How I Bullet Journal
Having a bullet journal is a pretty hot thing right now for organizing your thoughts and goals.
No, I’m not that type of person who breaks out the colored gel pens and is obsessed with typography. I just needed a method to organize my thoughts and objectives for the day, week, month, etc.
If you are intrigued with the prospect of keeping a journal, struggling with keeping a journal after trying a traditional approach, or need to quit a bad note-taking habit, consider reading on.
I’m a list keeper
One habit that I have, for better or for worse, is that I am a pretty obsessive list keeper. So much so that my wife gets overwhelmed just from peering over at them, and for good reason. You can easily tell my stress level is and my current state of sanity just by looking at the length of them.
Journaling isn’t for me
I have found that the traditional free-form writing of keeping a journal isn’t quite my jam. I tend not to make it an entire week before I skip a day or two as a result of disinterest.
Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Since a popular motivation for journaling is to reduce stress an anxiety, it shouldn’t matter what form of journaling is used to accomplish this objective. For me, most of that is accomplished by having a plan for the day, and doing so in a bulletined form is sufficient.
I don’t like multiple notebooks
I keep my bullet journal along side the notes I take down for the day. The reason for this is that I don’t need to have two notebooks. I don’t regularly have the volume of writing on a daily basis that would warrant more than two pages of writing. If more than a page of notes is needed, it’s likely that my journal is not the place where it should be stored. Typically, these pieces are literature reviews, reports, or other brain-dumping exercises. For this, I use typical Microsoft Office products for work, Google Drive for school, and Notion for personal projects.
Format of my bullet journal
My journal is broken up into two sections:
Weekly Review - where I review the objectives from the previous week and set goals for the current week.
Daily Pages - where I keep the lists of key tasks, optional tasks, and notes.
Daily Pages
Daily pages involve a couple of sections. The left page is the action item page, which lists my “to do” lists. The right page just features the notes for the day. If I need to write down any notes from a meeting I was in, or had a random though that I should remember during the day, I write them here.
The top line of the left page (in blue) will be the day of the week. The right corner of the line will be the shorthand date (in pink).
Under that on the left page will be a section header named Key Tasks (in red). Key Tasks are no more than 5 tasks that 100% need to be accomplished that day. Chris Bailey discusses this in his book, The Productivity Project, where people can really only complete 3 tasks per day, called “the Rule of 3.” I try to stretch it out a little bit to six, but still follow the same principle with this Key Task list. I only include important tasks for the day in this section and color in the checkboxes for the tasks when I complete them.
Each task gets its own line with its own checkbox. Each task is assigned a priority, which can be assigned at any point during the day. The asterisk (*) represents a high priority task while the down-ward pointing arrow (↓) represents a lower priority task. This helps with answering the question: what should I do first?
Another important list is the Water list (in gray). I try to aim for 90+ fluid ounces of water per day. Every time I finish off a water container, I write its volume in fluid ounces down in the list. After all, it’s widely accepted that it’s good to drink a lot of water.
After key tasks are written out for the day, and my hydration is taken care of, we move to the Other Tasks header (in green). Other tasks are those that do not need to be completed today. These could be due to be completed by a certain day or not, where if a due date is known, it’s appended to the end of the task by a “, due M/DD” suffix.
The right page is one that holds all of my notes. As such, it has the main header Notes (in purple) on the top line. As with the left page, the date is also on the right corner of the right page (in pink). Date every page people.
Weekly Reviews
Weekly reviews are designed to be short and sweet and therefore only have 3 short sections (in purple). These reviews take up a single page, are short and sweet, and takes the place of the daily Notes page on Sundays (right page). As you can see from the image, I am only part-way through filling out this Weekly Review.
The first of which is the 3 good things from last week list. I just write down three things, no matter the size of them, that were good from the previous week. For example, this past week, I played some video games with buds for the first time in a while, and that was pretty great!
The second section is the 3 goals for next week list. These are just three short goals that I have for the week that I will influence my priorities for my two daily task lists.
The third is the 3 things to look forward to list. Having things to look forward to, especially during the era of COVID, is important. They are like little nuggets of happiness that you dedicate time to during your week. This week, there will be a rocket launch (hopefully) that I will be able to tune into and I have a new coffee blend coming in, which I am excited to try.
If you didn’t notice, this review is positive-focused. My task lists are generally things that I can control, where the weekly reviews are things that have brought, or will bring me, joy. Covering these two elements have done great things for my mental health.
When do I journal
I journal at the start of everyday as part of my morning routine (which will most likely be another dedicated article). Typically, this is done after I get up, shower, and get back from my coffee walk. I try to do it before I open my work laptop or leave for the office.
Daily fires that you encounter during the day shouldn’t be driving factors when trying to accomplish larger, more important objectives. As such, I try to not look at my email prior to journalling, because it’s fairly easy to get sucked into the day before it’s properly scoped. No one likes scope creep.
Summary
As discussed, these are some of the different things I include in my journal that you might consider adding to yours. For myself, journalling needs to be a fast, concise, and be a well of things that don’t need remembering. This ultimately helps reduce my stress and anxiety over trying to “do it all” on a daily basis.
Is there any particular part of my process that you use in your journal activity? Do lists give you anxiety? Feel free to drop me a line at hi@natecordova.com or connect with me on socials. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
