My 2026 Bullet Journal

It’s not intentional, but looks like I’m only sharing my bullet journal setup every two years. My 2024 and 2025 ones were pretty similar, apart from the lettering design and some smaller changes in the layout. Cramming two years into one notebook sounded like a good idea, but the notebook barely survived it, lol. This year, I’m not only starting a new notebook (fully intending to use it ALL), but I’m also stepping up my bujo game with quite a few changes. I’m super happy with the results, but what you’ll see is not the 100% finished pages – and I already see some tweaks I’ll make next month. But I got ahead. Let’s start at the beginning. Here is my 2026 bullet journal!

General Setup

As the end of the year was nearing, I had to start looking at notebooks. Damn, they’ve gotten expensive since the last time I looked, and even then, I thought they were already too much. I wanted something not too expensive, but also to have thick paper, not too many pages, as I wouldn’t be able to use them all, and have a lovely design. Certainly, that’s not a lot to ask, is it? Turns out, it was… And I didn’t even mention the differences in sizes from brand to brand… I got used to a slightly wider A5ish-sized notebook, and I wanted something similar. Back in February, I got a nice purple dotted notebook in Italy, but it turned out it was a bit smaller than I would have liked, and the paper wasn’t as thick either. In the end, I turned to Amazon (I know, I know, I’m sorry) and picked one that was very fancy and also not the cheaper variety, but I just loved it, and figured that I could come up with something to be able to fully use all of its 190 pages.

I mean, look at it. JUST. LOOK. AT. IT.

In years past, I tried to keep my bullet journals as simple as possible, so I could quickly set up each month without too much fuss. Wanting to do too much once led to my downfall, so I tried to be cautious. But it was time to take that leap of faith. Especially since I really got into stickers (the ones I planned to use for 2024 and then never did) and washi tape decorations for my 2025 journal. And once I settled on a notebook, kindly delivered to me by Alex at Brighton (hey, I saved on the shipping, what else do you think I keep my UK friends for?!), it was time to start planning. I went through at least 3 sets of letter designs between November and December until I settled on one (normally this is my favorite part, and I had one early I was happy with, but I had too much time, and started tinkering, and UGH), bought a shitload of stickers, most of which I didn’t end up using for decorations, and even though I made meticulous plans, I STILL made last-minute changes. And managed fuck ups. Typical. Anyway.

I like to keep my journal consistent throughout the year, meaning once I settle on a monthly setup, I use that every month, I only change the main coloring. This year, I wanted to go with a rainbow theme from January to December, but during the planning phase, I changed my mind, then I changed it again, but it was too late, as I already started setting things up, and I used dark blue for January. *sigh*

My initial design was inspired by the notebook itself. I got 12 packs of teeny tiny stars to use as decoration, and it took me a good while to settle on an order in which to use them. The problem is, I need 13 colors for a journal, as I tend to use black for the general stuff at the beginning, then 12 colors for the 12 months. My pack lacked orange (hence I decided against the rainbow, and now will go with a sort of gradient, see the pic below), but it had silver instead. Each of the packet of stars have a main color, but they also have an iridescent surface, making them rainbowy as the light hits differently. It’s so cool! So I was in a predicament, but eventually I decided to make June colorful, using ALL the colors, in honor of Pride Month. I still don’t have orange, so that won’t be quite right, but it’s still something. Although… I just spotted a pack of 12 4-point stars that has orange but no black, so maybe I’ll get that and mix them up… Right, moving on. I’ll talk more about my design-related decisions at the relevant sections.

Next, let’s look at how I outlined things! I can only show you my general pages in the front and my January setup, but that should give you a good idea of how all the others will pan out for the rest of the year.

Pages 2-3: Index and Keys

Right, so we are starting off with something very new to me. I don’t really need an index page personally, but I wanted to have a keys page to save myself some time/space, as I used to put the keys on the relevant pages every month, which I realise is not the best practice. I HAVE SO MUCH EXTRA SPACE NOW. And as it’s right in front of the notebook, it’ll be easy to check it if/when I need it. Which is probably only going to be the first few weeks once I memorise everything, but still. It’s nice to have everything in one place. Although I underestimated how much space my keys would actually need… Next year, I’m ditching the index page and will make the keys one a two-page spread, because yikes.

Pages 4-5: Calendar

One thing that never changed with my bullet journals is that I have a calendar at the beginning where I can see everything at a glance. I used to have each month in its own bracket, with some space to note the important dates and write tiny notes next to the numbers. This year, I decided to shake things up a bit. On one page, I have each month neatly (although as you can see, I made some fuck ups right at the beginning…I’m totally not mad about that). And on the other page, I have a bit more room for notes and to write down quick additions if/when needed. I’ll wonder how it will turn out in terms of usage. I bought some star stickers I thought might be great, but they are slightly too big and take up too much space, so I just use colored pencils as usual. This is also the only page left where I still use a bit of Hungarian (the first letters of the days), mostly out of habit, lol. I also never had a calendar page with so much decoration, but I actually like it. I wasn’t planning on the black strips, but I had a lot of smudges left by my stupid ruler, and I wanted to cover them up.

This year, I kept the headers pretty much unadorned except for a single colored star just for the fun of it. I might figure out something like doodled frames, or just keep them as they are. I guess I can also use tiny strips of washi tape, the same I’m using at the bottom of the calendar spread, and some of the other general setups. I’ll see how I feel about that.

Pages 6-7: Goals and Level 10 Life

Another constant with my bullet journals is having a page dedicated to goals. I’m being very organised for a change because I didn’t procrastinate for weeks to actually get my thoughts in order. Fine, I only wrote stuff done with a pencil and will have to finish, BUT STILL. This year, I have 3 sections: general life goals, blog goals, and writing goals. I like to keep them simple and manageable, so we’ll see how that will go for me. I probably will have space left for a strip of washi tape at the bottom, so it won’t be so stark and empty as it is in this picture.

The Level 10 Life spread I found when I prepared my 2022 journal. It probably works better with a two-page spread, but this is one spread I usually keep procrastinating on A LOT. I think I’ll add a second grid at the bottom and write out how things changed within the year. I still need to add the coloring tho. And complete the one in my previous journal so I can copy it over. Oops.

In case you are unfamiliar with the level 10 spread, let me tell you about it a bit. It’s kind of like a very specific goals page. Each section will have its color, and I’ll color in as many levels as I think fit. So, for example: I feel like my creativity is at level 10, so I’ll color in all the levels. This year, my sections are: health, fun/recreation, environment, work, finances, mental health, family/friends, and creativity.

Pages 8-9: 2026 in Pixels

I had something similar in my previous bullet journals, although on a much smaller scale. As you’ll see on my tracking page, this year I’m trying to track a few different things, but I also wanted to see some of them on an annual scale. I picked anxiety, stress, mood, and my daily overall rating. This spread doesn’t have a lot of space for decoration, sadly, but it’s going to be VERY colorful. I tend to be lazy when it comes to actually coloring these squares in, but I’ll try to update it at least monthly.

Pages 10-11: Reading Challenges

One of the (many) upsides of having a lot of space to use this year is that I could make a nice two-page spread for my reading challenges. For The Sound of Madness, I decided to return to a complete table with some space to note down titles for the prompts. I also numbered them, which will be helpful for both this bullet journal and my actual spreadsheet, where I keep track of everything reading-related.

On the other side, I have space for both Womble’s TBR Reducing Reading Challenge, which I’ve been doing for a few years now, and for Book Roast’s Choose Your Own Adventure yearly reading challenge.

Pages 12-13: January

So, the reason I went a bit berserk with sticker buying is that I really wanted a pretty two-page decorated spread for each month. I had a few ideas to start with, but I eventually settled on having the month’s name spelled out diagonally, then added some sparkly washi tapes (two shades! And I have enough for each month with their dedicated colors, yay!). Every month, I’ll add a different shiny sticker to the top right corner. I have 2 rolls of similar style ones, so each month will be different. I also have a stack of colored moon stickers, and I’ll try to match them with the main colors. I also have a roll of stickers with vintage-looking guys, although I think that only has 9 or 10 different designs, so we’ll see. I might mix them with a different set of stickers. As you can see, there are two corners that look a bit empty, so I tried to add some stars, but it still looks unfinished, so I’m brainstorming about that. Maybe I’ll add some zentangle doodles – I’d like to do more of that anyway.

For the second page, I also had a few ideas. My original plan was to use zodiac-themed scrapbook paper, but I also got a bundle of starry sky/universe-themed scrapbook papers (it has 160 pages, and a nice variety of colors and themes, so I’ll have plenty to choose from each month!) that are slightly bigger and cover the whole page nicely. I colored in the edges tho… I also added some depth with some holographic stickers (I think I’ll use two-three each month, depending on how I can place them), and also I got a big selection of character stickers – both girls and boys, in a six-color palette – which are going to add to the whole. Also, some star stickers for fun. I have a pack of 6 colors of those bigger stars, so I will have to use them twice, but oh well.

Pages 14-15: Planner

This spread I kept from my 2025 bullet journal, just freshened it up a bit to fit with the design. Since at the beginning I decided to go with a sort of rounded lettering style, I also tried to use that with most of the boxes where I could get away with it. To say I have ALL the regrets would be the understatement of the year.

This year, I’m using a mix of coloring pencils – for the shading and the planner coloring, I decided to go with my Faber-Castell Black Edition set, which is pretty much the first time I’m using them (well, not, because I tried them out on a coloring page when I got them, but you know). Not sure that was a good decision, as I still need to get used to them. And also need to learn how to make that big batch of coloring look a lot nicer, but I have no idea where to start so… it is what it is. But January always ends up being a trial run, no matter how much I plan ahead.

One thing I definitely didn’t think about was how to handle the heading of the table to avoid running over with the pencil. I will have to be a bit more mindful with that next time. The bottom on the left is where I’m going to put notes, and I have another blank patch on the right, which I didn’t know what to do with. I have some nature-themed washi tapes I used last year, but I wasn’t sure they would be a good fit. In the end, I found a solution – since I completely redid the reading page, I forgot that I used to list books I was planning to read that month, and so I had no space elft for it. It actually works out nicely that now I can see EVERYTHING in one spread.

And since I got a good few star stickers, I might use them to mark things in the corners – like days off. Last year, I had an attempt to track my writing-related activities this way with different colored stickers. Like, wrote less than 500 words, more than 500 words, I edited, etc. But I failed at it, so I think I might reattempt that approach, but I will simplify it a LOT. But I definitely will color in the dates the same way I’ll do in the calendar at the beginning for birthdays, holidays, events, etc.

Pages 16-17: Writing and Mindful

These are brand new spreads to me. So this year I want to focus more on writing and get a good dent into my WIP. To help with that, I have weekly check-ins with a friend, but I also wanted to add something to my bullet journal to help me focus on the goals. So I’ll be writing down weekly goals. Nothing fancy, just like, finish chapter X, for example. I divided the boxes each week on the right side, I’ll write the starting word count that week, then my short goals. On the other side, I’ll put the word count at the end of the week, and note what I actually got done. So that way I can follow my progress in a way that doesn’t seem too pressuring.

As for the mindful page (and yes, I know it should be mindfulness, but I simply didn’t have enough space for the letters!), it’s my attempt to try and fix myself a bit, so to speak. I have a big box for positivity. I’ll put the small things here, like, I don’t know, feeling good about my bujo. And this is where I’m going to stick my monthly memes. In the past 2 years, each month I printed out my favorite meme of that month, and put it on a double page in the beginning. I want them to be more in the face, so to speak, so I probably will put something there at the beginning of the month from the previous month to keep me going. Which only just occurred to me, so brb, I’m sticking something in now.

There are also two smaller boxes – one is for affirmations, and the other is for things I learned. I’m not sure how much I’ll use these, but I definitely will have to try and learn to be nicer to myself, so I’ll try and actually put an effort into recognising the good things. Every once in a while, I wonder about things and come to realisations, ideas, etc., and now I’ll have a place to note them for later consideration.

Pages 18-19: Reading and Watching

Back when I stopped using bullet journals for a while, I started a spreadsheet for all of my reading tracking purposes, and I’ve been using it ever since. But I still like to have a page dedicated to it, because why not? Having something physical to look at instead of a screen is always nice. Besides, I tend to update my bujo on a daily basis, so it’s more likely that I’ll do the updates here and it will be much easier to just follow up on the spreadsheets as well.

This is another spread where I stepped up my game, making it a lot more useful and fun to use. As a starter, I’m planning to include the book covers, and I will also have more info to track, such as whether it’s part of a series, the publisher type, and whether I reviewed it, etc. I also have a grid to note which Sound of the Madness prompts the book is good for, using the corresponding numbers at the beginning of the journal. And since I have a LOT of tiny stars, I will use them for the rating! I think I need to mention that these stars aren’t stickers, and that they are a bitch to stick in one by one, because TINY, but OMG the results are so satisfying.

And at the bottom of the page, I’ll track some of my reading challenges. I have no idea why I put 50 for GR when I always set it for 40, but I’ll fix that next month. I also don’t know why I didn’t wait until I finalised my shortlisted TBR, which definitely didn’t end up being only 50 books…

The watching page didn’t change much, but since I stopped putting the keys at the bottom, I had some more space and decided not to split the new releases section (I used to split it in half, which meant setting up two grids, and also it made it feel a bit crammed), but also allowed to have more lines available to make up for that.

Pages 20-21: Trackers and Self-Care

One half of this spread is the current bane of my existence, and the other is one of my favorite pages. You gotta love the duality. Me personified on paper. LOL. Anyway. I once again have trackers. This year, again, I changed the format a bit. I decided to track more things regarding my mental health. In 2025, I used the dairy pages to track my mood and mental state, but I wanted to see everything in one place. So I figured out this setting and was proud as hell, and went on to spend an ungodly amount of time figuring out the color schemes (btw, I colored in the weekends and day-offs with blue). And then realised my fuckup.

First, I thought that I should have put the sleep quality in the group at the top, as I’m using the same 3 colors. Then it occurred to me that I’m an idiot, because sleep quality and energy level should be their own group with a different color scheme. I’ll give you an example of why: so let’s say that today I have high anxiety, so I color it in red. But I also have a high level of energy, and I also use red. It’s all good and all, but in one case, high level is a bad thing, and in the other case, it’s a good thing. And hence super confusing at a glance… So I’m planning to change the coloring a bit and also the grouping… I think I’ll pair up the mood with the rating of the day row. Because, again, that makes more sense, in hindsight. But all this also means that the keys page is absolutely fucked and fixing it will ruin how nicely organised it is *sigh*.

As for the colors, this year I wanted to use brighter colors, so I opted for my set of Staedtler triplus markers, which are nice, but some of them are just too strong… Thankfully, I have a 40 set on the way, so hopefully going forward I’ll use something a bit more subdued. I also only planned to use Xs for the habit part of the tracker (reading, blog, writing, chores), as every month I’ll be using the color of the month, and it just bleeds together with the grid and looks ugly. So guess who was an idiot and started coloring in instead? *facepalm* I’ll go with the Xs in the future. And hence why I said that January always ends up being an experiment.

On the self-care side of things, I’ve been dying to finally try this out. When I was looking up ideas, I came upon the idea of making a tracker in a Tetris form. There are several versions – for books (based on genre), mood, or chores, or whatever you want to use it for. I decided to do it for self-care (look at the key page), and I’m loving it. I opted to use my trusty Staedtler Karat aquarell coloring pencils for this, as I suspect there is going to be a LOT of coloring in my life this year, and I didn’t want to overuse my markers. Although now that I got a new set… hmmm. But in truth, I think I prefer the softer colors, anyway. I actually don’t know why I’m not using this set of pencils for the main coloring, but I guess I wanted to play with other pencil sets as well.

Pages 22-23: Diary

I’ve had this spread for a few years now, and I love it. Every day I write a few lines (well, I only have space for two, so you know…) about my day, noting down important things I might want to remember. So, as the title says, it does kind of function like a diary. I since colored in the days with blue for weekends and day offs so I can keep track of things.

Pages 24-25: At a Look

In my previous bujo, I had a one-page space for a monthly overview of sorts, which wasn’t a lot. But since I have ALL the space now, I decided to make the most of it. I have some general stuff I want to keep track of in my personal life and also in the reading/writing department, although I might tweak these a bit next month. I also have a dedicated space for my DIY/creative projects to list and add some pictures. On the other side, I have two lists – one for achievements over the month and one for my personal mini playlist, which you might be familiar with if you signed up to my newsletter. And the rest of the page is for memories – mainly pictures of stuff that happened – again, usually you can also see some of those in my newsletter. Honestly, I think the newsletter is what keeps me motivated to upkeep my bujo, because otherwise writing things up every month would be a lot harder…

+1 Albums

This is a very last-minute thing on my part, but as I was setting up the 2026 Sound of Madness Reading Challenge, it occurred to me that I should make one of my goals to listen to 25 albums this year. Since I already had my whol set up and wouldn’t have been able to include it anyway, I decided to add an extra page at the end where I can keep track of these albums. It’s not set up properly, so I’m not going to show it, as I think I’ll pencil things in for now until I see how things go.

And that’s my 2026 bullet journal in a nutshell. I realise that it had become a fucking long post, so I’m leaving ithere, lol.

If you have a bullet journal or plan to have one, let me know in the comments! I’d like to know what else you are adding that I don’t, and find new stuff to try.