Bullet Journaling Ideas for the Workplace

“What is a bullet journal?Bullet journals have become an increasingly popular way to track your productivity. It is a creative goal-orientated strategy that works to record, focus and motivate you to achieve your tasks. Bullet-journaling has many benefits; it helps individuals keep track of progress, gives goal-based direction and breaks down projects into a bitesize task. It is an inexpensive, interactive way to plan and keep yourself organised.Bullet journaling is a productive past time that will give your goals some structure. It is a helpful thing to have on your desk as you can use it to monitor your daily tasks as you complete it; it can give individuals a sense of achievement. You can work on it during your lunch break, or 2 minutes here and there during work. What do I need to start a bullet journal?Essential:
• Pen
• Book (the guidelines on the paper can be grid, dot, line or plain)
Handy optional items:
• Ruler
• Colourful assortment of pens
• Bookmark
• Stickers
• Washi tape
• Printed graphics and glue stick
• Sticky notes
5 Things to considerBefore starting a bullet journal, it can be helpful to think about what kind of bullet journal you want. This will help you work out what kind of content and how you will organise it. Below you will find 5 interconnected questions that are helpful to ponder on before starting your bullet journal.
• What is it for – work, a specific project or personal? What you want to document will shape what kind of layout and organisational structure you will create for your bullet journal.
• How much space do you want to dedicate to the topic?
• How much time and effort are you willing to invest in this? This will greatly influence in what detail you record, the process in which you record and the end result. How much focus you will put on the design element, if you want to make it from scratch or if you want to buy a ready-made bullet journal.
• What are the priorities in terms of functionality? Schedule, task list, breakdown of goals.
• How do you want to design your bullet journal? This is entirely dependent on your taste, resources (i.e. materials, money, time) and artistic ability. If you are stuck for ideas, there are a lot of inspiration layouts and ready-made bullet journals.
What to include There are many guides on what to include. A common way of breaking the contents down is future log, monthly log, daily log and collections. The following components can be modified according to your personal needs and interests. Future logThe future log can include things like a goals section, and a 12-month overview of your year, with appointments, birthdays and big projects pencilled in. Monthly logThe monthly log is helpful when breaking down your year and the days that make up weeks, it helps section your year in a logical way. It is often used as a cover for every set of four weeks, so you can put new goals, track new habits and start new projects every month. You can decorate your monthly cover with cool drawings or a sticker if you are artistically challenged. Often people put things like quotes, key tasks and a small calendar of that month on the cover sheet.Daily log: Break the week up into 7 days, or 5 working days. Write the tasks for each day, and then create a key, so you can monitor the progress of tasks, appointments and activities; such as, if a task is cancelled, done or moved. A key will help you form a consistent shorthand way of marking each task. You may choose to colour coordinate, add graphs and pictures. Collections: Tasks you do regularly or/and in-depth, you can make into a collection. They are a useful way of grouping recurring tasks in one place, for ease of reference. It also helps to not clutter your daily log.This will be the most customised part of your work. Below you will find some examples of collections. • Send a letter to grandparents each week• World map to colour in places you have been• Budget tracker• Birthday tracker• Social Media trackers • Travel Expense Tracker• Billable hours• Contact information • Quick recipes • Water office plant tracker• Online shopping receipts and refund trackerWhere to start: The first step in your bullet journaling journey is to make a rough structural plan on what content you will include first. It is important to keep in mind that starting the bullet journal may take some time, however, once you start it, it gets easier. Make a rough contents page, see below:1) Annual log• Calendar – year at a glance • Goals, 1-year plan, 2-year plan, 5-year plan. • Big projects 2) Monthly page• Habit tracker (monthly collection)• Activity log• Deadlines for the month• Weekly break down
o Reminders
o Weekly deadline summary
o Word of the week
o Daily break down
? Tasks
? Appointments
3) Collections • Send a letter to grandparents each week• Budget tracker• Birthday tracker• Social Media trackers • Travel Expense Tracker• Billable hours• Contact information”