I’m writing this post with a heavy heart because not even once did I imagine myself ever writing about it because you knew how obsessed I was with bullet journalling and I had been for years. But all good things must come to an end. I stopped bullet journalling about a year ago and though I miss it once in a while, I don’t think I’m going back to it again.
My last proper bullet journal spread was for November 2019 where I planned a bunch of things for my wedding. And then I got married, went for a honeymoon, fell pregnant, miscarried, and got pregnant again in the span of two months. At that time with my new role as a wife, I had no time to properly sit down and make time for doing spreads. I simply had lost interest in it and because it was too time-consuming, I didn’t even bother trying.
I bought a very colourful and muslim-friendly 2020 planner on Shopee and another 2020 planner from Instagram that I ended up only using for a couple of months religiously before converting to the ana tomy customised planner. That planner has changed my life for the better! I know that in a few posts ago I promised I’d publish a blog post about it and I have done writing it but I still haven’t photographed them yet.
I spent a lot of money on washi tapes, stickers, pens, stamps, everything you can think of that could help with beautifying my bullet journal. You don’t even wanna know how many packages I received in a month for all my bullet journal supplies they’re seriously so embarrassing. But I couldn’t keep up with my bullet journal anymore simple because it took me hours to finish a monthly spread. A few hours dedicated to creating spreads may not seem much but when you add up other responsibilities, it’s just not gonna work anymore. It’s exhausting and when it’s almost the end of the month, I got anxious if I haven’t started on my next month’s spread. If I didn’t do my spreads, I have nothing to plan my week with. It’s very counterproductive.
So I got myself an ana tomy planner that I have been using for five months coming to six this month. The planner has a monthly view so I can easily write down important things or events I have in that month and two more pages that I can use as gratitude list and habit tracker. It also has a weekly view where I can schedule my day by the hour (I have the vertical layout) and dotted pages at the back for more notes. It’s simple and its minimalistic layout is spot on. You can decorate it if you want to. And the best thing is, once I’ve finished all pages, I can buy the refill!
As for expense tracker and other things such as blog planner etcetera, I use a digital planner called Notion. It took some time to get a hang of it but once you’re familiar with it, you will ditch your paper planner and go full on digital. I’m not joking. As for me, paper planner is still the way to go so I am currently using both. Besides, it’s easier to use digital planner for tracking expenses because it will automatically do the maths for you.
For writing, I use my Leuchtturm1917 metallic notebook. It really helps with my mental health especially for things that I can only keep to myself. I used to write in my bullet journal but I didn’t like mixing life planning and writing in one notebook so I separated them. You’d think why I need so many notebooks for different things when I can use one notebook but I have many notebooks that I haven’t used so this is one way to finish them all haha.
I still love watching bullet journal videos on YouTube but my ana tomy planner is already enough for my everyday use. I don’t need fancy spreads or trackers of all sort of things, I just need a planner that helps me plan. I love my current setup right now with both paper and digital planner.
