Today I’m going to show you how to start practicing self-care by setting up bullet journal self-care spreads.
In fact, personal journaling actually can help you come up with your self-care routine, develop new habits, and take better care of yourself.
So if you’re looking for simple bullet journal self-care ideas, here I put down my favorite journal inspiration.
Indeed, bullet journal self-care pages helped me:
- make my self-care practice a priority (later you’ll see what my daily routine looks like)
- schedule it as an unnegotiable part of the daily routine
- develop good habits
- remind me to actually stick with them
So let’s get started.
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What is Self-Care
Without a doubt, your life is busy.
As a result, your free time is shrinking more and more. Because of it, you feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and unfulfilled.
For this reason, practicing self-care on a daily basis is the number one habit you need to develop and keep as soon as possible.
First and foremost, self-care doesn’t equal being selfish.
Quite the contrary.
Carving out a little bit of time in your busy schedule to spend it just for yourself, makes you feel better.
Consequently, you’re a more patient mom, better wife, and productive employee.
It’s a win-win situation.
What Does Self-Care Mean?
Also, as unwanted as they are, bad days always show up. Particularly, when you don’t expect them.
Indeed, when an unexpected happens, no matter how hard you try, you can’t just run from it. Therefore, you need to find ways to deal with bad days.
As Vivian Greene said:
Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
And Sraelmore Ayivor added:
You can dance in the storm. Don’t wait for the rain to be over before because it might take too long. You can do it now. Wherever you’re, right now, you can start right now; this very moment”
However, keep in mind that self-care is a lot more than a cure for the lows and deeps in your life.
It’s rather an important part of your lifestyle.
Generally, self-care means an act of self-kindness.
It’s a process of developing good habits to take care of yourself on a regular basis.
Basically, it’s all about being kind to yourself by getting rid of any bad habits like:
- thinking you aren’t good enough
- comparing yourself to other people
- setting no boundaries
Six Types of Self-Care
According to my favorite self-care blog, there’re six types of self-care:
- Physical Self-Care
- Emotional Self-Care
- Social Self-Care
- Spiritual Self-Care
- Personal Self-Care
- Practical Self-Care
Physical Self-Care Bullet Journal
Firstly, let’s take care of your body.
As a rule, physical self-care tends to be associated with something luxurious like spa treatments, massages, and 24-carat gold masks.
Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with it, but taking a powerful nap or hiking is beneficial as well and so much more affordable.
The whole secret is in choosing what makes you happy.
Examples Of Physical Self-Care
Here’re some examples of physical self-care to follow:
- walking (and if you decide to attend a walking group, it’ll be also a great example of social self-care routine)
- sleeping | taking a nap
- cooking clean meals
- practicing yoga
- playing with kids
- drinking green tea and/or water
- doing a favorite workout routine
- breathing
- hugging
- relaxing body (especially shoulders and jaw)
Physical Self-Care Bullet Journal Pages
Workout Tracker
Workout in Pixel
Sleep Log
Step Tracker
Emotional Self-Care Bullet Journal
Additionally, taking care of your emotions is crucial for your general condition.
For me, emotional self-care is all about getting to know yourself better, your reactions, thinking patterns.
Generally, what I mean by that is just being self-conscious about why you’re feeling this and not that way.
With this in mind, I found self-journaling a great way to reduce stress and boost my mood.
Definitely, it allows me to put my thoughts and worries onto paper, and as a result, make them less scary.
As well as that, tracking mood and period together allows you to notice how these two influence your energy level, unhealthy cravings, or productivity.
Examples Of Emotional Self-Care
- journaling
- meditation
- practicing mindfulness
Emotional Self-Care Bullet Journal Pages
Mood Tracker & Period Tracker
Social Self-Care Bullet Journal
As an introvert, I easily tend to close my shell and stay in my comfort zone.
Personally, this self-category is the most challenging for me.
While it’s hard for me to be comfortable around other people, I know this social aspect of life is also as important as others.
Examples of Social Self-Care
- call distant relatives
- have family dinner
- join a local group (for example jogging group)
Social Self-Care Bullet Journal Pages
Family & Friend Time Activities | Bucket Lists
Spiritual Self-Care Bullet Journal
This part of the self-care routine includes a connection with your soul through prayer, meditation, and mindfulness activities.
Undoubtedly, it’s so easy to start thinking negatively when things go wrong. In that case, meditating or practicing mindfulness helps you to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
Also, practicing gratitude constantly reminds you of what you have. And you have more than enough.
Examples of Spiritual Self-Care
- meditation
- pray
- practicing yoga
Spiritual Self-Care Bullet Journal Pages
Daily Affirmations
Gratitude Log
Personal Self-Care Bullet Journal
Personal self-care is all about you.
As a people pleaser, I often struggle with having my own opinions, thoughts, and right to live according to my own rules.
For this reason, setting up a life vision and goals that are 100% mine was crucial to grow as a person and start living more intentionally.
Examples of Personal Self-Care
- creating a vision board
- setting life goals based on Level 10 Life exercise
- finding a hobby
Personal Self-Care Bullet Journal Pages
Reading Tracker
Bullet Journal Vision Board
Level 10 Life Goals
Brain Dump
Practical Self-Care Bullet Journal
Last but not least, taking care of your work and life environment, personal finances, and use of time is also a big chunk of practicing self-care.
Definitely, it connects a more practical part of life as well.
Living in a clean home, improving time management skills, and feeling safe financially – all these aspects have a significant impact on your well-being.
Examples of Practical Self-Care
- decluttering
- cleaning up
- budgeting
- planning the next day
- meal planning
- watering plants
- working with time-blocking schedules & intervals (Pomodoro technique)
Practical Self-Care Bullet Journal Pages
Bullet Journal Cleaning Schedule
Plant Tracker
Bullet Journal Budgeting Layouts
Time-Blocking Schedule + Pomodoro Tracker
How Do You Start Practicing Self-Care with a Self-Care Bullet Journal
Now, that you know that practicing self-care should be a vivid part of your daily routine, it’s time to show you how to do it.
Because of the fact that I’m an absolutely analog type of person in a digital world, instead of downloading the next self-care app, I prefer to set up self-care spreads in my bullet journal notebook.
Evaluate Your Daily Routine
Firstly, look a little bit closer at your bullet journal weekly schedule and check how many times you actually do something to yourself. Evaluate your daily routine. It’s a great way to see where you’re currently in your self-care.
Find Favorite Self-Care Examples
Undoubtedly, my favorite way to start practicing self-care regularly is by taking part in a self-care challenge.
Clearly, you can find many weekly, monthly, summer, winter, etc self-care challenge examples, and checklists.
Alternatively, just grab some examples I put above and create your own challenge by setting up a self-care inspiration page.
Plan Your Self-Care Routines in a Bullet Journal Weekly Spread
Secondly, I come up with a self-care plan, where I decide what I want to work on this month.
Then I create a self-care schedule aka self-care calendar in my bullet journal weekly spread.
Similarly to budgeting the golden rule of paying yourself first, schedule your self-care time in the morning, during the day, and in the evening before everything else.
Practice Self-Care Routines & Track Your Progress with a Bullet Journal Habit Tracker
As weird as it might sound, practicing self-care is also a skill.
Although for a long time it means eating a bucket of chocolate ice cream to comfort me (yes, thank you teen movies), developing good self-care habits requires time.
In order to stay accountable, a habit tracker is a great tool to constantly be reminded to take a little time for yourself.
Bullet Journal Self-Care Inspiration
Meal planning can really help you eat healthy and clean. Eat a rainbow. You can increase your wellbeing and make your body happy. Use your bullet journal to make meal planning easier.
Keep track of how many cups you are drinking every day. Using a bullet journal water log ensures you are staying hydrated all day long.
Sometimes all you need to cure a bad day is sleep. Sleep works excellently in dealing with bad days, especially if your sleep pattern has been previously unhealthy. Tuck yourself in bed early and watch the bad day go away.
Make gratitude a part of your every day with bullet journal gratitude log. This habit infuses each day with positivity and happiness. It is all about being grateful for family, friends, health or life.
Track your emotions daily. Of course, don’t feel any pressure to feel happy all the time. But it’s helpful to notice how your mood is changing during a month.
Here's another example of bullet journal mood tracker.
Love yourself is always a must. Focus on positive things said to you and write them down. It will boost your confidence for sure.
Create the place in a bujo where you’ll write down when somebody says something nice about you.
Sometimes, especially when you strive for your goals, you may feel discouraged. You try so hard and see no results. It seems like your personal growth doesn’t exist at all.
For this reason, setting up About Me page in a bullet journal will help you to catch your life at this moment – your job, activities, relationships, favorite quotes – the only limit is your own imagination.
After some time, you can always come back to this bujo spread and see how you improved your personality and lifestyle.
As Buddha said:
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become."
Starting a day with journaling daily affirmations is a great way to change all of the negativity in your head into positive thoughts about yourself.
Keep track of taking care of yourself. It may be interesting to see how some different parts of your life affect each other. For example, you can track your period and mood and see how they correlate. Or check out the activity/sleep interaction. Probably you’ll find out that after working out you sleep so much better.
The idea of dealing with a bad day is to find that activity that takes you to the most beautiful place, far away from the bad day. It is thus necessary to develop a list of such activities.
Write down what makes you happy or how to have a good day. Develop your own self-care routine and note it in your bullet journal for future reference.
Establish your beauty routine. Just find a morning routine that will help you feel better and energized to start a new day. At the end of the day, try out some of the evening routines. It will help you prepare to sleep better and have more power the next morning.
My Daily Self-Care Routine
Generally, I wake up at 6 am (about an hour before other family members) and follow the best morning routine I’ve ever known.
Miracle Morning.
- Hardcover Book
- English (Publication Language)
- 06/03/2023 (Publication Date) - Hal Elrod International, Inc. (Publisher)
Last update on 2023-06-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Basically, I start my day by choosing a positive daily affirmation.
Then I practice yoga for 20 minutes, meditate, and manifest my dreams by using a visualization technique.
Next, I eat a healthy breakfast and read at least 10 pages.
After my reading time, I make my favorite green tea and start journaling.
Sometimes it’s a worry journal, sometimes simple writing of random thoughts.
After completing all the miracle morning steps, I’m ready to conquer a day.
At this time I spend some time with my family. At 9:30 I’m ready to work with 25-5 minute intervals (the Pomodoro technique).
During these 5 minute breaks, I follow a cleaning schedule. One day I mop floors, another day I clean mirrors, etc.
Afternoons I usually spend with my family and for my family, playing game boards, watching Netflix, or cooking meals.
My evening routine starts after my kid’s bedtime.
Firstly, I complete the mood and habit tracker. Then I plan my next day in a bullet journal.
Secondly, I tidy my home, putting everything in its place, washing dishes, and cleaning countertops plus tables. It takes me no longer than 15 minutes.
Then I practice bedtime yoga.
After my yoga practice, it’s time for my evening beauty routine.
Undoubtedly, I’m a beauty product minimalist.
Apart from basic personal hygiene, my pampering routine is limited to face massage with plum oil.
Finally, I visualize goals by looking at a vision board while drinking calming tea.
Bullet Journal Self-Care Ideas – Final Thoughts
As you see, even an inconspicuous notebook can be a real game-changer when it comes to self-care.
Obviously, it’s only a tool. All the work has to be done by you.
Nevertheless never underestimate the power of written words, trackers, and other bullet journal self-care spreads.
I hope now you’re ready to start your very own bullet journal.
Just remember to tweak these awesome bullet journal self-care ideas to your needs.
Indeed, the whole beauty of bullet journaling is in its full personalization.
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