Bullet Journal, Version Two
I’ve added a few new features to make things more organised and functional
Last year, I got myself a notebook with the intention of following the Bullet Journal system as a way of keeping track of what needs to get done (you can read about how I originally felt about that on my old blog). However, at the end of the year, I was impressed enough that I decided to carry on this year, and this time I’ve added a few new features to make things as interesting and useful as possible.
New notebook and pens
This year, I bought the highly-recommended Leuchtturm1917 A5 notebook as my journal, a really neat (but expensive!) notebook that has a bunch of really handy features. It has two built in bookmarks to keep track of things (I use one to point to the current month and one to the current day), high quality paper (which is also dotted), a dedicated index and also page numbering. I’ve also found that the pages hardly bleed any ink, which is great when using ink pens.
The ink pens I speak of are some “Pitt artist pens”, which means nothing to me except:
- They come in a pack of four
- There’s a great variation in nib sizes
- They produce bold, crisp lines on the paper
Ultimately, it looks a whole lot less ugly than last year’s journal. This is really handy when looking back through the book to find stuff, I find.
Goals page
The first page after the index page is my goals page, which lists the big things I want to achieve this year. Each goal is achievable as well as measurable, they aren’t some wishy-washy new year’s resolution tat (in fact, I set them and started earlier in December). They are located at the front of the journal so that I see them every time I open my journal. Fun!
Habit plotter
There’s a certain number of things I really want to get into a routine of — completing programming exercises (Leetcode or similar), drinking plenty of water, exercising (twice a week when I’m not ill), and taking vitamin supplements (them damn vegetarians). To make sure I’m keeping track of these, I’m using a habit tracker located in my monthly log, that runs alongside the month. I can tick off or record stuff daily, meaning that at the end of the month I can easily look back and reflect on how well I’ve done, as well as encourage myself on sticking to these habits next month.
I’m interested to see how this one goes to be honest; we’ll see as the year goes on.
Trip log
Turns out that I’m travelling more and more for hackathons, conferences and other things, so I thought that it was very useful for me to include a trip log, which would include information on upcoming trips, flights and ticket reservations. Again, I’m not sure how useful this will turn out to be. But time will tell…
Recipe log
If I cook something interesting, I currently have no way of storing a recipe for later — as well as ideas to try at another time. So, I’m adding a recipe log which will keep track of these. The beauty of the bullet journal’s index means that I can just add these whenever I damn well feel like throughout the book. This will almost definitely come in handy, since I’ve just made a surprisingly good stir fry.
Project pages no more
I’m not going to use project pages in my new journal since they seem somewhat unnecessary. Instead, I’ll use existing digital solutions (e.g. GitHub projects, Trello) or a physical Kanban board to keep track of these. Any due tasks will just go straight into my daily log.
Design
One thing I noticed while looking around for inspiration on the internet, such as the bullet journal subreddit, the bullet journal website itself, and Pinterest, was that a lot of people take great pride in making their journals extremely colourful and aesthetically pleasing. I think this is pretty awesome! However it’s not for me.
Although I see the appeal of having nice pictures in your journal, it feels like it’s crossing the line from journal territory into an art book, which is definitely not what I’m trying to achieve. A page dedicated to motivating quotes will probably spend more of my time (by virtue of having to make the page in the first place) than it would inspire me to not waste as much time. I think it also has to do with the fact that my handwriting isn’t what you’d call aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. But hey — the journal’s for me to use and for you not to use!
Another thing I noticed being used often was the idea of a “weekly log”, where instead of writing tasks as they appear, you’d write them into a two-page spread corresponding to a week of the year. Again, this doesn’t suit me personally because I may have more things to do on one day than another, so that idea got the boot (I did give it a go in November for one week just to see; I ended up running out of space in the Tuesday panel and tasks had to go into the Wednesday panel).
Consistency of use
Whenever I’m at home, my journal is on my desk next to me, ready to be added to whenever a task is made. The biggest problem last year was that I would realise something needs doing tomorrow, wanting to add it to my journal and realising that it wasn’t with me, so I’d end up forgetting all about that task. Ease of use is super important when trying to stick to using a journal.
Also, I have daily calendar reminders set on my phone at the beginning and the end of each day, to prompt me to check what’s been done and add tasks for the next day. This helps to encourage me to check back on the journal often, to make sure any deadlines aren’t being neglected.
Scratchpad
Remember what I said about random doodles in my journal? To counteract this, I’m using a much cheaper A5 notebook as my scratchpad — a place for me to scribble down algorithms, sketches, numbers, calculations anything that I need to get onto paper. This keeps my journal from being cluttered up with random crap, so serves a very important purpose.
Conclusion
My bullet journal has quickly become a very important aid in my life, in order to keep myself productive, punctual and healthy. Taking the lessons I learnt from my first year of using one means that I should be able to rely less on online cloud services that do unspeakable things to my data (hello, Google), and instead use pens and paper like a real goddamn hipster.
About
I’m attempting to write a new Medium story or a blog post every week this year on any topic. Hopefully they’re interesting! This is completely aimed at improving my writing and communication skills, so any feedback, however harsh, is greatly appreciated, either here or sent privately. Thanks! 😀
