10 Bullet Journal Tips to Increase Productivity

Hi everyone, my name is Matt, and welcome to another Bullet Journal productivity video. I'm so excited to share this video with you because it's a special collaboration video with my friend, mentor, YouTube coach, Amy Landino. Now, I first heard about Amy when I read her book Vlog Like a Boss several years ago, and it really helped me get my YouTube channel up and running. Since then, we've gotten connected, and she's coached me through some of the growth that my YouTube channel has had, and we started talking because she is a really big Bullet Journal fan, aficionado, expert herself. And so we got together and thought it would be really cool to share our top 10 Bullet Journal tips for you. So the way this video is going to work is I'm going to share my top 5 tips with you, and then you need to scoot on over to Amy's channel and watch her top 5 tips. And So that'll give you those 10 bullet journal productivity tips. They're great for beginners, they're great no matter kind of what level you're at in your bullet journal practice, but they're really going to help you make sure that you stay focused, productive, and consistent with your bullet journal practice so you can do more of the things that matter to you. The other thing that you need to make sure that you watch for at the end of both of our videos is the secret comment and hashtag that you need to make in order to be entered to win one of 10 Baron Fig Confidant notebooks. This is a big giveaway that we're doing, so make sure you watch to the end of the videos and know what you need to do to enter this big giveaway. So now that you know what we're getting into together with this video, here are my top 5 tips for being super productive with your Bullet Journal. The first, and by far most important tip that I have for getting started with a Bullet Journal is to simply start with a daily log of what you need to do that day. Now, this may sound overly simplistic, but what I have found that when it comes to getting started with a new habit, whether that is bullet journaling or, you know, fitness or healthy eating or whatever it might be, it is to start simple. And the easiest way that I can think of to get started with a bullet journal is to just list the tasks that you have for that day and any appointments or agenda items that have to occur or will occur at a specific time. The second bullet journal tip for productivity is to keep a master task list. List for every single week. Now I do this as a part of my weekly preview. I write down all of the things that I know I have to do during that week. Now if I know it has to be done on a specific day, I'll go ahead and write that into my weekly spread. But if it's something that can really be done at any time, I'll write it in the master task list. That way I can assign it to a specific day when I know I have time blocked for that specific task. This really helps reduce the number of times you might write down a task, because I know something that a lot of people do early on, or even for as long as they Bullet Journal, is they'll start out Monday and Tuesday writing down like 10 or 20, or just a ton of things that they know they have to do that week. And then there's a lot of rewriting as you're migrating tasks, or crossing them out, or just being like, I'm going to get to this next week. So the way that I work around that, or work with that, is to create a master task list every week that I then pull from every every single day. My third tip for Bullet Journal productivity and habit change is to track one habit or personal change that you want to see progress on, that you want to improve every single day, every single week, and throughout the month. Now, you're probably used to seeing these beautiful, elaborate, artsy, again, beautiful habit trackers on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook, and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't need to be that complicated. All I do is I just have a Daily Habit Tracker on my monthly spread, and I just go down and I make a simple X on the days that I accomplish that habit, that I complete that habit loop. If you want to know more about habit loops and how to put together a habit that is unbreakable and sustainable for you, make sure you check out the video that I have right here that will tell you more about that simple 3-step habit loop. The 4th tip that I have for Bullet Journal productivity is a little bit more beginner-specific. So if you are brand new to Bullet Journaling, or you're you're kind of getting back into it after a time that you haven't been Bullet Journaling as consistently, then what I recommend doing is only, like, pre-planning for a week at a time. So only make a weekly spread. What I see oftentimes and have experienced myself is when people do a full monthly spread or layout and don't quite stay with the habit every day, or at least every other day, then you end up having a lot of blank days on your Bullet Journal. And that, I've found, and I've talked to a lot of people about, can be one of the main reasons that you don't quite stick with the Bullet Journaling habit, because you feel bad that you didn't do it, because you can clearly see there are a lot of empty days. So what I recommend doing early on, probably for your first month of Bullet Journaling, is only create a week at a time. Now, most of us live our lives in weeks, and so this is a little bit easier to do because you can look at it and say, like, okay, well, I know I have to do this on Wednesday, I know I have to do this on Friday, I know I have this thing on Saturday. So you can still pre-plan a little bit, but if things don't go quite as well as you would have hoped with your consistent bullet journaling habit, you can still start over the next week without feeling like there's a bunch of blank pages in your journal. My 5th tip for bullet journal productivity, and this is maybe a little bit more about like just the habit and practice in general, and this is really important. I want you to really cement this in your mind. You can write it down in your bullet journal. Your bullet bullet journal is for you. For you. First and foremost. It's not for Instagram. It's not for YouTube. It's not for you to take pictures of so that people can be like, "Oh, what a lovely bullet journal spread you have. I wish I could draw like that." All of that is fine and wonderful and lovely, but again, I've found far too many people that take a lot of time making it look really nice and then don't actually do anything with it. If you can do both, awesome for you. What I have found, and many others, is a more minimal, simplistic structure for the Bullet Journal helps you be consistent with it and make sure that you're actually using it to get things done that matter to you. Another way that people often ask me about how to make a Bullet Journal unique to them is in the balance between, like, what do I write down analog on the Bullet Journal, and then what do I keep digitally? And I have some videos about this, but whatever makes the most sense to you. Like, you know, to be honest, I still write down the, like, appointments that I have in my my bullet journal, but I also have them in like Google Calendar because I like those reminders, and I, you know, sometimes need to collaborate with others. And so if you have things that you want to keep digitally, still, that's totally fine. You can integrate it with your bullet journal in multiple ways. There's another way to think about it where I know a lot of people who use their bullet journals more for notes and like habit tracking than they do task tracking and productivity. And that's totally fine as well. Again, the big thing to remember is that whatever way the Bullet Journal works best for you, that you can get the most out of it, that you can be your most productive and mindful and on top of the tasks, projects, people that matter the most to you, that is the way that you should use it. Now, to be honest, this can take a little bit of time, and that's why we want to start small, we want to be simple, and we want to be consistent. Consistent, and make sure that we are building that practice and that habit of being able to look at the day ahead, the week ahead, and say, this is what I need to do, this is when it needs to happen, and this is how I'm gonna get it done. Okay, now that you have watched my top 5 tips for bullet journal productivity, make sure you click on the link right here to watch Amy's video, or there's gonna be a link in the description below. She has 5 incredible tips for you, and I know you're going to get a lot out of it. Them. Now, remember that giveaway that I mentioned to you before we got into the tips? Well, here's how you're going to enter. All you have to do is subscribe to my channel and to Amy's channel, and then comment below with the hashtag #bulletjournalplease and your top bullet journal tip. That's all you have to do to enter, and I'm really excited to be able to share these Baron Fig Confidant notebooks with you. They're my favorite blank bullet journal notebook, and I know that you're going to really enjoy them as well. Thank you so much for watching this video, and thank you so much to Amy for sharing her top 5 bullet journal productivity tips as well. Can't recommend her channel and watching her videos enough. She's amazing, and I know you're going to learn a lot from her, just like I have. I'm going to be with you again next week, going to be doing some more, like, podcast testing with the Connect the Dots show. There's going to be more journal reviews coming up, more about habits and being mindful of the work that you have to do, and the time that you have to do it so that you can get to the life that you love. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next week. Bye.