A simple productivity system that just uses pen and paper.
Looking for a way to get better organized in 2019? Ditch those phone apps and other planners for a pen and paper to make your own DIY planner called The Bullet Journal. It is a simple notebook that will become your ultimate to do list and calendar for 2019. All you need to do is fill the blank pages with all your daily, weekly and monthly schedules and also add other journal entries and tasks.
The Bullet Journal is an analog system created by Ryder Carroll, a Designer based in New York. In his words, the Bullet Journal is designed “to help you track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future.” It’s an amazing system that keeps a record of everything you could ever want to toss at it. It can be your task manager, sketchbook, journal, idea catcher, and so much more.
The Bullet Journal consists of a few specific sections:
- An index, in which you list the page numbers of any subject you want to find again later (using a notebook with pre-printed page numbers speeds up this process).
- A future log, in which you keep track of upcoming events or deadlines for the next six months.
- A monthly log, in which you note events and deadlines for a specific month, and a list of monthly tasks.
- A daily log, in which you write down tasks, events, and notes per day. This is where you plan what to get done each day and work through your tasks.
The Bullet Journal’s main feature is rapid logging, which is used for the daily logs. The idea of rapid logging is that you can mix together notes, tasks, and events in the same place, and use different bullet points to distinguish between them. A task (“pick up dry cleaning”) gets a simple dot. A note (“Hannah’s in town”) gets a dash. And an event (“Dinner with mum and dad”) gets a circle.
There are easy ways to connect bullets, tasks, notes, and events into a single organized system that offers guideposts on any page to get to where you need to be without flipping through dozens of pages looking for something specific. There’s even a method for moving your items from one “month” to another “month” inside your journal seamlessly.
While the system itself does take some time to get your head around, we can assure you it’s completely worth it. You only have to look to Instagram where more than 100,000 photos are tagged with the #bulletjournal hashtag, to understand the following the system has. But one of the greatest thing about the Bullet Journal system is you don’t have to buy a specific type of journal to follow it, any pen and paper you enjoy using will work.
Credit Top Image : Boho Berry
As the original Bullet Journal Notebook (Leuchtturm 1917) is difficult to find in the UAE you can buy this stylish and sleek Moleskin notebook for 59.51 AED.
Or if you are on the lookout for a more luxurious notebook then the beautiful leather Smythson notebook for 223.18 AED is worth buying.
