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One of the best things I did last year was to start really tracking my sleep. I created a sleep tracker bullet journal entry and wrote down 5 things I did before I went to bed. I was able to learn why my sleep was so poor and make tremendous improvements to it.
A bullet journal sleep tracker can be super beneficial to you by keeping track of your sleeping habits and reminding you what factors affect your ability to sleep well.
The key to improving this requires knowing about the processes that happens as you fall asleep. A good bullet journal will help keep track of these factors, such as how long it takes you to fall asleep and how much sleep time there is in the various stages between falling asleep and waking up.
This way, you can adjust your sleeping habit accordingly with what factors most affect your ability to sleep well. With that knowledge, you may be able to adjust your lifestyle such as when you eat, when (and if) you exercise, what you do before bed, and a myriad of other factors that may affect your sleep.
How A Sleep Tracker Works in A Bullet Journal
A bullet journal is an amazing notebook filled with anything and everything you want to organize for yourself. I can’t begin to express how much I enjoy using my bullet journal and how its improved my life.
Tracking your day to day, your habits, your goals and of course your sleep is the perfect way to use a bullet journal to keep you organized and feeling good. There are countless ways to format the sleep tracker in your bullet journal. An example of one way is shown below.
Sleep Log Bullet Journal
This is a nice easy design to start your tracking. Put in the date, the time you feel asleep and about how long you slept for. It’s ok to estimate so it’s important not to over analyze these numbers. You can also add notes to each day about what you dreamt about or how well rested you feel, etc.
The purpose of the sleep tracker here is to keep track of your sleeping habits and see if there are any patterns with how you are sleeping.
You can create any number of types of sleep trackers for you to capture your sleep. You can draw one in or print one out and paste in on for the month. As long as you are making sure you are capturing the time and the factors which led you to the quality or lack of quality sleep, you can design any type of entry.
I like to keep things simple. I use a date, time asleep, and then notes for what I did before. For me, I realized having a glass of wine or an argument of sorts before bed led to the worst sleep nights. Sleepless nights are absolutely terrible and I am so grateful to understand how some of my behaviors have affected my sleep health.
Understanding Sleep Patterns
Sleeping patterns are important because they are indicators of what is affecting your ability to sleep well. It’s not necessary to concern yourself with the details of every little thing that might be slightly off, but instead focus on what factors affect your sleep the most and if any changes need to be made.
The reason for this is that sleeping well and waking up feeling refreshed is the result of a long term process and not based on one or two factors. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by over analyzing what might affect your ability to sleep well, which will likely lead to more stress and anxiety around trying to get a good night’s sleep.
Noting Your Habits
Also, if you do happen to discover a correlation between a factor and a change in your sleep habits it’s important not to become obsessed with that factor. Obsessing over one specific thing goes back to the importance of focusing on big picture factors rather than minor details. This will help keep your sleeping habit from affecting other areas of your life.
Just write down your behaviors and habits. You will start to notice patterns within a few weeks and be able to dig deeper into what these are. If you wake up multiple times at night, you can write these down, but again don’t become obsessed if you are waking to use the bathroom every so often. The key is to try to understand when you are having restful quality sleep and when you are not.
This is why a sleep tracker is a great tool to keep track of your sleep because that information is so important. If you know what affects your ability to sleep well, which will likely be the result of everything from exercise and diet to mental health, then you can adjust those factors to improve sleeping habits for the long term.
If you’d like a template to help get started with a sleep tracker, download the below file.
The Benefits In using a sleep tracker bullet journal Entry
- You will become more aware of how well you’re sleeping
- Better Sleep! Over time the goal is for you to get better sleep, which will lead to an improvement in your overall mood and mental health
- You can determine what works or doesn’t work when it comes to making changes that affect your ability to sleep well
- Increased physical health. With more sleep, your body heals more and your heart rests more
- Improvement of Memory and Focus
- Building Muscle Memory. You may be able to remember your dreams more and determine other pieces of your life
- To spot possible correlations between factors that affect your ability to sleep well, such as diet or exercise
There are endless reasons for tracking sleep in your journal. But what I have learned from experience, sometimes the smallest change can make a huge difference in how you feel and your overall health. If you want to try out a sleep tracker I have included several examples below for you to try out.
The major reason to use a sleep tracker is because poor sleeping habits are both very common and can have long term effects that affect your overall mood. It’s important to keep track of how well you’re sleeping because it can help you find patterns in what affects your ability to sleep well, which will give you the information needed for developing good sleeping habits.
For me, using a sleep tracker in my bullet journal has helped me become more aware of how I’m sleeping. This is important because after noticing some factors that used to affect my ability to sleep, I was able to let go of those things and develop a much more consistent sleeping pattern.
Of course this is going to be a different experience for everyone but I definitely think that using a sleep tracker has been helpful in developing good sleeping habits! If you’d like, download the sleep tracker template above and give it a try yourself.
Keeping track of sleep patterns and habits
To measure how well you’re sleeping over time, which is the result of a long term process you need to write down your daily hours asleep. The longer you can do this the more data and information you will have to understand your sleep patterns.
The sleep tracker bullet journal entry will be able to show you over time what days are better than others, what the weather or location may be doing to your sleep, how timing affects your slumber, and many other factors. This will ultimately help you determine if any changes need to be made in order to get better quality sleep
An example would be to change your diet to improve your sleeping habits. There have been studies done about how eating small meals throughout the day can affect sleep quality over eating three large meals in a day. So if you know this is something that affects your sleep then you can adjust that meal schedule to improve your sleep.
A normal bullet journal will help keep track of this but it won’t be as beneficial as a sleep tracker because there are no reminders or recommendations based on the factors you input about sleeping habits. This is where the power of the internet comes in, with all kinds of information available on improving your sleeping habits.
So, if you are looking to keep track of your sleeping habit but get recommendations that are based on what you put in then a sleep tracker is perfect for that! It will give you insight into how well you’re sleeping and what factors may improve it for the long term.
12 Sleep Tracker Bullet Journal Ideas
Why use a bullet journal?
Because it will make you feel organized, in control and powerful.
The best feeling in the world is when you can look around and find everything in its place. That includes: your car keys, cell phone and shoes! But also: your work assignments, grocery lists and financial documents. All this stuff we need to know but don’t want to think about it when we don’t have a clue where to look for in 5 seconds.
There is a solution for this problem, and its name is the bullet journal. It is a simple system that helps you create a beautiful working notebook completely according to your needs. As well as keeping track of what’s going on right now and what has to do in the future and past.
The bullet journal is a customizable and forgiving organization system. It can be your to-do list, sketchbook, notebook and diary, all in one! With this simple analog system, you can keep track of everything that matters to you without it taking over your whole life. We promise that if you are an organized person, this system will make you feel even more in control of your life. Check out these great bullet journal supplies and tips for beginners.
What goes in a bullet journal?
The list is endless! But here are some ideas: your monthly to-do lists, habits you want to implement or break, financial budgeting and tracking, books that have touched you or that you want to read, events of the day or month, quotes that inspire you, your favorite recipes, thoughts about life and how to live it better…
The possibilities are endless. And remember: this system is customizable! Not only do the bullet journals look really cool but also have some great features. First off are the index pages. The index pages are where you can find everything you want. Indexing is the hardest part of this system but it is very necessary if you ever want to go back to something that’s already been entered in your journal.
Another great feature are tagging or labelling symbols. You can use these little creatures to mark things according to their topic. For example, you can tag your recipes with a little fridge or stove symbol. Tag the pages that contain work projects with an icon of a stapler or pencil. Or mark holidays with a special symbol.
The most important part is to make this system yours! Don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes because there are no rules in the bullet journal. Think of it as a workbook, not like one you get in school but more like an activity book for adults.
How to use a bullet journal?
The system itself is pretty simple if you understand the basic idea behind. First off, there are different types of pages: index (contains all of the important pages of the journal in one place), future log (where you can plan out your monthly goals and dreams), daily log (in which you’ll put all of the tasks that need to be finished today or scheduled for specific days) and collections (more on this later).
Now, let’s go through each type of page in detail.
The index should be the first page you see when you open your journal. It is divided into three sections: “future log”, “daily log” and, of course, “index”. On the left side of the index are all kinds of symbols that indicate which types of pages are nearby. When you’re using your bullet journal for the first couple of times, it is recommended to put these symbols next to the names of the pages instead.
When you open up your bullet journal for the first time, go directly to this page and give it some order. You can use post-it notes to mark which pages are the most important (and where you’ll find them!) and which ones you don’t use as often. Index pages are the heart of your bullet journal, they should not be missing!
Future Log
A future log is used to plan out goals and dreams for any given month. It’s basically a monthly to-do list that looks like this:
As you can see, there is plenty of space for planning. You can list your daily goals but it is more commonly done with the help of a future log.
Daily Log
A daily log is where you’ll be putting all of the tasks that need to be finished each day, as well as scheduled events and any appointments on specific days. The advantage of this type of spread is that there’s plenty of room for writing and it can be done as many times as necessary. It is very useful to put the tasks of each day in a different color for better visibility.
Additional Pages
The bullet journal collections are some pages which you might want to consider adding on regularly (or on specific occasions). They include:
- A mood tracker: where you’ll want to put down the way you feel every day, so you can change your daily routine accordingly.
- A habit tracker: where you can keep track of things that need to be done regularly. It is a good idea to include this page if you’re trying to start new habits or break old ones.
- Sleep Tracker: As discussed above! To help take care of your health and sleep patterns.
- Quotes: for those days when you need something to inspire you!
- A music playlist: now that summer is out, it’s time to put on the headphones and listen to some good tunes. Bullet journals are not suitable for putting down your favorite songs but they are great for noting down concerts or new albums you’d like to check out.
- Goals tracker: if you’re planning out goals for the year or even life milestones, this is a great place to do it. You can list specific goals and see how many days are left until you reach them.
- One page a day: pretty self-explanatory – sometimes we have so much going on in our lives that we forget about our plans for a given day. With this collection, you’ll be able to write down one thing that needs to be done on each day.
- A log of things I got: this is a great place if you’re planning out gifts to buy or want to keep track of any other kinds of objects you’ve received. Every time someone gives you a present, you can quickly write it down here.
- A budget tracker: also a good place for keeping track of money spent or earned on specific occasions.
- The middle pages are the most practical ones and the most likely to be filled out with lists, thoughts and notes. They make up the backbone of your bullet journal and allow messy people like me to keep their spreads neat and organized.
- The last type of spread is the “collection page”. They are pages that you might want to add on regularly (or on specific occasions). Here are some examples:
- “Quarterly goals”: these are basically mini future logs, for breaking down your yearly goals into manageable chunks.
- Life lists: it’s a great way to break down your bucket list into manageable bits. You can create “life lists” for specific events or occasions, like creating the perfect playlist for a specific concert you’re attending or creating clothes that fit your personality.
- A reading log: if you are someone who loves books, this type of collection is perfect for you! List the books you read every month.
- Yearly goals: planning out yearly goals can be overwhelming so break them down into quarters, to better manage your time. If there are things that need to be improved during a quarter, you can plan it out here.
Type-A collections are the most practical part of the bullet journal, because they give you a chance to organize your life and plan ahead. All you need is a blank spread and a pen to start planning out your day.
Lets Start Journaling!
Now that you know what types of spreads there are, it’s time to get started on your own journaling journey!
It might seem difficult at first but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be building pretty spreads in no time. Many people say that using different colors for your pens is more effective than using just black, because it allows you to see things more clearly. I personally didn’t follow that rule when I started my bullet journal, but if you’re one of those perfectionists who can’t stand seeing so many black lines on your spreads, give some color a shot.
I know not everyone is a fan of handwriting their notes so it’s always good to have an option to type them up or find printables that you can print out and add to your journal.
Bulletjournal.com – the official website of the bullet journal has lots of inspiration for ncluding spreads and designs.
If you already have all the supplies ready, it’s time for the last step: starting your own bullet journal. For beginners, it might seem overwhelming but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually easy to start planning your day.
Here are some tips that might help you get started:
The best way to start a bullet journal is by picking a color and naming your notebook. Some people have pretty notebooks which they want to be able to show off so pick a cool name for it!
Most bullet journals (AKA bujos) are decorated with quotes or pictures that inspire the person who made it, but if you want to keep things simple you can also decorate your notebook with washi tape, stickers, or creative designs.
Keep in mind that every bullet journal is unique so do whatever works best for you!