Why does nobody talk about how hard it is to make a monthly spread actually useful?

I started bullet journaling 3 years ago back in 2021 and I've stuck with it mostly. But I still struggle every month making a spread that I actually use past the first week. Last month I tried a vertical layout with habit trackers and it looked great but by day 10 I stopped filling it in. How do you guys figure out what actually works for you before wasting a whole month on a bad setup?

2 comments

2 Comments

benbrown16d ago

Oh man I feel this so hard. The trick that finally clicked for me was ditching the pretty layouts and just using a simple list of tasks for the month. I write down every single thing I know is coming up that month and check it once a week in my weekly spread. The habit trackers always fail for me too, they feel too much like homework. I think we overcomplicate it trying to make it look like Instagram when the real use is just keeping track of deadlines and appointments. Try going completely ugly for one month, just bullet points on a blank page, and see if that sticks better.

mitchell.wade16d ago

There was this study or article I read a while back that basically said our brains get tricked into thinking we've accomplished something just by writing it down nice and pretty. So we spend all this time making a perfect layout and then feel zero motivation to actually do the tasks. @benbrown is spot on with the ugly thing. I use a legal pad now, one page per week, just a running list of things that need done. Crossing something off feels way better than trying to color in a fancy tracker.