5 Ways Bullet Journalling Improves Productivity

Hey there! How are you? I’m good, thanks for asking. I’m excited to bring you another guest post today from an incredible blogger who’s blog is just so swoon-worthy. Today, Sumedha is going to chat with you about how bullet journalling improves productivity. Now, I’m not a bullet journaller. But I know a lot of you are! So I hope you enjoy this wonderful post.

A guest post from Sumedha at The Wordy Habitat:

Hi everyone! I’m Sumedha from The Wordy Habitat. I’m excited to talk to you today about something that I’m very passionate about—bullet journaling. I started bullet journalling almost 5 years back and haven’t looked back since. It has vastly improved the way I organize my life.

I used to be a clumsy person who forgot things all the time but now I’m seen as a well-put-together person. Crediting that improvement to bullet journalling is not an exaggeration.

Firstly, what is a bullet journal?

If you are new to bullet journalling, welcome!

A bullet journal is a personal custom planner that builds on the concept of bullets. Tasks, events, ideas etc. are noted down as bullets in order to break them down and make them easier to handle. That’s it! Very simple, right?

While the initial method was very basic, it has evolved over the years and has expanded to include trackers, different personalized pages, and more. But all of this is completely optional.

For more information on the original method, check out the official bullet journal page or the creator’s YouTube video.

The 5 Ways Bullet Journalling Improves Productivity

Everything is in ONE notebook

One of the main points of the bullet journalling system is FLEXIBILITY. Since all the pages are made by you for you, you can set it up to fit your exact needs. This way, you can have all that you need in one place. Instead of keeping basic to-do lists in your phone, high-level planning in planners, and random notes somewhere else, you can have everything in one notebook.

This way, you don’t have to manage multiple areas of organization and remember what is tracked where. Zero context switching required.

Using one bullet journal for all areas allows you to concentrate less on maintaining your organizational systems and concentrate more on getting your tasks done. Only one place has to be updated with events, progress and new tasks every morning. Your productivity will definitely improve with this organizational method.

It serves as a good reference for the future

Before I started using a bullet journal, I used to ask people around me or look through my texts to remember when I had done a specific thing. In order to remember when I went somewhere, if others didn’t remember too, I would try to remember other events around that and relate them somehow to get the date. It was haphazard and took way too much time.

Now, with my bullet journal, I can simply whip it out and flip the pages to check the dates. It saves me a ton of time and allows me to easily move on with my task instead of searching for a small fact.

Your bullet journal organizes all of your life. Once you get used to noting everything down, you can easily refer back to it anytime. Your last doctor’s appointment, when you received an important package, your last menstruation cycle, the day you agreed to something—they are all neatly documented in this one notebook.

In today’s world, we often have to look back and remember dates or facts in order to do something else. Our memories are (generally) not very reliable. Bullet journalling frees your mind from remembering small things and allows you to easily refer facts and move on.

It is not in a digital device

Although a few people prefer digital bullet journalling (on their iPad), most people go for the traditional pen and paper.

As the bullet journal is not in a digital device, you can easily spend 10 minutes every day organizing and getting ready for your next day without being distracted by notifications or pop ups on screens.

Digital devices, especially our phones, are black holes for our attention. We can pick them up to send an important text and instead lose ourselves on Instagram for an hour. That will not happen with a regular notebook. Bullet journalling makes sure that your attention is on updating your trackers and making a list for the next day. Even those 10 minutes of planning will help your next day go much smoother.

It is easy to carry everywhere

Traditional planners with premade pages are generally thick and hardbound. They are bulky and heavy. Hence, it is hard to lug them everywhere and they are not easy to fit in any bag.

Bullet journals are made out of regular notebooks and there is no rule that a notebook has to be long enough to contain the entire year. You can pick a 100 page notebook and easily use it for 6 months at least. And that 100 page notebook will be much easier to carry in your bag wherever you go. It will take up lesser space and will be lighter if you go for a softcover notebook.

Most bullet journalers go for the B4 or A5 size which fit in any handbag and are big enough to contain enough information on every page.

As you carry it everywhere, you can bring it out any time to note something, update your schedule, or refer a past event.

It frees up your mind from “mental notes”

The world is very different today compared to 4 decades back. We are overloaded with information through the internet and our thoughts jump from topic to topic every second. We have tons of tiny “mental notes” to remember.

When I’m on the bus, lets say, I’ll think of multiple things and will add small tasks in my head like “set a date to meet friends” or “find out more on this topic.” There is no guarantee that I will remember these tasks long enough to do them later when I am free. In order to remember, I’ll have to repeat those tasks in my head. Basically, reminding myself to remember those notes.

You may write down these notes on your phone and decide that you’ll see it later. But you might not remember to open the notes app itself. That is where the bullet journal comes in.

Instead of keeping them as mental notes or writing them somewhere on your phone, you can write them in your bullet journal and be assured that you will see and be reminded of them.

As you will open your bullet journal at least once a day, either in the morning or at night, to plan for the upcoming day, you will see the notes that you wrote earlier. And you can properly add those things to your schedule.

Some people maintain a specific page for this called the brain dump page. According to me, it’s one of the most important bullet journal pages. It’s basically a page to dump all the small notes in your head so that you are free to concentrate on what you’re doing instead of partially working on remembering those things.

This will highly improve your productivity as it will free up your mind from low priority items, allowing you to concentrate on high priority or current tasks.

Have I convinced you to try the bullet journal method yet?

While this post is about how it improves productivity, the entire bullet journal system is meant to make your days smoother. There are more benefits to using the system than what I’ve mentioned here.

If you’d like to try the system yourself, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to start a bullet journal.