In a world where you’re working on your desktop, toting your laptop to a meeting, texting on your phone during the meeting, then going for a run with your smart watch on your wrist, paper seems obsolete.
The workforce is increasingly flooded with digital natives, but even in the digital world, many people find themselves torn between keeping everything organized in their handy digital devices vs. the simplicity of picking up a pen and scribbling down a to-do list.
Enter bullet journaling. In short, it’s an organized journaling system for prioritizing, completing, and indexing tasks on a monthly, daily and future basis. For those who don’t even own a pen anymore, the approach works via mobile app, too.
Organizational benefits aside, many bullet journalers are finding the method helpful for habit tracking. Some even treat the bullet journal as a short-hand diary. The key is finding a method that works for you; and keeping in mind that even while there are countless layouts, color codes and fancy notepads you could use, the point is to make your life easier.
Here are a few basics to get you started:
Set up the sections.
Especially if your main goal is organization or habit tracking, you should start by setting up your logs. Your first two pages are treated as an index – basically a table of contents for quick lookup of other sections of your journal. Then, you’ll create a future log for incomplete tasks or goals, a monthly log and a daily log. This video breaks it down.
Decide on some symbol codes.
An easy way to quickly prioritize items in your bullet journal is to develop a system of symbols that signify different themes. Many people use stars for high-priority tasks and open shapes (triangles, squares) they can fill after a task is completed. You could also use color coding to keep track of your notes.
Remember to migrate.
Migration is taking any incomplete tasks or outstanding items from your prior monthly log and transferring them to the next month. You can also use this opportunity to review accomplishments from the prior month or even review habit tracking. Knowledge is power when it comes to completion.
Whether you’re sticking to digital or you’re looking for a way to organize the sticky notes on your desk, make it your own and see what the rage is about with bullet journaling
