In this solo productivity video, Matt Ragland expands on his yearly planning series by showing how to translate broad themes and goals into tiny, actionable habits using a Bullet Journal. He illustrates the method with his personal goal of becoming technically proficient in SQL, breaking it down into daily micro‑tasks (read one page, answer five practice questions). Drawing on research from James Clear’s Atomic Habits and BJ Fogg’s behavior‑design work, he explains why ultra‑small actions—like flossing one tooth or doing a single push‑up—are more likely to stick and can trigger larger effort. He introduces the "moment of no return" trick (e.g., getting in the car before the gym) to lower activation energy. The video ties these tactics to the Kaizen philosophy originating from Toyota’s continuous‑improvement culture, arguing that incremental, repeatable improvements in personal systems lead to rapid progress and reduced fear of failure. Matt also describes how he records these micro‑habits in a dedicated Bullet Journal collection, encouraging viewers to create their own lists of tiny steps, track consistency, and avoid missing two days in a row. The call‑to‑action invites comments on personal small‑habit ideas, promotes further productivity videos, and emphasizes the analog, offline nature of his approach.
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Hi everyone, my name is Matt. Welcome to another Bullet Journal productivity video. In this episode, it's part 2 of the productivity yearly planning that I did a couple of weeks ago. So if you haven't seen that yet, you can check out the card right here, or you can look at the description below. There's going to be a link to it, end screens, all of that. But even if you want to start at this video, you're going to be in really good shape because this video breaks down the themes, goals, and systems talked about in the other video into really small actionable steps that you can take in order to move forward in the things that matter to you. Now I'm going to be showing you how I do this in the Bullet Journal through a theme and a goal that I have for the year, which is to become more technically proficient and learn how to code in SQL. And I'm going to be showing you how I break that down and track that inside of a Bullet Journal. But I want to tell you real quick that the reason that this matters is that a lot of times the goals and habits that we set up for ourselves can feel a little overwhelming, and we have a tendency, especially in the Western world, to set really big goals for ourselves. And While there is some merit to that, it may push you further than you would normally go. What the struggle is, is that it can feel really overwhelming. And so what we want to do with these small habits, these small steps, is to make it so laughably easy in a way that you can't help but get started. Like, you would feel silly for not doing something. Let me, let me tell you how this would work for me in learning how to code in SQL. I do have a practice system set up. I have a course that I'm going through. I have like everything structured in my environment to set up a time when I can go through that. But the way that I practice and take small steps on a daily basis is by reading one page of a SQL textbook or learning book and also going through 5 practice questions. Now I have an app on my phone that allows me to do that, makes it really easy. But it's so like, it's just 5 quick questions. It takes me maybe 5 minutes just to review them.. And so that is so laughably easy in a sense that I would feel silly to not at least go through those 5 questions unless I just flat out forget. And that, and that happens sometimes, and that's okay. Extra tip on this that I like doing— this comes from James Clear's Atomic Habits book— is he has a little rule for himself. It's like, even if you miss a day of your practice, then just don't miss twice. And so that's something that I've tried to stay with when it comes to those practice questions. So even if I miss a day or forget a day, that I don't miss two in a row. The reason that taking small steps can be so effective is that a lot of times when we think of a big goal or a habit or something that we want to do on a daily basis, let's say with writing or journaling, if you're a part of the January Journaling Club, is that we think like, oh, I got to fill out an entire page, or I have to write 1,000 words. Like, both of those can feel a little overwhelming, and sometimes you literally may not have time to do something like that. And so what a small habit, what a kaizen step would look like, and I'll come back to that word in a minute, is taking the smallest possible forward action. And so for journaling, it would be like just write one line. And I send out prompts to people. If you want to join, make sure you check out the link below. But I send out prompts to people, and that just gets you— I ask you a question, and you just try and write one line on it. That's all you have to do for the day. Or you can write one highlight, or anything about the day, but it's just one line at a time. And that can really help get you started. Another example is from BJ Fogg, who's a Stanford professor, and one of the things that he asks people to do in his case studies or, you know, research studies is that he asks them to just go home and floss one tooth. Hey, you just have to go floss one tooth a day for the next 30 days. The group that was just told to floss one tooth flosses more consistently and, you know, surprise, surprise, flosses more teeth than just one. So just asking them to do that super small thing, it's— there's a similar fitness study or research that if you just ask people to do like literally 1 or 2 push-ups a day, they'll end up doing more push-ups than a group that you just say like, hey, see how many push-ups you can get in the next week. By giving yourself permission to start and start small, it almost like feels silly to not do it at all. Like if you just told yourself all I have to do is a couple of push-ups and you did those, you'll be like, ah, well, you know what, I'll bang out a few more or 10 or whatever. And before you know it, maybe you've done like 50 push-ups. What the research shows with this, and the reason that it's so powerful, is because you're building that system and you're building that process inside of your mind that knows, hey, it's time, this is something that I can do, this is something that I'm comfortable with. The fear that you get to overcome is so much less when you just give yourself permission to start really small. Another way that you can do this in a way that I do it personally is by having like a moment of no return, like mini habit. And I I talked about this in the other video as well, but let's say you wanted to wake up early and go to the gym to work out. Well, that may seem like a big thing to do in the moment, like especially get up, you have to do everything, but if you just tell yourself, "Okay, I don't actually have to get to the gym, I just have to get in the car," and that's a trick that I've used for myself several times, it's like all you have to do is get in the car. By the time you're in the car, then it feels silly to not go to the gym, and once you're at the gym, it feels silly not to do at least something,, and then you've at least done the thing. You've gone through the system, and you've worked the process that your mind has started to create for itself. You're creating kind of a habit roadmap that you can just get on and off whenever you need to. So the way that I do this inside of the Bullet Journal is that I have a sheet, or I have a collection within the BuJo that I list all the things that I could do that are small steps that allow me to make progress on the habit, on the goal, on the theme that matters to me in my life. So taking the SQL example, I'm looking at things like reading one page or writing one query personally myself, going through practice questions, a small number of them. All three of those things take less than a few minutes. And what I find, like I've said, is once I get started and I can get in the groove and my mind gets used to the work, then I'm able to actually do a little bit more than I actually gave myself credit for at the beginning. There's a lot of different reasons for that. Like, we're afraid of failure just for ourselves. We're afraid to look silly. We're afraid to waste time. Time, but if we just give ourselves permission to like take a few small steps, then that starts to create a framework inside of our minds so we can continue to progress and make really, I think you'll see a rapid progress in the things that you want to do and make progress in, in your lives. The way this whole kaizen process actually started was with Toyota manufacturing processes. It was this really radical thing because like the assembly line of what would happen is Toyota gave their employees the power to stop the line, to fix anything, to eliminate waste, and to make continuous small changes to the process that enabled them to become one of the largest car manufacturers in the world and one of the highest rated as well. Like, I've always owned Toyota cars. They're amazing and super reliable. One of the biggest companies in the world has used to make their business better is also something that you can do. So taking that mindset of every day I'm going to make small continuous improvement and changes to the way that I live my life, to the things that I care about, and making progress on the goals, the habits, and the systems that matter to me. Thank you so much for watching this video. I'd love to know in the comments if there are any small habits that you could create, small changes that you could make that would help you progress on the things that matter to you, and what those, what those bigger goals and themes are in your life. I'd love to, love to hear The comments are always really active on these videos, and we love interacting with each other. So hope you do as well. Give this video a like and subscribe if you're new here. There are always going to be videos about productivity and making sure you're in the right mindset and making progress on the things that matter to you in your life. Talk about that in a bullet journal context a lot, but using analog and kind of offline methods to make sure that you're focused on the things that matter to you. There'll be another video here soon. I hope you stay in the loop and look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.
