As you can see May is almost over, but I did create bullet journal spreads for May. Unlike April, I didn’t feel quite as inspired but I did like my layout ideas which will be carried over to future months. Though I created this theme and spreads for May, you can easily apply this theme to any month!
I’ve been inspired by seeing a lot of arches and overlapping shapes and circles from all of the bullet journal spreads and art I see on social media. I searched for inspiration on Pinterest and collected images on Instagram to create a color palette, shapes, and fonts. I really wanted a muted and simple color scheme for this month because I knew my May would be busy and I wanted it to be more serene, so I chose this pretty mint green color to build my theme around.
To see how to create easy monthly spreads step by step, watch my May Plan With Me setup to see easy, aesthetic and minimal spreads for beginners to get ideas to plan and track for the month!
Here are inspiring bullet journal layout ideas that I’m using to set goals and to get organized in May. I kept it consistent by relying on arches and sparkle stickers while using the same three colors on all of my spreads with some help from washi tapes. I did try some new things to decorate my pages which weren’t executed to my liking, but that’s the fun of decorative bullet journaling – you take risks! My YouTube video has a list of supplies I used.
COVER PAGE
The first thing I thought of these arches I’ve been seeing on Instagram. I’ve been seeing so many abstract shape layouts and shape accent walls which really inspired me to create something like this. I cut out an arch shape from a piece of paper that matched the mint green marker perfectly and pasted it in. I wasn’t inspired by a particular font this month, but I kept the script as a simple sans serif one. I added some sparkle stickers and washi tape to give it a little extra decor while keeping it the page simple.
I didn’t want to create calendar since I usually create a calendar for my blog editorial calendar, so I stuck with the traditional monthly log. I keep my logs super simple and wrote down the days of the week corresponding with the day of the month and highlighted the weekends to help break up the weeks – I also like the way it looks.
BLOG CALENDAR / MONTHLY SPREAD
Many people create a calendar spread for their monthly spread or log. Since I’ve moved all of my work lists and deadlines into a separate journal, I decided to use the calendar page as my blog’s editorial calendar. I can use it to visualize all of my deadlines and schedule upcoming blog posts, videos, and social media content. I realized I don’t need that much space, so I decided to create a one page calendar spread and did so horizontally – I really like the way it turned out!
The left page are my content pillars, where I can dump all of my potential and backlogged content ideas into the verticals they belong in, since I post about food, travel, and lifestyle. This is a great way to decide what content should go up for the month and then I can start plotting it onto the calendar.
HABIT TRACKERS & FAVORITES
I resisted habit trackers for so long because I felt like they were too time consuming to set up. 2020 changed that because I found it hard to maintain my routines in light of the monotony of staying home. It helped me stay sane by seeing that I could accomplish some of the mundane things like making my bed and keep me on track. It’s also nice to look back at the end of the week to see how well I maintained a habit. However, in 2021, I didn’t really feel like that was productive anymore. So, instead, I decided to change the title to “Focus” in order to highlight activities I want to focus on – such as my skincare routine, reading, walking and more. I hope this will hold me more accountable and make these things a priority. Having a dot grid journal also makes this much easier to set up.
In my 2020 journal, I created a “Favorites” spread to keep track of shows I watched, books I read, foods I was into and more. It’s my way of trying to journal without actually writing down paragraphs. It’s a nice snapshot for what I was into that month and help me go back to those moments. Although I didn’t properly fill out those spreads (I still plan to!), I’m hoping to be more consistent this year. I also like the boxes because it gives me designated spots to fill info in without feeling like I have to fill the whole page.
MONTHLY TASKS & SPRING CLEANING
The page on the left-side is dedicated to various to-do lists to keep track of regular, maintenance type tasks I need to do every month, one-off things I need to do this month, other blog tasks, and things to purchase. The right-side was created to keep track of things I wanted to clean out for spring, such as things that needed to be thrown away or donated.
As you can see, this spread didn’t turn out as clean as the others. I liked the idea of having the overlapping shapes as the background for the layout, but the irregular marker strokes didn’t make it look as seamless. I’d probably just keep it to a corner or something next time.
WEEKLY SPREAD
While last month I created one page weekly spreads, I felt like I wanted to bring the two page spread back. I still wanted to keep it simple, so I used very minimal marker, stickers, and washi tape. I divided each page into four columns and used the first column to label the three sections: events, blog, and tasks. This way I could call out any events/appointments, things I wanted to post or do for the blog that day as well as my personal tasks. This is also pretty quick to set up because the layout isn’t too intricate and neither is the design, which is perfect.
I hope this jumpstarted you to put together your May bullet journal spreads or inspired you to start a new (or first!) bullet journal to stay organized and keep track of things in 2021! You can also Pin this blog post for safekeeping. 🙂 Be sure to check out my other blog post for fun and easy ideas for bullet journal themes! You can also see my 2021 bullet journal setup too!
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