Bullet Journaling

[resilient]

Hey, do any DJs here bullet journal? I found out about BulletJournal.com from an online study group I belong to. My primary go-to scheduler has for the most part always been Google Calendar. One of the limitations I feel with GC is that it's hard for me to get the big picture of what's most important to accomplish today, tomorrow, this week, this month, this year. What I like about bullet journaling is that I can focus on the most important goals I want to accomplish and then modify or eliminate goals that are no longer relevant.

04:11 tutorial on how to setup a bullet journal ->

There are many ways to get creative that may help those who are visual learned/organized with pinterest ideas...

Just curious if anyone bullet journals here and what's been your experience so far? I'm trying to make a habit of using it, but sometimes fall prey to laziness and stick to GC because I can use that on my phone, tablet or browser whenever, wherever...

 

[Serenity]

There's an online service called Trello that will let you do this in a very user friendly and visual way. You can sort into categories, make check lists and it has an interface to quickly view progress on projects etc.

You can use it on phone, tablet and browsers anywhere at any time. It also lets you share lists etc. with other Trello users if you're working together with someone on a project.

Best of all, it's free.

If you want to try it here's a link: https://trello.com

 

[resilient]

Hey, Grewd. I used to be a big user of Trello. The only thing I got out of it though was making long backlog lists. For example, movies I want to watch, books I'm reading, read, or want to read, shows to stream on Netflix, or DVR. Video games I've played, want to play, or finished. I did this with homework assignments as well.

I guess Google calendar is still my go-to because I have multiple calendars set in one window: personal, school, exercise, work, etc. and will use color coding to quickly differentiate between tasks. The most I get out of it though is that it syncs up with my multiple devices and I'm always stretching out or narrowing the hour blocks I dedicate to which priority. I like the fact that I can click a tab, and I can see a 1-day, 4-day, 7-day, month outlook.

Long story short, I haven't had much better luck finding scheduling productivity tools to replace Google Calendar as of yet. Bulletjournal is cool... but perhaps a bit too manual....

 

[CuddleJunkie]

I've lost track of how many journals I started...lol. I used them to write down ideas that would arise in my mind so that I could write about them later. 1 week doing it, then some day I would just forget it and...habit dropped.

 

[sharkbeat]

The thing about this kind of organization is that it's almost a full time job just to do it. Drawing those lines and bullet points with all these arrows is a bit more involved. I could hire a secretary for that.

The way I do things is this:
I would have a big-ticket list. These are things I want to complete on a grand larger scale. Items that may take several days or weeks or even months go here. The purpose of this list is to keep your life focused. This list rarely change.

Then I have my daily list, something that I think I can finish in a day. Sometimes I would compose this list the night before, sometimes first thing in the morning. Just write down (on your phone or a pad) a list of things you want to do for that day. Errands, chores, etc. At the end of the day, sometimes you can accomplish them all, sometimes you can't. Things you can't finish that day carry over to the next day. This is usually things like waiting for a followup from a colleague or a govt agency.

 

[resilient]

Good insight on lists, sharkbeat. At work, sometimes, if a bunch of co-workers email, ask in person, memo, etc. a task for me to do by end of the work day, I'll take out a small yellow pad and write down all those tasks to get done by the end of the day, week or month. I cross tasks off with a red pen/pencil as I do them, so I know how well I'm on track to finish those tasks.

I think bullet journaling could work, but like you said all the points and arrows are heavily involved, perhaps too tedious for some. It may be take serious discipline to review and plan accordingly.

Perhaps, in life in general, it may be easier to think in the moment: What are the big three goals I'm striving towards? Book end the day to see how those priorities improved daily/weekly/monthly.

For me right now my big three are:

1. Research my top 5-10 grad schools
2. Apply to said grad schools
3. Get my own studio/casita or find roommate(s) this Fall.