Crave ONE Free Spot for All Things Bullet Journal? It’s Here

Who created the Bullet Journal? Ryder Carroll

What is it?

A notebook customized—by you—to meet your needs & accommodate your flow.

When would/should one adopt a Bullet Journal?

Mid-year, mid-month, mid-week. The time for starting a bullet journal mirrors the time you feel a need to
get it togetha. That’s the joy of a planner/diary you create: it’s your world, so exploit it!

Where can this type of planner prove helpful?

✧︎ Businesses

✧︎ Home Offices: Freelancers / Writers SoloPreneurs

• Boho Berry: Bullet Journal for Freelancers & Writers: tracking clients, content, and more
• Page Flutter: 14 Bullet Journal Lists to Supercharge Your Writing Skills: Flabby Words, Grammar Anatomy and other gems
• Bullet Journal: The Writer’s Answer to Getting Things Done: I agree ~ productivity skyrocketed after adopting a bullet journal (the magic phrase – enhanced focus via writing)
• Something Delicious: A Fiction Writer‘s Bullet Journal: bonus ~ additional resources
• Writers Edit: The Complete Guide To Bullet Journaling For Writers: “complete” indeed; and, excellent points presented in the Notebook section.

✧︎ Legal Field

✧︎ ︎Medical Field

✧︎ OnLine

✧︎ Schools: Educators / Students

• A Waldorf Journey: Bullet Journal for Teachers
• Alexandra Plans: My Teacher Bullet Journal Setup
• BulletJournal: Bullet Journaling for Teachers: pertinent statistics
• The Candid Teacher: Bullet Journal for Teachers: "Use it as part of a three-pronged approach to classroom organization"
• ∷︎︎ ∷︎︎ ∷︎︎
• Blessedly Busy: 10 Tips for a Successful Student Homeschool Bullet Journal
• Boho Berry: Inside a Student's Bullet Journal with Sareena
• Fresh U: 7 Reasons Every College Student Should Start a Bullet Journal
• How to Bullet Journal: A Student's Guide to Bullet Journaling

✧︎ Streets & Parks: Runners.

Why use a Bullet Journal?

Heightened focus. Everything, or relevant pointers, in one location. And more.

How do I create/use one? How do I set it up? How can I find layouts and ideas?

Bullet Journals vary, in terms of both form/layout and substance/content.

As regards form, the artistically inclined find relaxation in drawing elaborate eye-candy filled pages. Others, like yours truly, opt instead for minimalism. What's best is whatever keeps you faithful to the system.

With respect to substance, some prefer a one-notebook-handles-all approach. Others may relegate certain components (e.g. logs, lists, trackers) to companion notebooks. Different folks; different strokes.

Suggestion: Consider your lifestyle as well as your needs/desires within the context of planning. Wisdom suggests taking your maiden voyage in an old notebook. A month or so in, you'll have a better feel for the system, allowing informed tweaks. At that point, you may want to pinpoint a notebook and pen/pencil promising to emerge as faves. What we like, we want to use. Critical, since any self-management scheme worthy of the name mandates regular use!

✧︎ Key

Quick experiment: grab a piece of paper, jot 3 items, and mark one with a shortcut signifying super-important. That signifier your intuition gifted? Your first item for the key, essentially, a list of your signifiers / symbols. Please, don't get swallowed by elaborate examples. The immediate goal: fashion a bujo that works for you, not vice versa.

✧︎ Index

Short version = what's where, e.g. lists, logs, particular spreads, etc.

✧︎ Daily Log

• Bullet Journal Inspiration: My first Daily Logs Ever
• Flickr: Bullet Journal – Daily Log | Here’s a daily spread
• Hannah Emily Lane: Bullet Journal: 5 Daily Log Layouts
• Scrively: The Bullet Journal-Workshop: Color-coding the Daily Log & note taking
• → → Pics / Examples: Flickr, Instagram

✧︎ Weekly Spread

✧︎ Monthly Spread

✧︎︎ Future Log

✧︎ Daily Time Bar

✧︎ Dutch Door

✧︎ Collections / Lists / Logs

Conclusion

As you view the bullet journals folks on InstaGram, Flickr and elsewhere, feel no intimidation by the artistic flourishes. As noted by creator Ryder Carroll: "There are a lot of very beautiful and elaborate Bullet Journals out there on Instagram. This can be very intimidating. It's not about how your Bullet Journal looks, it's about how effective it is." ¹ Effectiveness, in turn, requires multiple productivity-enhancing habits. For that reason, I've included the following Bonus Section.

Bonus Section (cuz a BuJo needs a Goals umbrella for true productivity enhancement)

• List of time management & productivity blogs: sharing ideas to maximize your workflow
• Top Ten Techniques to Develop Self-Discipline
• The Pomodoro Technique: Is It Right For You?: Some love it; some despise it; some massage it to better reflect their work circumstances. In any event, worthy of consideration.
• Ten Thought-Provoking Questions Peak Performers Ask Themselves Every Morning
• 11 Things Smart People Don’t Say
• 12 Proven Productivity Hacks to Help You Win Every Day (Michael Hyatt)
• Keeping a Time Log: How to Do It and Its Benefits | The Art of Manliness
• PDF, Printable Template: the 15-minute increment time log: a sure fire method to fight procrastination - log your work day as you tackle tasks
• 3 Productivity Habits (Not Tools!) for Busy Professionals
• Time Blocking -- The Secret Weapon For Better Focus: I use color-coded blocks, each representing a work category, e.g. Writing, Admin(istration), Author Platform, Prospecting (leads for submitting articles), Law (related to my legal practice)
• 10 Simple Steps to Exceptional Daily Productivity
• How to Overcome Your Inner Dialogue of Doubt and Get Stuff Done: Understand, the moment you step outside your comfort zone—focusing on an unknown—the beast of resistance will attack, powering negative self-talk. I've learned running from that voice is like trying to unring a bell. Instead, I acknowledge the would-be pulverizing thoughts, respond & move on. (Yep, today I'm a dummie on this subject, but there are countless books for dummies. So kiss my skleeboop as I work my way through every dang dummie book 'out dere' focused on this new-to-me field!)
• How to Set Up Your Workspace for Maximum Productivity (Infographic)
• How to Become More Resilient So Nothing Can Keep You Down
• The 2 Most Powerful Words for Reaching Your Goals (if/then)

Read More & Feast on the Thousands of LayOuts

The following Pinterest resources are updated daily, although I do tend to unplug completely on Sundays.

BuJo / Bullet Journal

BuJo for ...

Bujo-Planner Hybrids

Psst! → My BuJo's Theme Song

Footnotes

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/02/07/what-the-hell-is-a-bullet-journal-and-why-are-people-using-the/, last accessed 2/8/2017 (boldface emphasis added) ↩
2. Specific :: Measurable :: Action-oriented :: Realistic :: Trackable :::: Example: At my age, setting a goal to become a famous ballerina defies nature's laws of physicality. But if I'm determined to become a premier grant-writer, I'd start at the end and work backward. In a nutshell, I'd sit down & scrutinize oodles of successful grant applications; find related (free) webinars as well as Kindle Unlimited & Audible books; feed my RSS reader with niche blogs; study job postings for grant writers to discern frequently stated requirements ... the list goes on. I'd then set quarterly milestones (what will be accomplished when), broken down further into monthly → weekly milestones, and finally, daily agendas. ↩