What to Put in a Bullet Journal?

There are plenty of hacks that can teach you how to better plan your day. Most of them are used by successful entrepreneurs from all over the world, while some of them are still being tested, with their efficiency yet to be proven. However, those that do work, are slowly being adopted by people who have so many tasks to complete throughout the day, a smartphone doesn’t seem to be enough to cover the necessary grounds. And a great example of a tool that actually works is the bullet journal, bujo, as some people call it.

What Is a Bullet Journal?

The name itself is pretty suggestive: the bullet journal is a notebook that allows for different types of planning, like putting together to-do lists and calendars in an organized format. Some people like to use a bullet journal as a diary, while others use it to brainstorm new ideas or take notes during an important meeting or plan a long shopping trip.

While this is the simplest definition we can give you, a bullet journal is actually a much more complex tool developed by Ryder Carrol. This link will help you get a better understanding of how this tool was created and what it’s meant to do, but we’re also going to explain a little bit more about how it actually works.

There are certain creative elements that make a DIY bullet journal a tad more different compared to a regular notebook. It features elements such as daily and monthly tasks, an index, a collection, topics, and a future log. The entire system is designed to be a planner for your past, present, and future tasks and goals. Adding cute designs helps make it more personal.

Explaining the Elements and Modules that Goes into It

When you talk about bullet journals, there are a few keywords that you should know about:

• Migration is a term that’s used to describe the ability to move tasks forward into your planning system. For instance, if there is a task from the present that you haven’t managed to complete, but still want to see it through, it can migrate from your past to the daily page in order to keep its importance updated.

• The index of a bullet journal is basically like a table of contents. It’s a way for you to quickly find the stuff that you’re looking for, since you’ll be numbering your entries and making sure the pages are numbered as well. It allows for easier navigation through your content.
• Spreads is a term that’s used to describe pages inside your bullet journal. For the most part, two pages that are located side by side are referred to as a spread. For example, your collections will often be spread on two pages, which makes them spread.
• Trackers are a specific type of spread that you use to stay on top of specific bits of information over a certain period of time.
• Dailies are basically daily logs that show you exactly what your tasks are throughout the present day.
• Similar to dailies, you also have spread that are called “weeklies” and “monthlies”. The names speak for themselves.

Rapid Logging

Rapid logging is basically what you do when you want to make a quick note of something or a short entry. Bullets and signifiers are the two main components of rapid logging.

There are three types of bullets in rapid logging broken down into sections:

• Task bullets are basically individual dots that describe a current task. You can mark them with an X if you completed them, label them as “schedules” if you’ve added them to a future schedule, or label them as “migrated” if you move them to a different collection.
• Event bullets are usually labeled with “O” and they are tasks that have a very specific completion date. For instance, if you have a specific meeting schedule next Friday at 10, that is considered an event label.
• Note bullets are marked with a dash, and they’re important observations or thoughts that you want to remember.

Signifiers are additional information that could give you better insight into a specific bullet that you’ve marked in your journal. Signifiers are not really mandatory in your bullet journal, so not every task is required to have one. They will, however, provide additional information that might be helpful in your quest to see your tasks through.

Bullet Journaling Ideas to Include

Having a bullet journal is a cool and amazing way to really stay on track of everything you have to do, but it does so much more than that. When you have collections of your thoughts laid down on paper, you might actually make more sense of the clutter and be able to prioritize the tasks that you really have to take care of, but also remove some tasks from your list that aren’t really that necessary. Even if it seems like an easy idea, there are some tips that might make you be more efficient when it comes to making the best out of your planner:

• When you’ve got a lot of things to remember and daily tasks, try to divide them into time periods. Make a clear outline that will showcase what tasks have to be completed in the morning, which are due for the afternoon, and what are your plans for the evening. It will be way less frustrating to see small chunks of tasks rather than a huge long list that might leave you feeling down before the day even starts.
• Don’t be afraid to use color-coding. We often do this with our Excel spread to mark urgent or completed tasks, so it could be a good idea if you used colors in your bullet journal as well.
• A bullet journal can have a collection or a spread dedicated to tracking your financial goals.
• You can make your bullet journal template as simple or as complex as you want. If you’re the kind of person that needs additional explanations and information you want to remember for every task, by all means, write it down.

Conclusion

Having your own journal of this kind is an amazing way to keep track of everything that you have to do. While a lot of people use their phones for daily reminders and calendars, the system can’t be as complex as the things you can actually write and draw and mark using just a piece of paper and a writing instrument. These journals were designed to be a productivity hack that more and more people have started taking advantage of.

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