Bullet Journal Beginner Setup Tips

Hey everyone, and welcome to this episode of Connect the Dots. A slightly different format and look today that I just want to give you a heads up about because I recorded a YouTube video all about a beginner Bullet Journal setup, my 5 best tips for beginner Bullet Journalists. And so I wanted to share that with you on the podcast. It's something that I don't see a lot or really at all, even when I did the research, for Bullet Journal tips in a podcasting platform or perspective. And I wanted to share them with you in this episode of Connect the Dots. It should be coming out right before the beginning of the new year and will give you a lot of good ideas for how to actually do the Bullet Journal and set it up from a perspective and a practice where it's not overwhelming, it's very minimal, it's very simple, it's also something that you can build really easily. So instead of worrying about, like, making it look really nice and planning out your entire year and doing the future log and do all those things, I'm going to give you my 5 tips. And spoiler alert, the very first tip is to just start with a daily log. Now, here's the reason that I wanted to record a separate intro than the actual YouTube one. I'm going to get you right into it, but I wanted to let you know that there is a YouTube video all about this.. So if you do want to actually see like, what does a daily log look like as I'm kind of talking through it on the podcast today, make sure you go to the link. It's going to be linked in the podcast show notes. It's going to be linked in this video on the Connect the Dots YouTube channel as well. So if you want to see more examples, like actually how to set this up, make sure you check that out. It's going to give you everything that you need. Okay. Thanks so much for listening and supporting the show. Let's go ahead and get into my 5 top top tips for beginner Bullet Journal setups.

These are really great tips for setting up your very first Bullet Journal as a beginner because there are a lot of misconceptions about the Bullet Journal, and there are a lot of things that if you watch YouTube videos or see them on Instagram or you just do a Google search for Bullet Journal bullet journals, it's going to look like you have to have a really fancy bullet journal layout, like it takes a lot of time of your week, of your day, of your month, of your life. And I'm here to tell you that none of that is really true. The bullet journal is as minimalist or as extravagant as you want it to be when it comes to your creativity and your artistic talent.. Now, I myself tend to be very minimalist with my bullet journal. The fanciest I might get are some simple icons or stick figures or just doodling in my bullet journal. But it's not some of the very, very beautiful, I might add, very beautiful artistic bullet journal layouts and setups that you're going to see in lots of YouTube videos and Instagram and on Pinterest. So come one, come all, my beginner bullet journal friends, and let me give you my top 5 tips for setting up your first Bullet Journal in the new year. My number 1 tip for a Bullet Journal beginner is to start with the daily log. Now, you may think that this is too simple. Well, that's good news. It should be too simple at the beginning because, you know, we'll talk about this in a little bit more detail in tip number 5, and spoiler alert, is that your consistency creates confidence.. And when you are doing this consistently, really any habit consistently, you will build confidence. And so the best way to do that is just to start with the simple daily log in your Bullet Journal. What do I mean by that? All you're going to do is write down the day of the week, the day of the month, and what I like to do is just start listing first the appointments or meetings or any kind of specific time of day agenda items. So I write all those down, and then right below them, I start to make my bullet points of the different tasks that I have for that day. That's really all you have to do to begin with a bullet journal. Now, as you go through and you complete tasks for the day, you're just going to X out that bullet. If there's something that you need to do tomorrow, draw an arrow or a, in a right angle bracket, to indicate that the task needs to be done tomorrow. And if it's something that you just realize, hey, I actually don't need to do this, then just strike through it completely and be done with it. So that is the very first tip for starting your first Bullet Journal, for being a Bullet Journal beginner. Just start with the Daily Log, and I would do that for up to 7 to 10 days. Let's just say 2 weeks of consistently putting down the day of the week, the day of the month, any agenda items that you have at specific times, and then the tasks that you have for the day. You can also draw a short little dash in your kind of legend or key for the day to indicate that you're just making a note about something. Maybe it's a task. Maybe it's just something that you heard or realized or just thought of during the day. So in that sense, you can also use the Bullet Journal kind of like your daily journal, like diary listing as well. My second tip for Bullet Journal beginners is to then move into a weekly spread or a master task list. This is really useful because one of the challenges that a lot of Bullet Journal beginners have is writing too many tasks down on Monday, and then a bunch get migrated to Tuesday, and then you still don't get through all of them on Tuesday, and so you start to, now you're writing down tasks 3 times, and I totally understand that to our, kind of like, productive efficiency-focused brain, you're like, man, I'm going to write down the same thing multiple times. So, what I would do with that is create a master task list for your week. When you do this, what I would focus on now is take the top 3 tasks from your Master Task List and migrate them into whatever day you're currently looking at. All right, and so those are going to become your top 3 tasks for the day. And if you complete all of them, double thumbs up for you. Now go back to your Master Task List and grab, you know, just an additional one or an additional 2, and just move those into your daily task log or your date— your daily log in the Bullet Journal. So that is something that is going to be really valuable for you is as you have built consistency with the daily log, start to plan out your week ahead. And whether that is with a master task list or looking at the week ahead and saying, these are the 2 to 3, like, main goals or objectives that I have for the week, and focusing on whatever subtasks that you have related to those goals. So one way or another, start to look at your week from a broader perspective than just the daily log. And think about what are the main outcomes and objectives that I have for this week, create those subtasks, create a master task list, and then start to assign those tasks out by the day depending on either when they need to be done or just when they fit into your top tasks for that specific day. My third tip for Bullet Journal beginners is after you have mastered the Daily Log and the Weekly Spread, you're going to then expand your practice out a little bit more and go to the monthly layout. Now I keep a very simple minimalist monthly layout, a column of the days of the month with the corresponding first letter of the days of the week right next to it. This way I can quickly see different events or major milestones that I have in my business, in my life, in my work, with my family. So I'll write down things like maybe a birthday is happening, or I'm doing a launch, or this is when I want a new video to come out. And I'm just putting those down on my monthly layout. I keep it really simple and really minimal so that I can focus the majority of my creativity, layout, logging time on the weekly and daily spreads. For me, I spend probably 80 to 90% of my Bullet Journaling practice on weekly and daily. But it does help for me to zoom out past daily, past weekly, to the month, and kind of take some of the elements that I talked about in the weekly layout, or the weekly spread tip, and think about from a broader perspective, what do I want to be doing this month? What are my main milestones for the month? What goals and objectives do I have? And what are the deliverables? What are the subtasks that need to get done in order for me to hit each of these milestones or achieve these goals that I have for the month ahead? Now, if you're watching this and you're thinking to yourself, Matt, you're talking about like, you know, big picture goal setting now and breaking things down, and I thought this was just about like specific bullet journal things. To me, the Bullet Journal is my main productivity lever for making sure that I'm getting the most important work done every day. Now, what I'm going to do is next week you're going to see my 2021 or my annual planning goal setting video come out. So make sure that you're subscribed to this channel so you don't miss this. And even in the meantime, if you want to get an idea of how I think about goal setting and breaking down goals into tasks that I can do every single day or a couple of times a week to reach those goals and achieve them, check out the description below, and I'm going to link to a couple of videos that I have that will help you get started with this right away. My fourth tip for bullet journal beginners is to have something to track. Use the bullet journal as a tracker because it is a lot of fun and it gives you a nice endorphin boost and you feel really awesome, when you're going through your tracker and you're checking off or X-ing off, filling in the blocks of the things that you want to be doing that matter to you every single day or multiple times per week. This is a really exciting feeling to have, and it's one of the most popular things to do with bullet journals is to use them as habit trackers, or it could be like a spending tracker or a savings tracker or a debt payoff tracker. You can use any of those methods as a tracker in your Bullet Journal. Now, I have an entire video about habit trackers in the Bullet Journal, so make sure you check that out in the description below. But what I want you to focus on for— as a beginner is think about just one habit or one thing that you want to track in the new year. Because just like I recommended that you start with the daily log as a way to consistently create confidence in yourself and in your practice, we're going to do the same thing with a new habit that you want to be tracking. Now again, going at this from a minimalist perspective, the easiest way that I have found to do this is to use my monthly layout as a simple habit tracker as well. So you'll see in my monthly layout that all I do is I write down the the first letter of my habit next to the corresponding, like, days of the week— or sorry, days of the month. And what this allows me to do is, at the same time that I'm looking at my month, my monthly layout, I can make little X's below that specific habit. And the 3 that I really try and focus on are daily journaling, reading every day, and then exercising— maybe not every day, but, you know, multiple days of movement per week. And so I'm really trying to shoot for like 60 to 70% completion for the month. And so that's, you know, doing each of those 20 to 25 times. Now, like I said, there are tons of ways to make really beautiful, elaborate habit trackers. And if you want to spend some time doing that, I'd say more power to you. They look awesome. And for a lot of people, it's kind of a way to meditate and just kind of slow down. And I think that is amazing as well. So don't, don't hear me And for those of you thinking that I'm against artistic, lovely bullet journals, I'm 100% for them. I just want to help you as a beginner so that you don't think that your bullet journal has to be beautiful in order for it to be functional and useful for you in your productivity, in your life, and just for reducing overwhelm. I don't want it to be an additional source of overwhelm for you. I want this to be something that helps free free you and focus on the things that really matter to you. My 5th and final tip for Bullet Journal beginners I've touched on a couple of times in the other 4 tips, but it's consistency creates confidence. And the best way to be consistent early on is to start small. Start with the daily. Once you get comfortable and consistent with the daily, you're confident. You're like, yeah, I can kind of do this. I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it. Look at me doing it. Then you kind of expand out a little bit because, you know, you've grown, you've developed, you're more confident, and you can start to say to yourself, okay, let's look at the week ahead. And once you do that for a couple of weeks, you're like, all right, I'm expanding again, I'm gaining more confidence, let's look at the month ahead. I would actually recommend that if you're starting this January 1st or January 4th, which is the first Monday of 2021, then just for the first 2 weeks, only focus on your daily log. And then on January 18th— happy birthday, Dad, on January 18th, by the way— on January 18th, now spend the next 2 weeks doing a weekly layout. All right, so think about those master tasks. What are your goals and objectives for the week? And do that for the next 2 weeks. And then in February, on February 1st, which is also wonderfully a Monday, Then start to expand out and let's look at the month ahead. What do I want to do in the month ahead with my goals, with my objectives? What kind of projects do I want to work on? What are some things that I can knock out in the pursuit of larger annual goals that I might have, or quarterly goals? Which again, in my, in my goal setting video that's going to come out soon, you can learn more about how to do all of that. So think about how you're going to expand. Think about how you can start really small and go from daily to weekly to monthly, and then you can start to do like quarterly or annual, but you're building up. Too often what I see with Bullet Journal beginners is that you spend a bunch of time on your index, your future log, and like, okay, now I gotta do the month, and once I do the month, all right, well, what do I do for the weekly? So before you even get to like day 1, Monday, January 4th, or whatever day 1 is for you as a Bullet Journalist, Then you're like, I've already done like maybe hours of work at this point, and now if I don't fill in each day, I feel like I'm wasting space. I feel like I'm not actually very good at this. And too often, sadly, a lot of people stop bullet journaling. And this happens a lot with any kind of habit, but I'm going to have another video about that as well. That's why I kind of turn things around a little bit., and I think, what is the simplest start that we can make? It's just going day by day. Just taking it day by day, my friends. So that's what I want you to focus on as a Bullet Journal beginner. Go from daily to weekly to monthly. Have a habit or something else that you want to track on a daily or multi-day basis. A lot of fun to do that, and just remember that consistency creates confidence. So those are my 5 Bullet Journal tips for beginners. I hope that you start a Bullet Journal in 2021. It has been a life-changing habit and practice for me.

Hey everyone, it's Matt again, and thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm really curious what you think, so you can email me matt@mattragland.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can also leave a comment below. I'm really curious what you think about kind of a Bullet Journal tips on a podcast, so I'm just super curious. The other thing that I would love, love, love, love, feel so appreciative to you if you would do is definitely subscribe to the YouTube channel for Connect the Dots if you're a YouTube viewer. But even more importantly, if you could leave a review on Apple for this podcast, especially in these early days, it makes a huge difference to get a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. So the link is going to be in the show notes below, also in the description below. If you're watching this on, if you're watching this on YouTube. But thank you so much for supporting. The early comments and emails have been so encouraging, so it makes me feel really good and positive. And there are a lot more of these to come. Next week we're going to talk more about habits. We're going to talk about time management in a soon-to-be-released episode. So keep an eye out, and I'm excited to keep sharing these ideas with you. Thanks so much everyone. See you next time. Bye.