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I’m so excited to be posting my August plan with me! I wanted to make sure it went up with plenty of time for you to use it for inspiration as you go to plan your month. I’ve been looking forward to being able to share my monthly set up and go over what I find to be most helpful. Since it’s the middle of summer I went with mermaids for the theme. Nothing says summer like water and sand after all.
The Process
To start planning my set up I always start with picking a theme. I even have a little section at the beginning of my bullet journal where I keep theme ideas. I had settled on mermaids for August months ago and was really looking forward to putting this one together.
Getting Inspiration
My next step is my inspiration search! I create a board on Pinterest with pictures and quotes that I think will fit my theme, this is always so much fun since there are so many different things to look at and choose from. At this point, I try and decide if I’m going to be trying out different styles or if I’m going to stick with one. As an example, with my Zelda theme in July – check it out on my instgram (@maggie.rae_) – I stuck almost completely with the Windwaker versions of the characters and all of them were very cartoon-y. This is different than my April fox theme where I did geometric foxes as well as cartoons.
This month I went for some different types of mermaids but they were all traditional. You can check out my inspo board here.
Plannng out your Layouts
After I have enough pictures to choose from, I try and match pictures with quotes and decide which page they would fit on. I often need about 10 pictures. (monthly overview, chores page, gratitude log, 2 pictures for my bi-weekly goals spreads, then 4 for the weekly spreads). I basically plan the whole month even though I don’t draw it all at once. Using a scrap piece of paper I write out my picture and the quote that I think compliments. I don’t use a quote for every layout but I like to have them sprinkled in. After I have all my ideas together it’s time to match pictures/quotes with the spread they’ll be on. Then it’s time to start drawing!
Set Up
For my August monthly layout I started with resizing my mini calendar. I had been making the day boxes 2×2 but thought that it was unnecessary since all I do is add coloured dots that correspond with events. This month I saved a lot of space by downsizing it to a 1×1 box instead. I have my tasks and goals lists for the month on this page as well. These sections are for goals/tasks that need to happen at some point during the month but not on a specific day. There was tons of space to add a theme picture here!
On the 2nd page of this spread is my Ryder calendar. It’s great. I separate my weeks by highlighting the Mondays and write in events/reminders or whatever I need. I also draw boxes around days in the colour that match the mini calendar on the left. For me, tracking a ton of habits isn’t that helpful so I add my habit tracker on the last third of the page right in my Ryder calendar so I don’t have to add in the days again :). I don’t really track my mood either but I usually have a column in my habit tracker for that. If I have that in there I throw a little mood legend on the edge of the tracker (see my March flip through)Â 
Next, I have a half week spread. In order to keep the months separate but have this Wed-Sun close enough to my goals page I put it in right after my monthly over view. I have a large quote doodle and then boxes for the 4 first days of the month.
Monthly Spreads
Next are my monthly spreads for chores and gratitude.
I am not someone who likes to clean. So when I first created this chores set up it helped a lot! I’m going to make a post about setting it up so I won’t get too into it here. But I list the days and the chores that I want to do and check off the boxes when I do them. Simple. It works so well that I’m thinking of adapting it to a work out plan as well.
I have a full page gratitude log here. I think it’s important to set yourself up to feel good and gratitude does that beautifully.
Here is what the pages look like side by side
So that’s my August plan with me! I hope it was helpful and gave you a theme to consider for this summer month. I had so much fun looking for inspiration for the spreads and laying it all out for my spreads. Let me know what you think in the comments below!