Alternative Uses for the Perpetual Calendar on the Rhodia Goalbook

A while back, I wrote about the Rhodia Goalbook and why it would make a great bullet journal notebook. The Goalbook is a great bullet journal notebook because it already has dedicated pages for the index, has numbered pages, and has 2 types of future logs – all of which are essential to bullet journaling.

Rhodia’s future log pages are called “perpetual calendars” because they’re undated and are valid for any year. The first type of perpetual calendar is similar to Ryder Carroll’s horizontal Future Log. The 2nd one is the vertical perpetual calendar with numbered days for each month in a year.

…but I don’t use a future log!

Future Logs haven’t been useful for me because I don’t have enough future events to log. Usually with future events, I log it in my iPhone or my email calendar. However, with the calendars already available, I wanted to make use of the pages.

Alternatives

The first 2 on this list are things that I will be using in this year’s bullet journal. The subsequent items on this list are other great alternatives for a future log in the Rhodia Goalbook’s perpetual calendar.

When Did I Last (Vertical calendar)

I’ve already started to use a “When Did I Last” collection page but as I move further from that page, I’ve forgotten to fill it in. When I saw the vertical calendar, I immediately thought of using it as my space to list down recurring monthly activities such as paying bills, changing passwords, gassing up, or getting a wax.

Instead of writing down all of my recurring tasks and marking when I completed the task, I would just write the task on the day I fulfilled it.

Monthly memories (horizontal calendar)

I used to staple and stick on movie stubs or concert tickets in my bullet journal. Then last year, I noticed barely did that maybe because a lot of the tickets that I purchased were e-tickets and when I did, I was not particularly fond of the page because it felt misplaced since my bullet journaling style was minimalist.

I would still want to keep small souvenirs of memories but I was thinking of moving it to a collection page of memories and, at the same time, showcase my creativity on that page. Since I wouldn’t use the horizontal perpetual calendar space for actual future logging, I think I would want to dedicate this space to my monthly memories such as movies, concerts, or new places that I’ve tried. I’d be able to stick on the tickets there or maybe do a little bit of doodling. We’ll see how this goes!

Milestones tracker

I’ve been doing my best to track any milestones or daily highlights on my monthly calendar just so I can easily reference to them when I need it. The thing about having it in separate months is that you would need to go through pages of monthly logs to review milestones. So if you write them down in future log style, you get to have an easier access to the milestones that you’ve written down.

Short gratitude log (vertical calendar)

I think writing down things that you are grateful for is a great exercise. I haven’t done one yet but I considered writing down one small thing that I’m thankful for in the vertical calendar. The space allotted per day isn’t huge so you wouldn’t be compelled to write something long. You could simply write “coffee” or “my job” or “my friends” and move on to your daily bullet journaling.

Word of the day (vertical calendar)

There are a lot of word of the day spreads in the bullet journal community. Some are very creative and some are more educational. If you’re like me and you don’t want to spend too much time on writing your “word of the day”, you can use the vertical calendar to write down a word a day – whether in your native language or in a language that you are studying.

Writing prompts or challenges (vertical calendar)

There are a lot of daily writing prompts and doodle challenges on social media. If you participate in one, you either have the prompts printed out or saved on your phone. I participate in the #rockyourhandwriting challenge and bookmark the monthly prompts on my Instagram. Sometimes, I don’t like having to go through my phone just to see what today’s challenge is. The Goalbook’s vertical calendar is a good space for writing down the daily challenges so you could easily use it as reference.

Monthly goals

Most bullet journalists write down their monthly goals alongside their monthly logs/layouts. I haven’t really written down monthly goals or even set goals for a month but the idea came to mind when I was thinking of other ways to use the future log. I like the idea of the monthly goals all in one spread so that when I reflect at the end of the year, I would find my goals easily.

Do you have other ideas? Share them in the comments below!