Sometimes there’s just nothing to plan. Sometimes there are too many restrictions, uncertainties, and unprecedented circumstances. A nightmare for bullet journal aficionados who love nothing more than beautifully detail out the exact steps towards their next venture!
Don’t get me wrong, of course there’s always something to do. But yeah, with all this uncertainty it sometimes was kind of difficult to actually plan out what I want to do. It felt like I was planning without actually knowing what the next days and weeks would hold.
Still, writing and doodling in my journal was a cherished part of my day and I didn’t simply want to give it up. So, I thought of a few ideas for what you can write in your bullet journal when you have nothing to do. Or nothing to plan for.
Little disclaimer: I didn’t come up with all of these designs. I’ve adapted them from all kinds of examples I found when looking for these kinds of pages. Props go to the respective creators and the BuJo community.
A reading list
When it’s hard to plan, because you don’t know when you actually will be able to do things again, focus on what’s in your control. So for those occasions I love to do “evergreen pages”. For example, my reading list.
For my bullet journal reading list, I like to collect a list of books that I want to read, either for personal development or professional development or just for fun. And then I make it a whole spread in my bullet journal.
I create a nice banner. I write down the books I want to read, including the author and make it into a nice checklist. And on the bottom, I draw a book shelf.
So every time I finish a book I can check it off on the list. And I color one book on the book shelf. This way, I can see how my shelf is slowly filling up.
And I’m really enjoying this process. So if you got nothing else to do this! There’s always something new and exciting to read!
Related: 9 books that changed my life
Movies list
Another page you can transform into an evergreen one is a movies List.
Last year was a difficult one for movies. I had made my list list at the beginning of the year, as usual, planning out all the new movies I wanted to watch.
We all know what happened. Lots of these movies weren’t even published…
So, now that I was sitting here having nothing else to do, I decided to make a new list of movies that I want to watch. Not newly released movies this time.
Instead I went for classics where I just feel like I SHOULD know them but have never watched to date. For example, Star Wars. Don’t crucify me, but until 2020, I had never seen a single Star Wars movie!
Another type of movie that made it onto my list were genre movies that I might have skipped so far. Or movies about certain topics that I’m now interested in.
When I make my movies list in my bullet journal, I like to make it look like actual film. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found this design originally, it was by one of the amazing people of the Instagram bullet journal community.
Anyway, I simply write the movie names into the little openings. And every time I finish a movie, I color it. Just as with the reading list.
You can decide ahead of time what color scheme you want to use or you just do it randomly. You could even go by genres. All comedy movies are pink, and all action movies are green…
Suit yourself. You can play with this a lot!
Level 10 life
Making a Level 10 life page is actually perfect for times when you have nothing much to do. This type of page really benefits from you taking some time to take a step back.
I don’t know if you know about level 10 life, so let’s start by explaining that a little bit. I learned about it when I saw a video from Kara from Boho Berry.
Basically, you take stock of your life in different areas. You give each area rating, from 1 to 10. There are various ways how you can visualise this. I change mine up regularly. One example of how you can do it is this:
And then you think about what could you do for each area to get one point up. Just one! Write these things down and plan them into your next days and weeks.
Maybe even create extra spreads for the life area you want to focus on for now.
Let’s be honest, it’s not really realistic to have 10 for all areas of life. (If you do, please let me know how you do it!) But taking little steps to improve your life in areas where’s it’s needed can have an immense impact!
Anyway, this is great for when you have nothing to do. This means you have the time and space to really look at things, and collect some ideas.
Enjoy!
Enjoy this time and stay safe, I’m sure there will be super busy times for all of us again as well. And if this helped you in any way, I’d love for you to share it with someone else!
