Amazing daily logs you need to try
If you’re new to the bullet journal world, you’re probably searching for fun ideas and spreads inspo to recreate.
You also probably started your bullet journal because you want to be a bit productive (and creative, of course!).
If you’re looking for creative but productive bujo spread ideas, you need to try a daily spread.
What is a bullet journal daily spread?
A daily bullet journal spread (or daily log) is part of the original bullet journal idea of combining planning and tracking.
A daily spread in your bullet journal is a spread that allows you to plan and track each day of your week.
You can include things like a daily to do list to plan a productive day, but you also have space to review your day; to track and take note of things that happened.
You can plan and track important things in your daily spread, like;
- Plan each day of your week, and organise upcoming days in advance
- Pace a reminder for events happening the following day, and then review that event once the day is over and the event has happened
- Track important habits with a habit tracker; you can record your mood, the weather, your water intake for the day, the amount of steps you took, the amount of sleep you got, etc
Now you know a little more about daily spreads, you might want to create your own.
This post is all about daily spreads for beginners, including the pros and cons of daily spreads, and daily spread inspiration to make your own!
So read on for inspiration and ideas for your daily spread.
When do you make a bujo daily spread?
If you’ve decided you want to start a daily spread in your bujo, you might not be sure when to start one.
Typically, you create a daily spread the night before the upcoming day (or first thing the morning of that day, if you don’t have time the night before!).
This is to make sure you are planning the day just before it begins; by leaving it close to the day, you are ensuring you include everything you need to for each day.
If you plan it too early, you may have new plans that come up for example, and may not have left enough space to fit them in.
So creating your daily spread the day before or of the day means you can be sure it is up to date and as accurate as possible.
As daily spreads are made very regularly, you can leave as much space as you need to, and add anything you want in; as much or as little information as you like.
What should be in a daily bullet journal log?
Your daily log can contain a mix of plans for your day, and then tracking the day after it’s finished.
In terms of planning your day, you can make lists of things you have to do for the day, such as;
- To-do lists
- Appointments and meetings to attend
- Events happening that day
- Reminders for the day
Then in terms of tracking in your daily spread, you can;
- Tick off as you complete the tasks you planned
- Journal your thoughts for the day
- Track your habits throughout the day
And make a note of anything else you want to track.
Aside from planning and tracking, your daily spread can also be used as a place to write goals and quotes, and record important ideas.
The positives and negatives of a daily journal
A daily spread can be a great tool for productivity in your bujo.
And there are a lot of advantages to keeping a daily log.
The pros of a daily log
- As you make the spreads daily, you can ensure there is the right amount of space for you for each day. This means you can leave plenty of space to write in and track your habits if you know your next day is going to be a productive one, or leave less space if you know you’re not going to have much to say for the following day.
- As you decide how much space you leave for your daily spread, you can allow plenty of space to be thoroughly organised for each day (if you want to be super productive with your daily spread that is!).
- You can also allow more space to be creative; you can leave a full page or even a double spread for your daily log to fill with drawings and illustrations.
- If you like writing, a daily spread allows you to be more free flowing with your writing, as you can leave dedicated journal space to fill thoughts and feelings for each day (sometimes bullet journal spreads are not very wordy).
- A daily log also allows to solely focus on what is planned for each day; you can take each day is it comes, and not worry about the days, weeks, or months ahead.
The cons of a daily log
Whilst a daily log is a fun spread, it does have some disadvantages.
- Since daily spreads are usually created the night before, you can’t pre-plan your spreads any earlier. So it’s not great if you like time to plan your spreads, and prepare them days in advance!
- They are daily spreads, so you have to create a page everyday; it can be time consuming creating new spreads each day.
- If you’re mentioning things in your daily spread you’ve already covered in your weekly spread, you might find yourself re-writing some things.
What is time blocking in your bullet journal?
Time blocking is an easy but super productive feature to include in your daily spread.
Time blocking is a way for you to break down and manage the time you have in each day in your bullet journal.
You take a block of time, and then assign that time to complete a certain task or activity.
When the time in your day is laid out clearly in front of you, you can easily see all the time you have to work with.
You might think this could be overwhelming, but by breaking the day down into small chunks, your time becomes much easier to manage and plan.
Which should help you to be more productive with all the time you have, and hopefully complete more tasks!
How do you block time in a bullet journal?
To create a space for time blocking in your bullet journal, you firstly need to decide what hours you are planning for.
For example, on a working day of the week, you might want to plan your time between 9 am and 5 pm (perhaps later if you’re a student and need to study).
Either way, start by deciding your scheduled time you want to plan for.
Then, draw a small square in your bullet journal.
Each square represents a certain time of day, and an amount of time.
So that one square can be 9:00am, and what you’re going to do at 9:00am for 30 mins.
Once you’ve drawn your first square, on the left of that block, write the time of day you have decided to start your plan for.
Once you have drawn and labelled one block with the first time of day, you then draw another block next to it (either above or below it).
I recommend drawing your second block below, as you’re going to be writing next to each block, and I find it easier to write across the page than down, but either way is fine.
This square represents the next block of time you have to plan.
So if your blocks are 30 mins each, this second block will represent 9:30am.
(Each block you draw does not necessarily need to be equal; you may plan the start of your day in 30 minute increments, then tail off to 1 hour increments in the evening. But to start, it is simpler to stick to having a block meaning an exact amount of time).
Continue to draw multiple blocks or squares underneath each other in your spread, and label them the time of day they represent as you go.
Keep drawing out squares until you have your full day out in blocks labeled with the designated times; if you are planning a working day, keep creating blocks until you reach 5pm, or later if you want to plan your evening too.
Then, next to each block on the write hand side, you can write your plan/ to do tasks for that set time of the day!
If you have a task that will take more than half an hour (and you are sticking to each block representing 30 minutes) you can group together multiple blocks to show it will take longer than the given amount of time a block takes you.
You can also colour code the blocks, or use a key to plan your time more efficiently.
Adding trackers to your bullet journal daily spread
Whilst time blocking is a great way to make sure the hours in your day are productive, another way to monitor you day for productivity is to include a tracker.
A daily tracker is a way to monitor an activity or habit for each day.
Some trackers you can include in your daily spreads are:
- Habit trackers, like water intake trackers, exercise trackers or a total step count, sleep trackers .
- The weather
- Mood tracker
- Activity trackers
- Study trackers
You can include just one of these trackers, or all of them, depending on how many of your habits you want to keep track of!
Bullet journal daily layout inspiration
Now you know all about daily spreads, including how to make one and what to include in your daily log, it’s time to make your own!
Check out these amazing daily log ideas below:
Creative bullet journal daily pages
If you’ve got the time to spend, you can make really creative daily logs with illustrations.
Check out some creative daily spread ideas below:
If you’re a Pokémon fan, this spread is for you!
This daily log by Dear.tinna has an amazing torchic illustration.
Pokémon is a great theme idea for your daily spreads; there are so many different ones, that you can create a Pokémon daily spread for each day of the year for over a year, and not run out of characters to draw!
But even if you’re not a Pokémon fan, you can still take inspo from this spread; by drawing a cute cartoon or character and sticking to set colours, you can create a strong theme for your daily spread.
This spread isn’t just about the looks either; it also has multiple different sections to plan and organise your day, including a daily log, to-do list, and a cute reminder section.
So don’t feel you have to pick either being creative or productive for your daily spread; you can have both.
Perhaps you’re a Disney fan?
If so, you need to follow @bujo.disney on instagram; Disney themed bullet journal spreads are their thing!
This daily bujo spread by Emily is a great mix of creativity and productivity.
Her Hercules illustrations at the bottom of the page really showcase her drawing talent, and are also super fun.
If you are being creative and drawing images in your daily spreads, make sure you remember to leave room for the actual bullet journaling side!
As you don’t know how much you’ll be writing about each day, it’s best to play on the safe side, and leave plenty of room.
Emily has left lots of space around her drawings in this spread, so she can write as much as she wants to about her day around her awesome drawings.
Colourful bullet journal daily spread
A great theme idea for your daily logs is to pick a colour, and base your spread around that.
This log by Virginie Le Rouzic uses a vibrant shade of yellow, giving it a bright and bold vibe.
The illustrations of the lemons and lemonade also give the spread a strong summer theme.
Again, Virginie has made sure there is plenty of room to write about her day, by making sure the illustrations are mostly around the border of the page.
But don’t feel too restricted in ensuring your design leaves lots of writing space; Virginie has added illustrations to the center of the page too, and it’s worked out beautifully!
Minimalist daily spread bullet journal
If you’re not one for filling your bullet journal spreads, perhaps a minimalist approach is a better idea to try.
Above is a perfect example of minimal daily spread; it’s concise, and contains very little content compared to the last spread we looked at.
But despite being concise and minimal, this daily spread is still creative; it has a clear feminine theme, and even has a sweet quote at the end, which uses layering to add some visual depth.
Time blocking daily bullet journal ideas
We already know that time blocking is a great way to use your daily spread for productivity, and the spread pictured above is good example of this.
This daily spread by Marisa has a very detailed time blocking section to keep your day organised and on track.
There has been time mapped out for the majority of the day in 30 minute increments, meaning most the day can be thoroughly planned if need be.
This time blocking section is also colour coded; colour coding your time blocking means you can get a lot of detail about that day with a quick glance.
You can set different activities as different colours, so if you quickly look at the page, you can see what type of activity you have at that time; for example, meetings and appointments can be in one colour, exercise in another colour, etc.
Or rather than setting an activity in a certain colour, you can colour each block of time depending on whether you completed the planned activity next to it; a green block can mean you completed it, a red block you didn’t start it, and an orange one to show you did start the task, but couldn’t finish it.
These are just suggestions of course; you can colour code your time however you want!
Here is another great example of a daily spread with time blocking.
This spread by curlsarestudying makes the most of each page; the time blocking fills the vertical space, meaning the day can be thoroughly planned from start to finish.
They have also made clever use of the space, by splitting up the pages into different sections.
If you’ve got different parts of the day you want to time block for, you can also split up the page into different sections like above.
For example, you can have 9 – 5 planned in detail (perhaps in 30 min increments), but after 5, you can split the page by drawing a line across it, and then just plan the evening by the hour.
You can also split up the page for different purposes, like essential tasks being done before a certain time, then less essential tasks in a second section to be completed after a certain time.
But either way, splitting up the page into sections is a great idea to fully utilise time blocking to its full potential.
One page bullet journal daily log ideas
If you’re new to bullet journaling and looking for layout ideas for your daily spread, a single page daily spread is a great idea.
This is because having only a single page means there is less space to feel overwhelmed by.
(It also helps to keep your daily spread concise, as a single page means you can only include the most important details for the day!).
The daily spread above is a good example of a one page daily spread.
A single page doesn’t mean that you have to skimp on the details of you day either.
In the above daily spread, despite being only one page, lots of information about the day has been included.
The small space has been divided into sections and labelled with multiple headings and titles, giving each section a clear purpose.
Your daily spread can have a number of different purposes, like tracking habits, making to do lists, etc.
Splitting the page into sections helps to allocate enough space for each job you want your daily spread.
This spread has some great ideas for other topics to cover in your daily spread too, such as what you’re working on, things to update, and tracking stuff you need to buy.
Daily habit tracker
Another thing you can add to your daily spread is a habit tracker.
These are great for helping you track certain behaviours throughout the day, and can even help to make sure you’re improving these habits.
For example, if you include a sleep tracker in your daily spread, you can work on getting more sleep if your tracker is showing you’re not getting enough rest each day.
The above daily spread by Eva is a great example of a simple yet effective habit tracker in a daily spread.
Despite only including a few drawings and some words, it clearly tracks a lot of key information, including how much exercise was done that day, what time they woke up, how long they slept for, how long they read for, etc.
The habit tracker above also includes some super cute doodles.
If you don’t want your habit tracker to take up too much time, but want to track multiple habits, you can pick a simple icon to represent each habit like Eva has.
You will get quick at drawing each icon the more times you draw it for each daily spread!
Expenses daily tracker
If you’re into budgeting and keeping on top of your finances, another tracker you might want to include in your daily spread is an expenses tracker.
Making note of all the things you are spending money on each day can really help you to notice a pattern in your spending habits.
Hopefully if you can clearly see where your money is going, it will help you work out if it’s going to the right places, or if you need to start budgeting a bit better!
Above is an example of a daily bullet journal spread with an expenses tracker.
There is a box at the bottom right of the page, which has plenty of room to note down all your purchases for the day (no matter how many there are!).
This spread also shows you that you don’t have to dedicate the whole of your daily log to just one item.
Despite having plenty of space for an expenses tracker, there are also boxes for writing to-do lists, notes, and even a water intake tracker.
So don’t feel you can only track your expenses in your daily log, if you’re creating a daily spread for budgeting purposes; you can still fit plenty of other information around your spending tracker (even if you do like to splash the cash).
Daily spread with checklist
If you think you’ve got too much stuff to include in a single daily spread, check out this example above.
This daily log has loads of detail, but has the perfect blend of organizing on the left page, and creativity with quotes and images on the right.
The right page in particular looks full, and has layered different materials like washitape and pictures to help add more dimension to the page.
One of the most productive things you can include in your daily spread is a checklist.
Just like the example above, to help with productivity, try including a list of things you need to do that day, and tick off your tasks after you complete them; either as you do them throughout the day, or as you’re filling in your daily log at the end of the day.
You can even write your checklist the day before, so you can wake up that day knowing exactly what you need to do!
Above is another great example of a bullet journal spread with a checklist.
This spread by Cecile has clear spaces for each day, and dedicated checklist spaces for each day.
This daily spread has been drawn out, but not filled in yet.
This is really helpful to see, as creating a layout before you start filling anything in is a great idea if you hate working with a blank page.
You can map out the space and set up where you want things to go, then come back to fill in the details; for example, you can set out boxes for your checklist, then write what needs to be done alongside the tick boxes.
I also really love the use of stickers in this spread; they help to add lots of colour and personality to the page, but the sticker process is much easier than having to hand draw it all yourself!
Daily spread with key
This spread by Kas shows how to make your daily bullet journal spread productive by using a key.
After writing out tasks for the day, rather than ticking them off once the day is completed, you can do little symbols next to the task to mean different things.
For example, a tick can mean the task listed was completed, a cross means wasn’t started, a dash can mean it was partially started, a * can mean it was moved to a later date, etc.
Rather than just crossing things of a list, using a key will allow you to add even more information to your spread, but without taking up much extra room.
So by just creating a key, and putting different symbols next to each task, you can look back at a later date and see exactly what happened with each task on that day, rather than reducing it down to “Did I do this; yes or no?”.
Daily bullet journal spread with writing
If you prefer to write than plan, a daily spread is actually one of the best bullet journal spreads you can create.
You can draw out your page for the upcoming day, and leave your page pretty much blank, then write all about your day in the space after the day has taken place.
You can write as little or as much as you like; it’s your bullet journal, after all!
Here is a great example of a bullet journal daily spread with lots of writing.
Whilst they have included plenty of information about the day, such as the date, events happening, and tasks for the day, there is also a huge section on the left to write in.
So if you’re more of a journaler than a bulletjournaler, you can still make a daily spread work for you!
I also love the use of layering here; the additional layers of paper for the events and tasks help to make sure they are highlighted, and the room for writing about the day has a dedicated space on the left.
Daily spread with quote
The last idea for your daily bujo spread is adding a quote.
Adding a quote or thought is a great way to make your spread both creative and personal.
You can chose a quote that means something to you, and design it in a way that allows your creativity to flow when drawing it out.
Here is a daily spread by Virginie with a huge quote in that takes up the whole page!
It’s beautifully designed, and adds a real touch of creativity to this spread; the drawing in particular is so detailed!
Not only is this quote designed beautifully, but it clearly has a very deep meaning.
You can add a quote that resonates with you, to make your bullet journal spread mean more to you.
Bullet journal daily log inspiration – final thoughts
Hopefully, you know a lot more about daily spreads after reading this post!
You should be able to create your own, and also have plenty of ideas for different daily log themes, and what to include in them.
Related bullet journal inspiration posts
If you enjoyed this post, check out these other bullet journal spread inspiration posts:
- Bullet journal weekly spread ideas you need to try
- 35 bullet journal future log ideas
- 300+ bullet journal theme ideas
- June bullet journal themes
- July bullet journal ideas perfect for Summer
- August theme ideas for your bullet journal
- Best September bullet journal themes to try
- October theme ideas for your bullet journal
- November bullet journal themes
- Best December bullet journal spread ideas
- 16 February bujo ideas you’ve never thought of
- Best bullet journal themes for March