Submitted By: Eric Guo
The Bullet Journal
In this day and age, productivity is necessary for success. People that are able to organize their time well are able to get much more accomplished in a shorter amount of time. However, not everyone is capable of being ultra-productive. Many people, like me, are prone to procrastination, and waste lots of time doing aimless activities before completing important tasks last minute. I have tried many things to try and combat procrastination, but I have recently found one method that beats all other methods: the Bullet Journal.
The Bullet Journal is an effective way of organization that allows for lots of flexibility. At first, starting the Bullet Journal may seem bland and easily replaceable by different planners, but it’s special because can be personalized to suit your needs. To start your own Bullet Journal, all you need is a blank journal and a pen. This seems deceptively simple and maybe even a bit boring, but the possibilities are endless with the Bullet Journal.
Setting up the Bullet Journal
The Index
To start your journal, simply grab a blank notebook and a pen. Open to the first spread of blank pages. These pages will be your index. In the beginning, the index doesn’t seem like much. However, don’t skip or ignore the index because it will come to help you a lot after a while. One of the best characteristics of the Bullet Journal is that you don’t have to write anything consecutively. Simply write any new information on the next blank page, and find everything using the index.
The Future Log
Next, you’ll need to set up your Future Log using the next few pages to record things that will happen down the road. The different possibilities are endless, but a good way of keeping the future log is to keep it as simple as possible. Whenever you have something coming your way, simply jot down the date and the event. Title the page “Future Log” and add the page to your index.
The Monthly Log
What’s nice about the Bullet Journal is that you can start it at any time for it to be effective. Your first Monthly Log is simply the month that you’re starting in. Write the month at the top of the next blank page, and write all the days of the month on the side. Optionally, write the first letter of the corresponding day of the week to help make things easier. What you have created is a monthly task list. For each day of the month, write down a task that you need to get done.
The Daily Log
The Daily Log is what makes or breaks your journal. When I first started, I purely jotted down all the tasks I had for a given day. However, I found that only writing down a date and a task felt very robotic. Plus, simply jotting down tasks didn’t make the bullet journal seem like anything special. It became a simple to do list that completely destroyed the purpose of the bullet journal. Instead, I also decided to keep track of personal events that I wanted to remember. This simple change added much more life to my journal.
If you’ve found the Bullet Journal interesting, I strongly recommend you to adopt this style of journaling. It will not only make your life more organized, but it will also change your life. All you need to do is give it a try and start journaling.
