I have been a list maker for as long as I can remember. Before I entered the world of planner obsession, I was simply a list maker.
I made grocery lists, to-do lists, organizing lists, lists of things I wanted to get rid of, lists of cute things my kids did, lists of upcoming projects, lists of dates I needed to remember.
Then one day, I stumbled across the Bullet Journal a concept designed and created by Ryder Carroll. I was a bit mesmorized. It was like… a place I could keep everything.
A place where all my stuff could be in one place, I could create a table of contents, a daily to-do lists and a place to keep all of the hundreds of lists I create a month. While I had notebooks devoted to lists in the past, this was very different.
This was “home”.
Each week, I create a weekly spread in my bullet journal, like the one you see pictured above. Yes, I realize it isn’t all pretty like many that you see, but that’s because mine is functional, and functional-only. I need it to keep me on task.
Using the checkbox system, I can fill in the boxes as I complete the tasks. This helps keep me much more organized than before.
I also love the fact that I can flip back a few weeks and see which da certain things occurred, what days I started a project or ended a project or even what days a significant event occurred.
It all starts with this:
In the front of the journal, I created a Key, which I used from several different sources but honestly began with Ryder and took on some things that apply just to me.
There is an index page where I record what page certain things are on, which makes it easy to find what I’m looking for….
- Lists of birthdays in April
- Lists of items I need for upcoming organizational projects
- Lists of things I need to take to the donation center
- Lists of things I need to dig out of my storage unit when the weather improves
- Lists of books to read
- Lits of netflix shows I want to watch
- Lists of season premieres
- Lists of recipes to try
- Lists of recipe ideas I want to create
- Lists of website and blogging goals
- Lists of things I want to buy
- and far more than I could list…
I include each weekly spread there, so flipping to that page is very easy. I don’t do my bullet journal exactly like Ryder, but it took some time to figure out what works for me.
Bullet journaling is better than a simple to-do list in that it keeps me organized, helps keep everything together and overall, is a much more time management friendly method for me.
Do you bullet journal? Or anything similar?
Today is day 2 in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. This is the letter B post, because well duh… B is for Bullet Journal!