I finally looked back at my first bullet journal from 2018

It was just a basic black notebook with messy weekly logs and a few half finished trackers. My spreads now have color coded monthly calendars, a dedicated finance page, and a consistent habit tracker I actually use. The shift happened about two years ago when I stopped trying to copy intricate spreads from Instagram. I started focusing on what I would actually look at each day. Has anyone else simplified their system and had it stick better?

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paul2516mo ago

Honestly, it's just a notebook. The whole culture around perfect spreads and trackers seems like a lot of pressure for something meant to remind you to buy milk.

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parker_thomas6mo ago

Yeah, and you see these videos where someone's grocery list looks like a museum piece. Like @paul251 said, it's just a notebook. My to-do list is a mess of scribbles and half my trackers are blank by Wednesday. Who has the time to color-code a mood chart every single night? The pressure to make it pretty just makes me not want to open the thing at all.

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alice_palmer205mo ago

Totally feel that. My own bullet journal has pages where I just wrote "ugh" in big letters and gave up. All those perfect habit trackers online make my messy checklists look like a toddler did them. Sometimes the best system is the one you actually use, even if it's just a post-it note with "laundry???" on it.

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