Click to listen!
|
Hello Hello! How are you all?
Iâm so happy to be doing this post today, itâs the third one in the series and Iâm having so much fun writing the posts. I had to move this along a few days because I needed to finish a few things in my bullet journal, but Iâm really happy with what I came up with and the updates I made!
If you are interested in reading all about bullet journaling, if it’s for you, what you need, how to start and you need more inspiration, you can read my first post here and my second post here. I think that these posts are also a great way to keep me on the ball with my bullet journal because although Iâve been updating it every week and adding spreads, Iâve only done them in pencil and havenât gone over them in pen (oops!). I had a lovely bullet journaling session yesterday and Iâm so glad I found the time to do some more.
Obviously, my bullet journal is solely bookish. And in my bookish bullet journal, I track everything from my calendar, author requests, blog tours, I keep track of my reading for every day of the year, I write my TBRs, blog ideas, quotes, but one of my favourite spreads to do in my bullet journal is a tracker spread! You can have a tracker for just about anything in your own bullet journal, it doesnât have to be about books. I have a tracker in my first ever bullet journal for my mood, my health, films and TV shows I want to watch, series I want to read, you can track your sport and exercise, your weight, your childrenâs growth or schoolwork, you can track anything if you actually make the spread.
So, since life is very complicated at the moment and we canât do what we usually do, we are stuck indoors and donât have much joy in our lives, I thought that a post about reading trackers could be great to inspire you all to actually make some spreads like mine, but also read more! Youâre going to understand that Iâm a bit of an organisation freak, I probably donât look like one, but inside, the cogs are whizzing around day and night.
I was a bit sceptical when doing my bullet journal last year and didnât really know what to track. I have some ongoing trackers in my previous bujo for series I want to read, TV shows, etc, but I didnât want to clog this bujo up this year with endless pages of books or shows I wanted to get to, so instead, I decided to concentrate on this year. This is going to be a post in two parts because Iâm a crazy person who has way too many spreads in her bujo, this is part one, I hope you enjoy! Keep reading to see my different spreads.
Trackers in My Bullet Journal
Yearly Goals and Goodreads Reading Challenge Trackers

This is the first page of trackers in my bullet journal, you may have already seen it in last monthâs post, I just wanted to add it here again because I think itâs one of the most important trackers to have in a bullet journal. Whether your bullet journal is for your hobbies, your personal life, your professional life, or anything else, a yearly goal page is a really great thing to have to keep you on track, keep pushing you to achieve your goal and strive for success. I realised that I had accomplished another goal this year, to participate in 2 readathons (that arenât the Hype-A-Thon Readathon that I co-host with Noly).
Youâll see this a lot in my bullet journal: I always colour something in with the colour of the month in which I accomplished a goal, read a book, finished a deadline etc. As you can see on the Goodreads Reading Challenge page, the books I read in January are in pink, February in purple, March in brown and April in blue! I really like how the same colours follow on every spread so I can see my evolution each month and workout my best months in terms of productivity at the end of the year.
My Books Read in 2020 Tracker

This is my favourite tracker to create each year and I always change it up a little. This year I decided on a double-page that looks like a library with a window seat and I just love how this turned out. Iâm not a very good artist by any means, but I can do straight lines aha! You can see here the names of the books that I read this year so far, coloured in according to the month I read them, Iâm so excited to see the whole bookcase coloured in at the end of the year!
There are so many other ways to track your yearly reading, it doesnât have to be a really complicated and long spread to do like this one (it took hours if you were wondering); you can simply write a list with each title, author, month; or you can save a few pages at the start or end of the bujo and stick in a photo of the cover of each book you read, it really is up to you!
2020 in Review Tracker

This may look similar to some of you, I watched a lot of Chloeâs (Books With Chloe) bullet journal videos last year and this spread really stuck in my head for some reason, I thought it was such a good idea, so I took some inspiration from it and made it my own with some doodles and a splash of colour here and there. You can probably tell that I didnât think I would listen to audiobooks when I started this spread in December, hence the weird add on of â/ABâ on every line aha! I promise next year Iâll make it work better!
You donât need to do a spread like this, but Iâm a very organised person and I like things divided up into categories, so this is why I liked adding this little extra tracker to really look at what types of books I read during the year. I think itâs working out fairly well so far.
Monthly Overview and Wall of Faves Tracker

Again, this is another spread that I was inspired to create after watching Chloeâs videos, but I decided to make it my own and change up the way I showed the favourite book of each month. Instead of writing it out, I decided to print out each cover on my Paperang, my little portable printer. I love my little printer so much, it doesnât do colour, which is a shame and sometimes the pictures look a bit grainy, but I think it gives it a bit of a vintage look, so Iâm not complaining. Because Iâm a crazy person, I even stuck in each cover with washi tape to match the colour of the month!
Statistics Tracker

This is a spread that I was inspired to make because of Kaylaâs (Books And Lala) bullet journal videos on YouTube. I really liked her idea but I totally changed up what I wrote down the side and the order. I havenât drawn a line right across the page because Iâm hoping to be able to make a tally at the end of June. I really like the little black accent at the front, I actually did this so my eyes didn’t end up going crossways when I was doing the lines, but I actually think it gives it an edge aha! I also realised that my brain failed me and I wrote July when I meant June, so Iâll go ahead and fix that next time I have a bullet journaling session.
Iâve never really looked at what books I read over a year but making this spread, I was really surprised. I havenât had any 1 or 2 star reads this year, so thatâs promising, Iâve read quite a lot of backlog books and also a fair few ânew to meâ authors. Iâm hoping that by the end of the year with this tracker and the July to December tracker Iâll make in a few months, Iâll be able to see which genres I havenât read much so I can try to broaden my horizons in 2021.
Top 20 Books of 2020 and 6 Classics in 2020 Trackers

This double page is probably the one that I absolutely need to work on the most! I decided to add this as a tracker, because with this spread, I am tracking goals to accomplish by the end of the year, namely, reading more classics and backlist books. Iâve already read 2 of my Top 20s this year so far, and Iâve read a few classics but I donât think theyâll make the cut for this page unless I run out of time to read loads more aha!
Iâve seen so many people do Top 20 in 2020, I think the idea is to add one thing for each year, so next year will be Top 21 in 2021 and so on and so forth. As you can probably guess, this was the hardest list Iâve ever compiled in my life, but Iâm quite determined to pull it off!
2020 Genre Tracker and 2020 5 Star Reads Tracker

I love how this double page turned out too. When I started my genre tracker, it was a bit sad and looked a bit too basic for my liking, but since then Iâve added some stickers and I think it looks fab! I also think itâs going to be a great page to look back on at the end of the year and Iâm sure Iâm going to be really surprised. Iâve read quite a range of genres already in January, February, and March. I’m looking forward to adding my April reads because I’ve also read a range of different genres this month! I hope I can fill in each line by the end of the year.
One thing that Iâve realised and that you will also probably realise if you make spreads like these in your own bullet journal is that a lot of the time, itâs a case of trial and error. When I first made these spreads in late December-early January, they seemed perfect and fit my needs, but already 4 months into the year, I now know that Iâm actually reading other genres than what Iâve put on the list, so I know for next year that Iâll be able to add even more genres in my next tracker! You canât beat yourself up about stuff like this, just go with the flow and everything will be fine.
My last tracker for this post is my 2020 5 star reads. Iâve seen so many people do this in the past, I knew I wanted to make my own and I actually love how it turned out. Again, you can see the different colour divides for each month, I think it will be a great way to look back at the end of the year and see how many 5 star books I read each month! This is also the list from which I will compile my top 10 of 2020 and also pick my favourite book of the year, eeeek!
So, those are all the trackers for part 1. If you thought that was a lot, you havenât seen next monthâs trackers! I know that Iâm a bit over the top with my trackers, but they really help me stay organised, keep on top of my goals and achieve them and I love any excuse to get the bujo out for a little session!
If you see any spreads you like, feel free to use inspiration, but please donât copy them totally, it took me a lot of time to make them my own and it would really be hurtful to see an exact copy of my own hard work!
Thatâs all for now, I hope you enjoyed this post and you will find inspiration from my trackers. See you soon, stay safe,
Ellie xx
That is great! OMG, Forget Me Not was a March favorite!â€â€â€
My favorite spreads are the Library one for your books to read in 2020 and the genre tracker.
Awesome and inspiring post, as usual, Ellie!
Yes yes yes!!! â€â€â€ thank you darling!
This post is really helpful! I also have a bullet journal that is only bookish. But since I didn’t have a blog until this year I didn’t make very needed spreads. I have some of these in my bujo (books read in 2020 tracker, goodreads reading challenge tracker, genre tracker, etc) but this post gave me some very good ideas to add more spreads to it! I’ll definitely keep reading these kind of posts!
Aww thank you so much hunny! I’d love to see your bullet journal, I’m sure its beautiful!!
Love your bullet journal!
Thank you!!
I love bullet journaling but I always end up forgetting about it for two or three months before coming back and starting over đ€Łđ€Ł
Ahah, that happened to me before too! You should do some more, especially with your beautiful artwork, I’m sure it’s beautiful đ„°
This look amazing! Great job! It must be so relaxing. I wish I had the time to try it myself đ
Thank you!!! I hope one day you find time, it’s so therapeutic đ„°
These are all amazing! I’ve tried doing a bullet journal a couple times but I didn’t have time to keep up with it and now that I have time I realized I left it back at my parents’ along with my markers and stamps etc.
Oh no that’s such a shame. Hopefully when alm this is over you might find time to do some more!
Thank you!!
This is super impressive! I really need to get a notebook for work. Right now I have a ton of sticky notes and I love crossing things off lists so it gets really messy fast. Great post!
Aww thank you Brooke!! Yeah, me too, but since I’ve got my bullet journal it’s so much easier! Thank you đ„°
I love bullet journaling. Iâve been doing it for about 3 years now and I find it so helpful to keep track of things.
Awesome post Ellie! đ
I do to! I’ve only been doing it for about 1 year and a half continually but it’s really helped and it’s such a great creative outlet. Thank you!!!
These look so good! I’m getting some inspriation for my journal as well – I probably only have a couple months left in mine before I get a new journal so I’m looking forward to making some new spreads!
Awww thank you so much Julie! That’s so kind! I’m actually quickly running out of pages and I might need to buy a new one soon aha!! I’d love to see some of your spreads one day, I’m sure they are beautiful! đ
This is such a helpful post đ
I’m so glad! đ