My 2021 Bookish Bullet Journal set-up!

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Hello Hello! How are you?

It has been a very long time since I have done a post where I talk to you about my bullet journal, and since I have just finished setting up my bookish bullet journal for 2021, I thought I would show you my spreads!

I think I am going to bring this series back and try to post about my bullet journal and share tips with you every month or so, let me know if that would be something you’d like from me!

Let’s have a look at my 2021 bullet journal!

The Bullet Journal and Supplies

This year I have gone for a cheaper bullet journal. I tried this make of notebook a few months ago when setting up my latest university bullet journal and I fell in love with them. They are very simple, but cheap and have such a great quality of pages that I knew I needed one for my bookish bullet journal!

I picked the Stationary Island A5 Dotted Notebook in Apple (green) and as you can see, they have quite a few different colour options! I have the yellow one (Sunflower) for my university bullet journal, the black one for my thesis and the grey one (Slate) as a back-up!

The paper in these notebooks is sort of off-white, it’s such great quality (120gsm) and I haven’t yet found a pen that bleeds through. The notebook also lays nearly completely flat, which is an absolute must for me! it has an elastic band to close it and also a little pocket in the back (that I use to put my post-it notes and my key page in other bullet journals I have).

As supplies go, I’ve gone really simple this year with just pens/pencils in all shades of green that I can lay my hands on in my office, and greys and black. I still use most of the pens that you can find me talking about in this post here. And I’ve also just started using the Crayola Supertips that I love (so many gorgeous colours) and just a basic ballpoint pen for writing in the bullet journal – I had ordered some Muji Gel pens, but my order got cancelled because of Brexit upheavals, so I’ll have to reorder those soon! Now, enough of my waffling about supplies (you can find more of my recommendations in my post I mentioned above), let’s see how I have the notebook set up!

Key and Presentation Page

This is a page that I always spend a lot of time on each year because it’s the first thing I see when I open the book and I love how creative you can go – while keeping the rest of the pages fairly neutral. The one thing I will say about this bullet journal is that the very first dotted page is glued a little higher than the others, so you can’t lay it flat, and this annoys me a lot, but can’t do anything about it!

This year, I’ve gone for a bit of a mash-up of coloured papers and block writing (I have a stencil that I used for this, I’m nowhere near that good at lettering) and although I am never completely satisfied with my presentation pages, I’m quite happy about this one. I also used the same set-up as last year for my Key page and I like how it turned out! I don’t always need this, but sometimes my brain draws a blank, so it is a useful tool to have and be able to turn back to!

Year at a glance page

This is a page that I add to allllllll my bullet journals in all different set-ups and I just change it up every year because I’m still not fully convinced that I need one – but I also DO need one, if you know what I mean. I like how this one turned out, and I mainly use this with my key colour code for book releases, blog tours, author requests and blog posts! I also put a ring around or a strike under a date if there is an event on that day and that I don’t have a colour code for.

How I track my reading

I have also made numerous versions of this page and ones I have done previous years have taken me HOURS. I just could not be bothered with that this year, and I still wanted something that would look nice, so I’ve gone very basic and just given myself the space to add the title/author of every book I read and be able to track the date and rating of each book. I don’t like this as much as my bookcase set up I’ve had before, but this year I was being lazy!

In this section, I have added my spread about Ellie’s TBR Game as it is a way for me to also track my reading – this time just with my physical books. You can read my full post on this new game I made up here, and I just decided to add the banners to this page and leave space to write how many physicals in each genre I manage to knock off my list in 2021. Again, not a favourite page, but it does what I need. Hopefully, next year I’ll have more time to be a bit more creative with my spreads!

How I track readathons, readalongs, reading challenges, buddy reads and book club picks

I’m just going to add a quick blurb about all these pages as I don’t want to make this post as long as my arm. If there is one thing I love – and I think you already know what it is – I LOVE a good tracker and I honestly think that out of all my spreads, they are my favourite to make, but also the most common spreads in all my bujos! I just love tracking things, and it makes my crazy organisation freaky brain happy!

I went for easy pages this year and I like how these turned out. They allow me to track the books I will read for the Middle Grade Marvels Book Club, track the series I want to start and those I want to finish (read my post about this here!), the buddy reads I’ll be doing with some lovely friends, my 2021 reading, blogging and writing goals, along with my Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge and my Popsugar Reading Challenge. I would also really like to read more Classics this year, and I have made myself a list of 21 books I would really like to get to. I am determined to accomplish all these things this year and I hope I will do it!

Other bookish information I like tracking in my bullet journal

Of course, you know I love a good tracker, so why don’t we have some more in this year’s bullet journal? These are also bookish things that I like to track and I have lots of different set-ups here, so not all super simple, but these were really fun to make.

I have numerous lists of books I would like to get one day, but I decided to add a double spread to this year’s bullet journal of mainly the books I would REALLY like to treat myself to. I want to try to not buy many books this year and concentrate on those I already own (this is already kind of failing) but I do want to be able to treat myself when I can afford it, so these books are listed in my wishlist spread for when I’m ready!

I also decided to track my statistics just like I did in last year’s bullet journal as it was SO interesting to see all the information. And I’m being a better-organised person this year as the whole bullet journal is up to date (as of Friday) and I will do my best to keep updating it!

Finally, I like tracking a few other things such as my Book Year in Pixels page where I colour in each day that I read. I was able to read nearly every single day last year, and want to try my best to do so this year too, so far, so good! I also really enjoy seeing what kind of genres I read and this helps me to see if I am staying in my comfort zone or dabbling in a bit of everything – I was able to add some more genres to this list this year, so I’ll say that’s a good thing. My last tracker is a 5-star reads one where I have a stack of books where I’ll write down all the books I gave 5 stars in 2021, I love this page and I hope loads of amazing book will appear here over the year!

How I keep track of my blog posts, reviews and more!

The last type of pages I have in my bullet journal other than monthly pages (stay tuned for this post which will go live in a few weeks!) are spreads that are about my blog or other social media platforms.

I post the same kind of content on my blog most of the time, but sometimes I get some great ideas, so this is the page I’ll record them in and I’m hoping this page will be filled with some good ideas by the end of the year!

Back to my love of trackers (ahahah) I have done spreads to record and track the Netgalley books, author requests and blog tours that I participate in, read and have to review. These pages just keep me accountable and it helps me to see where I’ve posted and where I am yet to post! It also stops me from forgetting that I have a tonne more books to read, instead of acting like they don’t exist just because they are on my Kindle – no more out of sight out of mind for me!

Along with these review trackers, I have another tracker where I will list every single book I read and tick off the places where I have reviewed or featured them, this also helps me to stay on track and remember that reviews have got to be written and posted!

The last spread that I’ll be showing you today is actually one of my favourites I think, and one that I used in my 2020 bullet journal. I found this spread to be very helpful at the end of the month when I’m drafting my monthly wrap-ups and also favourite posts at the end of the year, so I’ve kept it this year, and I really hope that I’ll be able to read more graphic novels, and audiobooks, as those were lacking from my reading last year!

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Well, there you have it! The massive list of spreads I have in my bookish bullet journal to keep track of my reading and other bookish-related things, keep on track with my goals and stay accountable with my blog. I love making spreads in my bullet journal, it is such a relaxing activity and I hope this has helped you or given you some inspiration for your own bullet journal!

I am going to be posting a flip through for my 2021 January bullet journal pages in a few weeks, so stay tuned for that, as I’ve changed some things from my usual set-up!

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this post, see you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx