{a decade of Bullet Journals} Part 3 – The back pages
One of the reasons I love my bullet journal is the lists and notes I keep on the back pages. Each year when I’m setting my journal up, I also flip to the back and add important pages there.
My 2022 back pages
FLYlady zone cleaning tracker
I also have listed on the next pages all the items to do for cleaning each zone in my house. In 2022 I made a checklist grid to see what I did last month and what I didn’t get to, so hopefully I’d get to it the following month. As you can see, it didn’t work out well for me at all.
Period Tracker
In my 2022 bullet journal, on the very last page, I put in a period tracker, a very minimal one, like this one.
For 2023 I’m going back to just having a list for each zone and adding zone cleaning to my late-morning routine. Maybe with a reward that I can watch one of my favorite YouTube channels with lunch when I’m done. I really like how @bujo_boss did it here. And ya, I’m going to stick with FLYlady for cleaning again this year. I’ve tried other methods, but this one seems to make the most sense to me.
Gift Ideas
I love this page the most of all of my back pages. When someone mentions throughout the year that they really want or need something, I add it to this page. Mine is just lists, but this idea is fun! In fact, this year my youngest son said “I need to figure out my Christmas gift list.” and I told him I had already bought all his gifts. We’ll see what he thinks after Christmas morning, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be pleasantly surprised, since almost everything was something he mentioned he wanted at some point during the year.
Car Info
Sometimes it falls to me to schedule maintenance and repairs. Corey does a lot of it, but what he can’t do, I need to track and plan for. I usually had to look up the info like VIN numbers or tire sizes or the years of our cars, so I finally put a page in with all the information for each of our vehicles.
For each car I wrote down the year, make, and model; the VIN number; the plate number; and the tire size. I also noted in there each oil change and repair and cost when we did them. And at the bottom of the page, I listed our mechanic’s phone number (because I was always looking that up too.)
Reference
This is a sort of catch all page with information that I will probably refer back to. Information like websites, phone numbers, product names, etc.
There are a lot of other good ideas you could add too. Remember to keep this simple too. Don’t get bogged down with all the cool ideas you see on Pinterest and Instagram. Add what you really need, not what looks cool (that you’ll probably not keep up with, and get discouraged about). My general rule is calendar and goals at the front of the bullet journal, and pages that I’ll refer to, or add to, at the very back.
Next week I’ll be sharing my calendar pages and goals (!) for 2023, so we can all stop talking about bullet journaling and start setting it up!
If you have any questions or ideas for your own back pages, please be sure to share them below!
What if you need to start a new notebook before the end of the year? Do you copy all of that down again in the front and back?
I haven’t had to do that, but if I did need to start a new one, I’d probably start my new one with the remaining calendar months for the rest of the year, and only make new back pages if the previous pages were full, otherwise, I’d just keep adding to the previous bullet journal.
You may have already covered this, I’’ve been scattered recently, but does each journal last a full year for you?
Yes, I usually always have some blank pages at the end of the year.
I tend to make these pages up on the computer, and then have a master page that goes into my “control journal”, aka Flylady style. I’m slowing getting some of this tracking info together… like car maintenance, lawn mower maintenance, and house things. But I love looking at bujo pages, as they bring fun ideas for the tasks I need to track. This has been fun to look through! Thank you!
Kari, you Menta to anonymous up above comment that you keep adding to the previous journal. If you finished journal one and need more room for remaining months, why would you add to previous journal? And also do you leave the second journal blank if you finished the months for that year?