Bullet journaling

If evening prompts are about looking to the future (growth) and morning pages are about looking at the past (emotional processing) then bullet journaling is about the present.

There are as many different ways to bullet journal as there are people.  You may have seen examples of beautifully crafted colorful pages.  Probably on some mom blog your wife used to read.  

At first glance, it might all seem a little feminine. A little airy fairy. But it doesn’t have to be.  The truth is that bullet journalling, at its core, is about tracking the important things in life using basic symbols.

These symbols can be anything you like, but traditionally it starts with a single dot (or bullet) representing a task.  You can track your progress on tasks or simply cross them out when you are done.

If you look up a how-to guide on bullet journaling, you will read about “future logs”, “monthly logs” and a whole host of other logs and trackers you can put together.  To me it can all feel like a little too much. 

When you get down to it, the most essential part of the bullet journal is the daily log.

The way I use bullet journaling is very basic.  

I’ll note any special events for the day.  This might be a dental appointment, a parent-teacher conference or anything else that isn’t a usual work meeting. 

Most importantly I write down the tasks I think I can get done in that day.

As you can probably predict, knowing what you can accomplish in a day is a challenge.  At the end of the day or the start of the next, take any unfinished tasks and decide what to do with them.  Typically you will move them to the next day, but you may also move them to some other list of todos to get done later.

Over time you might notice there are tasks you keep putting off.  You run out of time or they aren’t urgent enough to make it in the priority stack.  

There are two things to do with these.  Schedule them or eliminate them. 

Always start by asking yourself “Do I really need to do this?”  

If it’s not essential or even important cross it off your list and move on with life.

For everything else: what has been preventing you from getting it done?  Is it time consuming or excruciatingly boring?

If it is important enough to do but for whatever reason you never get around to it, schedule it. 

For scheduling I add an entry in my Google Calendar (digital calendars are superior to paper for almost everything).

Doing that task becomes an appointment with myself.

Like appointments with anyone, it is important to show up. 

If you have a legitimate reason you can’t make the appointment with yourself, go ahead and move it.  But don’t do this forever. 

Just like a friend might lose trust that you’re ever going to get together with them if you keep changing plans every time, you will lose trust with yourself, and it is a pain to rebuild trust with yourself.

Try it: If you’re looking for ways to organize the chaos, give bullet journaling a try. There is something powerful about writing down what we intend to accomplish for the day. Crossing an item off the to-do list is a the micro-award we all need.

Pick up a simple notebook (preferably with dot-graph pages) and give daily bullet journaling a try.