Starting a NEW Bullet Journal?!

(mellow music)

- Hello everyone. It's Amanda. Welcome back to my channel.

Today's the day, since it is June,

we are wrapping up the first six months of 2021

which means that I am almost at the end

of my current bullet journal.

To be exact, I think I have about five pages left.

So today I'm gonna be switching into a brand new notebook,

setting all of that up.

By the way, if you're confused as to where I am,

because I'm not in my regular background

or my regular apartment,

you probably haven't seen my update video.

I recommend you check that out if you're curious

or if you have any questions,

but yes, I'm not in Toronto or my apartment,

which is kind of perfect for this video

because it's new bullet journal, new city,

fresh start, all of that.

I'm gonna be switching into this guy right here.

I chose this color.

This is the slate gray from Shop AmandaRachLee,

the new collection that we just launched.

It has the nice colored edges.

I feel like my bullet journals

always have kind of a color scheme.

Like last year, both of them were blue.

This year, we're going dark and sleek.

So that's what I'm going to be switching into today.

We're gonna be cracking open the new notebook,

which is always so satisfying.

Like just hearing the spine crack.

(spine cracks) Oh yeah.

So I'm gonna be showing you guys

what I'm transferring over into this bullet journal.

All of these spreads, all of that.

If you're also switching into a new bullet journal soon,

then let me know in the comments.

Also, I've done about four of these videos before,

one for every year that I bullet journaled

because I always kind of switch into a new notebook

around this time of the year.

So if you still need some more inspiration

after watching this one, I'll link all of those down below.

But I just kind of wanna get started in the new notebook.

So let's go.

Okay, so it's that time, time to switch into a new notebook.

This notebook has done me well for the first half of 2021.

Definitely have filled it up with some fun spreads,

and a lot of memories, but we're moving on to a new one.

Thank you, next, if you will.

This, for the second half of the year,

I'm using the slate gray Shop AmandaRachLee dotted notebook

with the colored edge.

I'm obsessed with the colored edge.

By the way, I'll leave a little coupon code

in case you are looking for a new notebook

for the second half of the year

and you wanna grab the same one as mine.

You wanna twin with me.

So check it out in the description box down below.

But let's open it up into the name page.

You guys know this is like,

I feel like this is the best part

about opening up a new blank notebook

is just like cracking open that spine.

Hearing the sound, and then just writing that first word.

So I'm just writing my name.

By the way, just as a warning for this video,

I don't have my usual lighting setup in Vancouver with me.

So if the lighting changes a lot,

or if it's not as clear it usually is in my other videos,

that's why I wish I could have brought

all the lighting stuff, but you know, it is what it is.

I just thought I would try to get this video up

as best as I could.

So the first spread that I am transferring over

in to my new bullet journal is,

of course, my handy-dandy grid space guide.

You guys know I always use this

and I always put it on the very first page on the left side,

which makes it really easy for me to flip to

whenever I'm creating a spread

and I want to reference any grid spacing dilemmas.

If you're curious as to how I use this spread,

because I always get so many questions

about grid spacing guides and all of that,

I will leave a video that I did

actually explaining how I use this,

but I just did the exact same setup

as the first half of the year.

Before I show you guys the rest of the spreads,

I wanted to quickly think Aura for sponsoring today's video.

If you guys haven't heard of Aura yet,

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for mental wellbeing and sleep.

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They already have a community of over 5 million people

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I love Aura.

I recently started using it,

and I think it's a really awesome resource for you guys.

We always talk about mental health here on the channel.

And I think bullet journaling,

and journaling kind of goes hand-in-hand with that.

So Aura is a really awesome resource

for any of you who wanna try it out.

How it works is you just go on their app.

You take their quick assessment

so that they can find out what your needs are

and it'll automatically help you discover

personalized tracks for you to listen to.

And from there, you can tailor it even more,

and find your favorite coaches that you wanna listen to,

create playlists,

and explore all of the new content on there.

It's kind of like having a Spotify for your mind and soul.

They have all different types of tracks,

whether you only have five minutes to spare,

or an hour, you'll definitely be able to find something.

There's guided meditations. There is life coaching.

There is relaxing stories.

My favorite section of the app

is definitely the guided meditation app,

which I've talked about briefly before,

but I've been really into guided meditation.

It really helps me turn off the rest of the world,

Especially if I just have a quick, like 10 minutes.

You can kind of choose

depending on how long of a guided meditation you want,

and what your goals for that meditation are.

Also, if I'm not in the mood

for a full-on guided meditation,

I really like that I can just pop in my headphones,

and listen to an inspiring, motivating story

kind of while I'm working or while I'm drawing.

I'm gonna leave the name of my favorite meditation tracks

on the screen right now, in case you guys are curious.

So if you do wanna try Aura for yourself,

the first 500 people to click the link in my description box

will get a free seven-day-trial of the Aura app

and 25% off your first year subscription.

I was really excited when they reached out to work with me

because I just love their app and what they do.

So thank you to Aura for sponsoring today's video.

But with that being said, back to the video.

A lot of the spreads that I make in this video

are going to be very similar

to the very beginning of the year set up,

just because I like to keep some sort of consistency

amongst my bullet journals, at least for the year.

So that's why you'll see a lot of repeating spreads.

The only thing that I did change is the color palette.

Part of this is because I didn't bring

all my markers with me to Vancouver,

to a new city, because that would be insane.

Imagine if I brought 1,000 markers with me.

But also I thought that could be like the fun switch up

for the new notebook, is just changing the color palette.

On the right side of this spread,

I just created a little quote page,

and it says the best is yet to come.

Again, I'm using those kind of pastel colors

and also this thin bubble letter font

that I use throughout this setup,

as well as the beginning of the year set up

that I did early in January, 2021.

So I thought it was pretty cute.

I have the little bubbles, I also have some crosshatching,

those like diagonal lines, which I think makes it pop.

You know, we love a drop shadow.

I know it's been a while since I've said that,

but I'm still loyal.

I still love drop shadows. (laughs)

Oh yeah, and then I just finished it off

with the Shop AmandaRachLee,

I think this is the light neutral Washi Tape set,

which by the way, we're working on restocking.

So don't worry.

And then moving on to the next spread,

we have my future log, which basically just has all

of the future months for the rest of 2021,

so July through to December.

And in the old bullet journal, the one that I just used,

I did like this file folder thing,

because I had all of the months.

But since there's only six months for this spread,

I divided each page into three columns.

And that's how I fit the calendar spread.

Also in terms of the pens and supplies that I'm using,

I'm gonna link them down below

but the markers are pretty much all Zebra Mildliners.

The very thin pen that I'm using,

usually I would use a fine liner,

but because I wanted it to be super thin,

especially for when I'm doing those diagonal drop shadows,

I'm actually using my all-time favorite gel pen

which is the Uni-ball Signo 0.38 Gel Pen.

And otherwise, I'm just using the classic

Sakura pigment microns, typically in 0.3 or 0.2,

especially when I'm trying

to get really small numbers like this.

But yeah, so I'm just writing out the mini-calendars,

making sure that I don't mess up any numbers,

because I'm traumatized.

There's one year where I messed up the numbers

and it kind of affected the rest of the months.

So I had to redo all of the mini-calendars. (laughs)

That was a very traumatizing year.

So you live and you learn.

Now I always double-check

so that I don't need to fix anything, but yes,

I have July through December, and then underneath it

I left space for me to write out any events.

And then I just decorated the rest

of the spread with any doodles, Washi Tapes.

And there we go.

So the next spread that I'm doing is my 2021 highlight reel,

which is actually where I just put my Polaroids

for the month.

I think it's pretty cool

that I've been doing this type of spread

for the past three, three-ish years, I think.

It's just one of those things

where I think it's gonna be really special

to look back on when I flip through my bullet journals

as an old person, just reminiscing on the times,

and you can kind of see what you were doing

at each month during that year.

I just traced out a Polaroid that I have

and I fit six, one for each month.

And I just outlined that little rectangular shape.

You guys always ask me about

like what Polaroid printer I use,

because you know, when you're living life in the moment,

sometimes you don't carry around

your Polaroid camera with you.

So I actually do use a Polaroid printer for most of these

so that I can go through the pictures

that I've taken for the month

and print out my favorite memory

for this highlight reel spread.

I use the Fuji film in Stacks Share,

just in case any of you guys are curious.

Those ones are really good

because you can just print it out after the fact

and you don't need to worry about

carrying your instant camera everywhere.

All right. So moving on to the next spread.

I think this is my mid-year goal check-in

so at the beginning of the year for my January setups,

I do a lot of goal setting spreads

just because it's the beginning of the year.

You have New Year's resolutions.

I don't like to do as intense of a goal setup

for the middle of the year

when I'm switching into a new notebook

but I do kind of like to do a mid-year check-in.

So instead of creating a brand new full spread,

like double page, and breaking down all the goals,

what I actually wanted to do for the spread

is kind of check in and see how far along

I've been on the goals that I initially set

at the beginning of the year

and whether I wanna set new ones.

So I have divided this page up into four sections.

I have my work goals, personal goals.

I have affirmations.

And then I also have manifestations,

similar to the spread that I did

at the beginning of the year,

except this time I added these columns

on the right side, as you can see.

And basically each individual column

represents whether I completed that goal,

whether I'm still in progress of that goal,

or whether it's a new goal.

Maybe I want to write down a new goal under one.

So I've written a column to indicate that.

And I think it's a good way to look back

at your beginning of the year goals

and see where you are at at this moment.

On the other side of this spread,

I have my content planner.

This time, I'm actually just going to be doing

kind of like a brain dump section.

So I have YouTube and TikTok, which is the two platforms

that I've been focusing on a lot more recently.

And they're the platforms that I really need

a lot more planning space for ideas.

So I just have a little brain dump section there

for whenever I have something that I wanna jot down.

At the beginning of the year,

I had a more intense content planner

where I had charts to signify

like whether I was editing the video,

whether it's been posted, all of that.

But if you've watched my Notion set up video

where I compare Notion to bullet journaling,

you'll see that a lot of the content planning

is now done on Notion digitally,

just 'cause it's easier for me to communicate with my team.

So that's why all I need in this bullet journal

is just a place for me to jot down ideas.

So moving on to the next spread,

which is my things to check out spread,

I wrote this cute title that just says,

hey, you, check it out.

And I'm actually splitting this up into more sections

than I normally would.

In the past, I've just done four

where I've had like TV shows, books, movies, all of that.

But as you can see, I cut out a panel on the right side

because I actually wanted six sections.

Recently, I've been really getting into anime,

K-dramas and books and all of that.

So I wanted to separate out TV shows into further sections.

So I have K-dramas. I have animes, TV shows,

movies, books, and audio, which is just like podcasts

or whether there's specific guided meditation tracks

that I want to check out.

So then on the next spread,

I have my Shop AmandaRachLee kind of main ideas page,

another sort of like dashboard landing page

in the beginning of my notebook.

So as you can see, on the left side of that smaller flap,

I have this column that says Future Ideas.

And that's just where I list out any ideas I have,

whether they're small or large,

something that I wanna launch or work on.

And then on the right side,

I've split it up into four sections.

I have Q3,

Q4, Q1 and Q2,

which is just the third quarter, the fourth quarter,

the first quarter and second quarter.

And what I do is I will take any of those small ideas,

those things that I've jotted down on the left side

and move them into the general timeline

once I figured out when I want to launch those.

So that's just a little look into the behind the scenes

of how I plan out my launches for Shop AmandaRachLee.

Next up, we have my package checker.

This is something that I implemented

at the beginning of this year.

It was a new spread that I had never done.

And I found it so, so helpful.

Although the beginning of the year one

kind of filled up quickly so then I sort of switched

into doing monthly package checkers,

which I might continue doing.

So I have that,

where I just have the item that I've ordered,

the date that I purchased it,

whether it's been sent, and whether it's been received.

And then on the right side,

I just have my wishlist and my gift list.

My wishlist is just for things

that I have been meaning to purchase,

if it's on my shopping list, things like that.

And then my gift list is when I have ideas for things

that I want to gift to people, like for my family members,

for Christmas or for their birthdays.

Alright, guys.

So here's the flip through

for my brand new bullet journal setup in the new notebook.

It's always exciting to switch into a brand new notebook.

By the way, in case you didn't notice,

I filmed this on two days, which was why my nails changed,

but like, look at how cute my strawberry nails are.

Just wanted to point those out.

Hope you enjoyed the setup again,

I'll leave the previous year's setups

in the description box below

in case you want any more inspiration.

Alright, guys. So that's it for this video.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my new bullet journal setup

for the second half of 2021.

I already feel excited to use it.

I feel like whenever I set up a new notebook

and a new bullet journal, it kind of like refreshes my mind

and keeps me motivated for the second half of the year.

So again, as I mentioned,

if you are still in need of any more inspiration,

I'm gonna link all of the other setup videos,

mid-year setup videos that I've done in the past down below.

Thank you again to Aura for sponsoring today's video.

And I will talk to you guys in the next video.

Keep doodling, bye.

(mellow music)