Are we in the penultimate month before 2020 disappears from our lives?! Well it seems so.
To mark that occasion, the monthly bullet journal setup was in order and here it is.
For November I thought I'd go for a theme with a minimal base but just a pop of colour and texture in between. I opted for a black, white and pink theme and incorporated newspaper cutouts for a scrapbook-y feel.
Starting with the coverpage:
I started with a newspaper cutout to introduce the theme and wrote out the word 'November' over it with a bold black brush pen. I ended up using this as my main lettering style for the following spreads and it helped tie the theme together.
The coverpage contains sections for my monthly goals, a short monthly bucket list and a bigger section to practise affirmations.
I share a few of my monthly goals on my newsletter and ask my subscribers to reply to the mail with their own goals to create an accountability system. Subscribe here to join the monthly goal squad.
The gratitude log:
Spending today complaining about yesterday won't make tomorrow any better.
One of my mindset goals for November is to adopt an attitude of less complaints and being more appreciative of life in general. To get this started, I'm trying out a no-complaints November.
We can form this unintentional habit of complaining about things when life does not go our way and it tends to eclipse the good things in our life. This, I feel, is an unnecessary negativity that we can dispose off by being a little aware of where our thoughts wander.
The flipside to this can be gratitude. I like to have an accounability system that enables my mindset of gratitude and nudges me in that direction. This is why I decided to include a gratitude log in my November 2020 bullet journal setup.
Habit and health trackers:
Tracking my habits and my health is a very important part of my lifestyle. I like to be aware of the day-to-day progress and trajectory of these two aspects and analyse how I'm going about these things.
Habits I'm tracking for November:
Working out
Journalling
Reading
Meditating
Waking up before 8 am
Getting some fresh air
Filling in my Google Calendar
Architecture updates
Laundry
Apart from these I track a couple of my health aspects. I find this very helpful to keep track so that I have a record of the previous days in case I have a doctor's appointement coming up or I'm trying a different routine and what to see how it impacts my health.
These aspects can be tailored to each individual's lifestyle and health conditions. But along with those I make sure to keep a record of my overall health every day, just to get a clearer idea.
Music for the month:
For the past couple of months, I've started to get a little more intentional about exploring music.
I tried to listen to 30 new songs for September. Click here to listen to that playlist.
For October I tried rediscovering 31 artists that I really love. Click here to find out who those artists are.
So, for November, I wanted to listen to one album each day. They don't necessarily have to be new/ unheard albums; it's more about giving the whole album a listen the way the artist intended it to be listened to.
It's a pretty big commitment therefore I'm not going to be very strict about following it. But I'm really excited about this and I'm going to try as much as possible.
Follow Save Ourselves on Instagram to find out about the album of the day, I'll be sharing them every day in my stories!
Diwali preparation:
Since Diwali is coming up in a few days, I thought adding this seasonal spread would be the perfect way to spice up the November setup. I simply added the title for the spread and left the rest of the page blank for me to fill up in multiple ways instead of following a pre-set format.
Things that can be added to this spread are:
House- cleaning list for Diwali
Diwali shopping list
List of faral items to make
Gift ideas for friends and family
House decor ideas/ moodboard
Outfit ideas for all the Diwali days
Irrespective of whether you use a planner, you can make this spread in a notebook or even on your computer and get the Diwali preparations started!
Weekly spread:
I went for a different layout for the weekly setup than I usually do. The current setup enables me to add more tasks during my week and less to my weekends so that I end up having a fuller, busier week and a more relaxed weekend.
I really want to embrace the work hard, play hard mode for November.
I'm not committing to it, but this might be the kind of layout I'd go for, for the rest of the month as well. Might try out variations in this one!
These were all the spreads I included in my monthly setup for November 2020 in my bullet journal.
I hope that these are helpful for you. Let me know which one is your favourite!