My 10 Minute, 2 Column Monthly Layout in the Bullet Journal

I want to start with a great big thank you for all the kind words, comments, encouragement when I restarted the channel earlier this week. In today's video, we're going to get back to our roots and talk about monthly planning. It's the end of the year, it's December 2023, and so the first video plan with me that I've done in the Bullet Journal this year is going to be in the last month of the year, but I would say maybe one of the most important months of the year. So I'm going to show you this, it's really simple, it's It's really like 2 columns, straightforward, minimalist. You can do this in less than 10 minutes alongside me. So let's go ahead and get into it.

This is my standard monthly layout, really simple. Days of the month in this column, now with a little extra ink, and then corresponding days, day of that week. So the 1st is a Friday. And then I go through and what I do is, list the main, like, non-normal events, like Ben is 5. That's not something that I would put in a normal weekly layout. Normal weekly layout is more like this: master task list that I can draw from, and then daily tasks and events or appointments that I need to keep track of. So I am attending a jiu-jitsu seminar, and then, then my cousin— shout out to Morgan— is hosting an elf-themed party. There's a big Christmas festival in Franklin, Dickens of a Christmas. So these are things again that aren't normal in terms of like weekly work. So I go through and I list everything here. Nashville Creator Party meetup. It's not uncommon for me to kind of have openings in these days because so much of it then goes into the weekly planning, but day of the month here, corresponding day of the week here. So very simple, very minimalist.

Quick interruption for a personal ad. No, not that kind of personal ad. I'm very happily married, but I want to tell you about a thing that I've done a lot before, which is send daily emails about a topic that I haven't written about much before, and that is Advent. Now Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. I enjoy the closure that it brings to a year. I enjoy the build and the hope and the excitement of coming into the Christmas season and the birth of Christ. It's really important to me as a believer and my faith as well. And what I'm doing this Advent season is publishing a daily email that's based on the readings that I've been doing for several years on the season of Advent. Now, I want to be clear that the focus of these emails will be towards men and dads more specifically. I've been building a community over the last few months called Digital Dads. This started as me thinking about how can I do something with this group, and then as I got more interest, I wanted to expand it to other people. So I want to be clear that the ideal reader is a man and a father, but reading the emails is not limited to men. But there is a Slack group that you can join if you're a father, and that's where we're going to be discussing the those emails. But back to the planning video. If you want to join Daily Dadvent— ah, you like how I did that?— then you can do so in the description below.

And then what I'm doing, like rows across, I'm just going like day by day here. I'm not doing the day of the week, but I'll start working down. 1, 2, 3, 4. There we go. So you can see all of these days and rows line up. This one. So now when I do habits and highlights I can look across and be like, okay, on Friday, jiu-jitsu seminar. Of course, like, regular work in there too. Say I'm also on a podcast. Let's go ahead and put that in. Startup Dad, you should check it out. Shout out to Adam. And then I put in— this is kind of serves as my habit tracker as well. So my habits include reading, journaling, meditating, exercising in some way. So I know I'm going to read on Friday. I'm in the middle of reading Wise Man's Fear for the second time. So what it would look like is I would just put an X here. Other than that, I don't know if I'll get to the other things, but I would just put an X here and then I'm just saying like what, what those results are.. And then same thing. So like, what would the highlight for the Friday be? Now, this can be— the highlight can be proactive, like I'm looking forward to this, or I really— the highlight can be proactive, as in I'm really looking forward to the BJJ seminar, or it can be reactive, which I wouldn't necessarily know about yet. But if I didn't have something that initially I was looking forward to specifically, I can go ahead and like write that down at the end of the day. But highlights can be either a preview, something you're looking forward to, or a review, something that you enjoyed. And then this is, this is my monthly layout. This is what I do. It's really simple, straightforward. As more things come onto the schedule, like I know there's a, there's also a church party on the 10th, a big weekend actually. Ben party. All kinds of stuff to do. So, this is, this is what I do. Simple, straightforward, easy to set up. And then, I said the part that I go week to week on is master task lists. And then the day-by-day appointments and specific tasks that may correspond on that day.

Thanks for watching this. Thanks for watching this December plan with me video. I'll be back with at least one video, maybe two. Next week what I'm going to be covering are my favorite books from the year. One of this— it's book recommendations. One of them is A Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This is my favorite novel of all time. I've read it 3 times and I just enjoy it. I enjoy it more and more every single time. I'm actually reading, you saw the follow-up, the sequel Wise Man's Fear. Right now, but I'll tell you about some other books, my favorite productivity book of the year, my favorite faith-based book of the year. All that's coming in next week's video. So make sure, like, subscribe, ring the bell, comment below. Let me know what kind of videos you're interested in seeing from me as I get this channel booted back up. Thanks for watching.

See ya.