bottom to help me choose the right shade for how I'm feeling. It's amazing how much just looking back at my moods can help me see patterns and trends. This year, I've decided to use a rainbow of steam, which I think will be really cool. We'll see if it helps me feel more positive and focused throughout the month.
**My Expenses Page**
Moving on to my expenses page, this is a straightforward but important part of keeping track of my money. Every month, I try to budget myself and stick to my plan, which can be tough especially in the first few weeks when I'm excited about all the new things I want to buy (hello, January shopping season!). This year, I've decided to use the same format as before, but with a little bit of extra flair. I cut out a piece of cardstock paper and stuck it on the page, which makes everything feel more organized and less cluttered.
**My Coloring Book Page**
This is where things get really fun! As some of you know, I'm a big fan of coloring books and the relaxing feeling they bring me. This month, I decided to incorporate my love of color into my journaling routine by adding a page from a beautiful winter-themed coloring book. It's been a great way to unwind and express myself creatively, and I love how it adds a pop of color to an otherwise minimalist spread.
**My Brain Dump Page**
Finally, I have a little brain dump page where I can jot down any thoughts or ideas that come up during the month. This is my go-to space for brainstorming and exploring new ideas, which helps me stay organized and focused throughout the year. Sometimes, it's just nice to have a place to collect all those little scraps of paper and notes that keep floating around in my head.
**My Weekly Spreads**
Finally, I have a few weekly spreads that will help me break down my month into manageable chunks. This is where I'll plan out my tasks, appointments, and activities for the week ahead. It's amazing how much just having a clear plan can help me feel more grounded and focused.
**A Word on Minimalism**
This month, I've decided to go with a minimalist theme that feels really liberating. Sometimes, less is more, and this year I'm determined to prove it to myself (and my calendar). Whether or not this style will work for the rest of the year remains to be seen, but I do know one thing: I'm excited to see how it makes me feel.
**Conclusion**
That's it for my January monthly spread! I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I'm working with, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. What are some things you're trying in your journaling or organizational routine this month? Share your ideas and tips in the comments below – I'm always up for a new challenge. Until next time, stay organized and beautiful!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up everybody I'm Steph Koza and I'm here with another bullet journal spread of the month video and this video is very special because we're heading into the New Year of 2018 starting in January and that means we're getting rid of this new year new journal new year new me actually I lied I'm gonna show you a flip through of my December spread to show you how it turned out and then we're gonna throw that journal away okay December December what a month I will say I absolutely love the way that this mood tracker turned out I think it's absolutely stunning however I kind of got confused by it while it's very pretty and aesthetically pleasing it's not very practical and it's kind of confusing and doesn't really make sense it's hard to tell which day is which especially as it gets further and further out you just i didn't number anything so it kind of just turned into a coloring book page after a while and then my habit tracker is the same as always though I'm thinking I'm gonna change it up this month I'm getting kind of sick of coloring in little squares every day next on to my expenses and my Christmas gifts this was pretty standard and I've blurred out pretty much everything because I have all my Christmas gifts on here and if people see what I bought them that's gonna be very unfortunate for me also low-key ashamed of how much money I spent this Christmas and I don't want to tell anyone and then my weekly spreads I actually to be honest didn't use my journal that much this month as you can see it's kind of blank I think it's just because it's the holiday season and I was traveling a lot I was very busy but now it's on to the new journal this is my new bullet journal and I'm very excited about it the journal that I have is very similar to the journal that I used for 2017 which was a life term life term I think you have to say it with a lot of flim like last term so for this video I'm actually gonna be setting up my whole journal not just January but all the stuff that I refer to all year round so on the first page I like to put sticky notes and things that I can pull from at any given time whenever I need them it's just nice to have like a little supply of things then skipping a few pages later I am going to add a little 2018 cover page so I'm just taking a piece of scrapbook paper I cut it to the right size and I'm just gonna draw 20:18 on it and then I'm gonna add my New Year's resolutions all over the page just for a little inspiration next is my future log your feature log is pretty much just your calendar for the year it's a nice place to write down any event that you have in the future at any time throughout the year like if you're planning a big vacation and it's four months away but you still need to write it down it's just nice to see every month the whole year in one nice neat place so here is where I like to put my lists I have a lot of lists that I keep throughout the year and it's just nice to have a solid place for them so the first page is a books to read page and I kind of like them to look cool I think it's just more fun obviously you can make it look however you want but for me I'm gonna make it look like a bookshelf and it's gonna have a bunch of empty books with no titles and as I discover more books I can just write them in on the spine and after I read them I'm gonna color them in so hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a fully colored page of books that I've read that I'm doing the same thing with music I'm just drawing a bunch of vinyl records and I'll fill them in as I go the next list is my movies to watch page I'm just gonna draw a bunch of film reels and my last list is my TV shows list I kind of got a little bit lazy when I got to this page I was a little tired of drawing so I just made a big box and turned it into a TV and that's where I will just dump all of the TV shows that I want to watch now we are moving on to January the first month of 2018 but I wanted to go for a bit more of a structured calendar a little bit different than any other calendar I've ever made very boxy kind of minimalist but with a little bit of flair so in my last video I asked you guys what theme you thought I should go with for the month of January and the winning theme that a lot of people suggested was a new year's theme with fireworks and gold and confetti so that's what we're doing this month next is my mood tracker the runner-up theme for this month that I did get some suggestions for it was hot cocoa and warm and cozy snow and stuff like that so for my mood tracker I decided to go with a cup of steaming hot cocoa and I'm going to track my days through the little squiggles of steam I think that'll look really cool just like a rainbow of steam next is my habit tracker and I decided to go with a little bit of a different theme this month and I also cut down my habits because every month I have a ton of habits to track and it ends up just being an annoying task to do every day it just kind of ends up annoying me more than helping me so I narrowed it down to four habits this month now since this is a new journal I kind of wanted to re-explain everything to you guys in case some of you don't really know what these things are because I have gotten comments in the past where people don't know how to use a mood tracker I have a tracker so basically these are just ways to keep track of how you're doing throughout the month and you can kind of take note of where your weaknesses are where your strengths are and just kind of work on yourself so for example in the mood tracker in this case I have a little string of steam for every day of the month so I have 31 lines and at the bottom of my cup I have a little color guide of my moods to choose from so if I'm feeling very sad that day I'll color dark brown and if I'm feeling really happy that day I'll color it bright red and if my mood is somewhere in the middle I color it somewhere in the middle so then at the end of the month I can look back and see generally how I was feeling that month and reflect on that and then for the habit tracker I have a box for every day of the month each one is numbered to make it a little bit easier and it's essentially like a checklist so every day if I completed these tasks or these habits I color in that box and then at the end of the month I can see how well I did I have never filled in every box never in my life next is my expenses page pretty much looks the same every month but if you're new to this this is basically exactly what it sounds like it's a place to write down my expenses to keep track of my money and make sure I don't just blow all of my money because I do that a lot and then I didn't really know what to do on the other page so I just took this little piece of cardstock paper that I cut out of like a scrapbook thing and I stuck it on the page then on the next page I decided to do something a little bit different this month I am really into coloring books I find it very relaxing so I took a page from a coloring book that kind of fit my theme it's very snowy wintery I cut it out and I put it down and I can just color whenever I feel like it also I get a lot of comments about what this magical tool is that I'm using which is this this is my favorite thing I highly recommend it it'll change your life I don't even know what it's called it's called glue tape got it on Amazon for like four dollars but it is the best invention ever and then on the other page I just put another piece of that cardstock paper to just add some notes kind of like a little brain dump page cuz I realized well you just need to write something down you have nowhere to put it all right on to my weekly spreads so like I said this month is very boxy I'm into the box thing I don't really know why it's just what I'm feeling right now and I just decided to add a bunch of fireworks and stars and confetti to go with my whole new year's theme especially since this is the first week of January I'm going a little crazy but the fireworks it's fine everything is fine and then my next few pages are a little bit simpler because I don't want it to be too elaborate I don't wanna have to take too much time to do this because this is supposed to organize in my life not take up a ridiculous amount of time in my life because the reason I have this journal is cuz I don't have a lot of time so I'm going with a little bit more of a minimalist theme this month and maybe for the rest of the year I don't really know we'll see how it goes maybe I'll do a whole month with just a strictly minimalist theme no color nothing just easy but still aesthetically pleasing it has to be aesthetically pleasing that's the whole point anyways that is it for my January monthly spread I hope you guys liked it and thank you guys so much for contributing that awesome New Year's Eve theme I had a lot of fun creating it I really like the way that it looks let me know what you guys think I should do for February steam and I will see you guys next month byehey what's up everybody I'm Steph Koza and I'm here with another bullet journal spread of the month video and this video is very special because we're heading into the New Year of 2018 starting in January and that means we're getting rid of this new year new journal new year new me actually I lied I'm gonna show you a flip through of my December spread to show you how it turned out and then we're gonna throw that journal away okay December December what a month I will say I absolutely love the way that this mood tracker turned out I think it's absolutely stunning however I kind of got confused by it while it's very pretty and aesthetically pleasing it's not very practical and it's kind of confusing and doesn't really make sense it's hard to tell which day is which especially as it gets further and further out you just i didn't number anything so it kind of just turned into a coloring book page after a while and then my habit tracker is the same as always though I'm thinking I'm gonna change it up this month I'm getting kind of sick of coloring in little squares every day next on to my expenses and my Christmas gifts this was pretty standard and I've blurred out pretty much everything because I have all my Christmas gifts on here and if people see what I bought them that's gonna be very unfortunate for me also low-key ashamed of how much money I spent this Christmas and I don't want to tell anyone and then my weekly spreads I actually to be honest didn't use my journal that much this month as you can see it's kind of blank I think it's just because it's the holiday season and I was traveling a lot I was very busy but now it's on to the new journal this is my new bullet journal and I'm very excited about it the journal that I have is very similar to the journal that I used for 2017 which was a life term life term I think you have to say it with a lot of flim like last term so for this video I'm actually gonna be setting up my whole journal not just January but all the stuff that I refer to all year round so on the first page I like to put sticky notes and things that I can pull from at any given time whenever I need them it's just nice to have like a little supply of things then skipping a few pages later I am going to add a little 2018 cover page so I'm just taking a piece of scrapbook paper I cut it to the right size and I'm just gonna draw 20:18 on it and then I'm gonna add my New Year's resolutions all over the page just for a little inspiration next is my future log your feature log is pretty much just your calendar for the year it's a nice place to write down any event that you have in the future at any time throughout the year like if you're planning a big vacation and it's four months away but you still need to write it down it's just nice to see every month the whole year in one nice neat place so here is where I like to put my lists I have a lot of lists that I keep throughout the year and it's just nice to have a solid place for them so the first page is a books to read page and I kind of like them to look cool I think it's just more fun obviously you can make it look however you want but for me I'm gonna make it look like a bookshelf and it's gonna have a bunch of empty books with no titles and as I discover more books I can just write them in on the spine and after I read them I'm gonna color them in so hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a fully colored page of books that I've read that I'm doing the same thing with music I'm just drawing a bunch of vinyl records and I'll fill them in as I go the next list is my movies to watch page I'm just gonna draw a bunch of film reels and my last list is my TV shows list I kind of got a little bit lazy when I got to this page I was a little tired of drawing so I just made a big box and turned it into a TV and that's where I will just dump all of the TV shows that I want to watch now we are moving on to January the first month of 2018 but I wanted to go for a bit more of a structured calendar a little bit different than any other calendar I've ever made very boxy kind of minimalist but with a little bit of flair so in my last video I asked you guys what theme you thought I should go with for the month of January and the winning theme that a lot of people suggested was a new year's theme with fireworks and gold and confetti so that's what we're doing this month next is my mood tracker the runner-up theme for this month that I did get some suggestions for it was hot cocoa and warm and cozy snow and stuff like that so for my mood tracker I decided to go with a cup of steaming hot cocoa and I'm going to track my days through the little squiggles of steam I think that'll look really cool just like a rainbow of steam next is my habit tracker and I decided to go with a little bit of a different theme this month and I also cut down my habits because every month I have a ton of habits to track and it ends up just being an annoying task to do every day it just kind of ends up annoying me more than helping me so I narrowed it down to four habits this month now since this is a new journal I kind of wanted to re-explain everything to you guys in case some of you don't really know what these things are because I have gotten comments in the past where people don't know how to use a mood tracker I have a tracker so basically these are just ways to keep track of how you're doing throughout the month and you can kind of take note of where your weaknesses are where your strengths are and just kind of work on yourself so for example in the mood tracker in this case I have a little string of steam for every day of the month so I have 31 lines and at the bottom of my cup I have a little color guide of my moods to choose from so if I'm feeling very sad that day I'll color dark brown and if I'm feeling really happy that day I'll color it bright red and if my mood is somewhere in the middle I color it somewhere in the middle so then at the end of the month I can look back and see generally how I was feeling that month and reflect on that and then for the habit tracker I have a box for every day of the month each one is numbered to make it a little bit easier and it's essentially like a checklist so every day if I completed these tasks or these habits I color in that box and then at the end of the month I can see how well I did I have never filled in every box never in my life next is my expenses page pretty much looks the same every month but if you're new to this this is basically exactly what it sounds like it's a place to write down my expenses to keep track of my money and make sure I don't just blow all of my money because I do that a lot and then I didn't really know what to do on the other page so I just took this little piece of cardstock paper that I cut out of like a scrapbook thing and I stuck it on the page then on the next page I decided to do something a little bit different this month I am really into coloring books I find it very relaxing so I took a page from a coloring book that kind of fit my theme it's very snowy wintery I cut it out and I put it down and I can just color whenever I feel like it also I get a lot of comments about what this magical tool is that I'm using which is this this is my favorite thing I highly recommend it it'll change your life I don't even know what it's called it's called glue tape got it on Amazon for like four dollars but it is the best invention ever and then on the other page I just put another piece of that cardstock paper to just add some notes kind of like a little brain dump page cuz I realized well you just need to write something down you have nowhere to put it all right on to my weekly spreads so like I said this month is very boxy I'm into the box thing I don't really know why it's just what I'm feeling right now and I just decided to add a bunch of fireworks and stars and confetti to go with my whole new year's theme especially since this is the first week of January I'm going a little crazy but the fireworks it's fine everything is fine and then my next few pages are a little bit simpler because I don't want it to be too elaborate I don't wanna have to take too much time to do this because this is supposed to organize in my life not take up a ridiculous amount of time in my life because the reason I have this journal is cuz I don't have a lot of time so I'm going with a little bit more of a minimalist theme this month and maybe for the rest of the year I don't really know we'll see how it goes maybe I'll do a whole month with just a strictly minimalist theme no color nothing just easy but still aesthetically pleasing it has to be aesthetically pleasing that's the whole point anyways that is it for my January monthly spread I hope you guys liked it and thank you guys so much for contributing that awesome New Year's Eve theme I had a lot of fun creating it I really like the way that it looks let me know what you guys think I should do for February steam and I will see you guys next month bye\n"
