2017 Set Up & Templates

2017, a new year, new challenges and new memories. This is why I love setting up my bullet journal for the new year. It makes me aware that January 1st is not just another day, it's a new beginning. A chance to reflect on the year we leave behind and set new goals for the year ahead. A chance to change what we are unhappy with and focus more on what we love. Each year brings something new, big or small, there is so much potential and having a bullet journal to help me on my way and keep them memories hidden away in a notebook makes me so excited to set up the new year!

My 2017 setup is quite simple and that was intentional. As I started a new bullet journal not very long ago I didn't want to start another new one with over two thirds of my current notebook left. This meant quite a few spreads didn't need to be copied over. Spreads like Level 10 Life were left out as I like to reflect on these at the beginning of a new bullet journal. The spreads I have included in my bullet journal this year are all below. 

For anyone interested in how I set up the below pages in my bullet journal I have included templates for all the layouts at the bottom of the post. The templates are designed around the Leuchtturn1917 A5 dot grid as this is the notebook I use.

Header page

A simple page to separate the year. The boxes on the top and bottom of the page are for my 2017 pixels! I colour a square each day so that I am able to see clearly how much of the year has already gone by and how much we have left. It's so easy to say it's March, but to have a visual representation that we are already 1/4 of the way through the year helps put time into perspective. I hope it will motivate me to work on my goals when I see just how quickly time goes!

Year at a glance

A very simple page to see the year ahead. I think this is one of the most frequently referenced pages in the whole of my bullet journal. I use it to quickly see which day of the week a certain date is on, to set up monthly layouts and to track things that I need to see for the whole year. Things such as the amount of days annual leave I have used and any future dates booked or upcoming exams. 

Future log

Inspired by the wonderful Sarah from @luckyletters on instagram, I decided to go for a minimalistic future log. It's so simple that it doesn't really need explaining, but just incase... I have the whole year set up over 6 pages (two months per page) and whenever a new event comes along I will colour the dates and then write the event underneath the calendar next to the same colour. As I tend to plan most things last minute I rarely use this spread so I don't even have a colour code for this as I knew I would end up forgetting which colour was for what, this way I can use whichever colour takes my fancy for the event!

Goals

I do not have a picture of this because I have quite a few personal goals this year but I have used Boho Berry's goals setting layout which you can find here. I have a page for my yearly goals and on the next page I have the quarterly breakdown of the smaller goals I need to meet in order to achieve the 'big' goal.

Finally, The Planning Tracker

It really is as simple as it looks. I honestly believe that failing to plan is planning to fail. On the days that I do not bullet journal or plan I often find myself paralysed by not knowing what to start first. This page is simply a planning tracker. Each day I sit down with my bullet journal and plan I cross out the day. I hope to have as many days crossed off as possible by the end of the year! 

You could also use this layout for anything that you want to track for the whole year, or you could adapt the layout into your monthly set up by switching the month letters with something you want to track and have up to 12 tracking elements each month!

I hope you found something useful from reading my 2017 setup! Templates for all the spread are just below for anyone who may be interested.. Have you set up your bullet journal for 2017 yet?

Templates

Even more templates can be found in the Templates Library!