24 examples of how to plan ideas for bullet journal themes in 2021

Whenever I start planning for my annual themes, I love having a little collection of theme ideas for my bullet journal!

I started making this little collection of themes I liked throughout the year! This made it really simple for me for to combine them at the start of the year to keep my themes cohesive! I really thought I was the only one, but it turned out there were tons of amazing bullet journalists who also did this exact same thing!

Watch the summarised version of this post!

What is a bullet journal theme?

A bullet journal theme is something you would use to curate or design the look and feel of your journal on a monthly or annual theme.

It is pretty simple to identify if you have a theme or not – if you regularly draw flowers or floral doodles, then this would mean you have a “floral theme”

If you are looking for the largest collection of bullet journal themes check out our alphabetical list!

How to overcome overwhelm when looking for a bullet journal theme

When you’re starting out with your bullet journal, it can be really overwhelming finding a theme that suits your style and vibe. You might have headed onto pinterest and now are down a rabbit hole of amazing spreads that you don’t feel match your skill set yet, it can start feeling really overwhelming. Do not get sucked into that though! Your skills are perfect right now!

Why is having a bullet journal theme a good idea?

Sometimes when you have started creating a bullet journal you might want to start trying new styles and ways of doing different spreads and layouts. That is such a fun way to make things feel different in your notebook!

Some people do not love having the same theme throughout the year, so they like changing it up, and to do this they use a theme guide to help them plot out how they will change those themes. It could also be that you might want to have a larger theme like “Harry Potter” and then have smaller individual themes per month.

While you don’t see it often, many people have a certain style for their bullet journal which carries throughout the year. Some people do get very creative with their styles and it almost ends up being a theme.

How can having a theme in your bujo help keep you focused?

By taking out the guess work monthly by having a predetermined theme for your bujo then planning it out at the start of the year will help keep you on track and it mean that you wont need to be distracted by other things in your bujo. It means you can use your bullet journal more productively because it is one less thing for you need to focus on!

If you have a word of the year that you love then another awesome reason to theme your bullet journal is to keep you focused on your yearly visions and goals which align with your word of the year!

Having a bullet journal can also help with

• Helps create a consistant look and feel between your spreads
• It helps save your time by having predetermined themes ready to go
• It helps push you to think about different themes and looks and feels for your journal. Push your boundaries
• Help you to feel less “locked-into” a theme or style in your bullet journal
• Limit your supplies and use of washi tape to the theme you have in mind

You can download the printable I created for you to help get you started!

24 Bullet journal Theme Idea Spreads

So lets take a look at some of my favorite bullet journal theme idea spreads to help you think of how you might want to create a theme spread!

If you want to see our themes per color you can check out this page! It might give you inspiration for a rainbow theme for 2021!