Simple Bullet Journal Ideas for Students: Back to School Planning & Tips

How would bullet journaling look different for you if you were a student? Whether it's high school, college, graduate school, anything in between, or above, or below. If you wanted to get into bullet journaling, how would that change depending on what you're learning? That's what we're going to get into today. Everyone, my name is Matt, and welcome to another Bullet Journal productivity video. Like I said, what we're going to be getting into today is an often requested topic of, what would Bullet Journaling look like if I was a student? We're going through, like, semesters and different classes. It's a little bit different than a normal work week, because things are a little bit more structured, but also have a lot of flexibility, and for the first time, especially if you're in college coming from high school, you probably have a lot more ownership of your time than you had in the past. So, we're going to be going through some different strategies, what are the core competencies, what are things that I did when I was in college from 2002 to 2006, go Gators, and what would I be doing now with what I know about productivity and Bullet Journaling and structuring, managing, and tracking my time. So, let's go ahead and get into it. I'm gonna be showing you how I'm doing all this in a standard Baron Fig Confidant journal. You can check all the things out in the description below, and if you want to get a download of all the different scripts and templates and even the equation that I put together to decide how much effort to put into a particular class. This was something that I specifically did when I was in college with one of the toughest classes I ever had. So I'm going to be showing you all of that. If you want to download this and any other template or structure that I've been using, just go to the link below or go to bulletjournalguide.com. All right. Here we go. What I want you to do to start is make these two pages inside of your journal. This first one being critical dates and events for tests, holidays, social work. Make the headings, make the sections anything that you want, but make it the primary things that you're going to be doing throughout your day and throughout your week and the semester, just so you have one quick page to look and see these are the main things that I, the main dates that I need to keep on the top of my mind. This next page is going to be your weekly schedule, and the reason that you're going to have like a base one here is so that this is where you're going to put like your classes, volunteer events, anything that you know you're going to be doing on a specific day throughout the semester. Go ahead and put this here, and then you're also going to be having your weekly schedule that we'll talk about later on. But use this as a way to just take a quick glance, just like you have your main dates. Right here, you're going to have your main base weekly schedule. So again, dates and times for your specific class, work, anything that you have set in relative stone for the next, for the next few months. Now moving from that, what you're going to do is go ahead and set up that monthly look. So most people start college in August, so go ahead and make a normal, like say, monthly spread. It's really a place to take the dates and events that I have on these two pages and transfer them over to a specific month. So now that I've shown you the big picture dates and events and base weekly schedule that you have, and then we go into a month and look at narrowing that down into what we have for the month in terms of like big, big events and dates. Now we're going to break it down to the week. And so you can still see that we have these, you know, like 8 to 10 blocks, and it's still those 4 hours. Make sure you check out if you don't know what the heck I'm what I'm talking about, you can check out this video for more explanation about the blocks in general, the block method. So what you're going to be doing, same thing, like if you have, let's just say biology. Now this can include class time and study time. It's totally up to you, but every 4 dots, this would represent 1 hour. So if I spent, say, an hour in class, pretty normal, I would shade in that part right here. Again, check out the full 10-block video for a bigger discussion on this. But you can see I've broken this down into study blocks and life blocks. So just adjust these as needed. You may need more study blocks, you might have more life blocks, whatever it might be, may depend on the semester, whatever you're doing. The other thing that I'm doing right here is that I want to track my sleep. This is something that I didn't do a great job of when I was in school, of just keeping an eye on like how many hours did I sleep? And so like Monday night, say 6, Tuesday night 7.5, so let's just put 7.5. And then I would go ahead and put your sleep right here and maybe try and, I try and average 7 hours a night over the course of a week. So that would be 7 times 7. Hopefully I'm getting between like 48 and 50, average would be 49. Total hours of sleep throughout the week. So just a little thing right here, you know, sleep can be such a game changer for making sure you get enough of it. So we have our blocks, we have our sleep tracker right here, and then we're coming over here and we're doing a more traditional bullet journal layout. Here are the days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I've got all kinds of videos if you want to see more specific breakdowns of how you could plan this out, but let's just say at 10 AM you have that biology class and you would just list the other events you have throughout the week. So, to tie everything back together, you can see a layout that I did right here for all of my 10 blocks, the week, the week's events and agendas, and then the top tasks that I had over here on the right. So this is a pretty normal layout brought over here and broken down into study, life, sleep, and then the days of the week, top tasks. One other thing, and I've talked about this in a bunch of other videos, make sure you check them out, but give yourself a little space space for reflection, and it could be like an entire page like this, could just be like a half page, but putting down wins, lessons, strategy, things that you want to be aware of next week. This last part right here, if you do anything, like just kind of reflecting on the past week and then thinking like, oh my gosh, I didn't get to this specific thing, it has to be done next week, make sure you write that down., so it can be top of your mind. Okay, so that's how we go again from these are the days, this is our reflection and projection for the next week, this is how I think about my week, this is how I see what I have coming up for the month, and this is what I have for the big picture for the entire semester on events and then on a weekly schedule. The second part of this that I want to tell you about, you may have noticed right down here that I have this label down here that says the first week of the first phase of the semester. What do I mean by that? So let's take a couple of steps back. I haven't shown you this yet. I didn't do this well enough, mindfully enough when I was in college, but what I would do— most semesters are broken down to about 16 weeks, give or take a couple, and if you think about those in 4 distinct phases, all right, phase 1, 2, 3, and 4, and Then I would assign— what I would do now is I would kind of give a theme to each of these phases and think about what I want to be doing each week and how I'm thinking about this each phase overall and how it fits into the semester. So Phase 1 is all about like the perception versus reality. So let's say, for example, you come into a class like— I kid you not, I took a class at Florida called Age of the Dinosaurs, and I thought when I took this, I thought when I took this course it was going to be really easy, but in fact it was a pretty hardcore bio course, and I ended up getting a B. And so my perception was watching Jurassic Park, and my reality was all sorts of families and phylums and like genuses, and I don't even think I'm pronouncing them correctly, which is probably why I got a B. And so that was all about what is my perception of what this is going to be like and what's the reality, and making notes in here and understanding, not just in this little section of your journal in this wins, lesson, strategy next week. This is where you're putting down the perception versus reality. Phase 2, that second 4 weeks, is implementing the reality, the things that you've understood about your classes, about your professors, about the people that you work with, and adjusting your systems as needed. So again, coming back to this, this is going to be, if you put some time into this, This is going to be a really important page for you. It is going to make a difference. Phase 3, executing and iterating on the things that you understand are working, maybe making some final tweaks. We'll talk about that in just a second, but definitely executing on the systems and strategies that you've been able to put into place for the first 2 phases. And then finally, Phase 4, finishing strong, understanding what you need to get done and making the semester a success for you. This is going to be really important for you because if you can think at a high level, at a big picture about what the perception of reality is, perception versus reality is, how you can implement and adjust your systems, execute and iterate on the things that you've been learning and finishing strong. If you can go through each of these 4 phases and think at a high level about how your semester is going, it's going to make a really big difference. Okay, so for the next piece of this, this is really kind of focusing. This is taking like a bit, This is taking like a big idea and something that, as you can see, is just kind of blank right now. And this is where I made all of my notes. So I'm going to zoom in here. And this is, this is something that I really thought about a lot. And I started to implement my senior year at Florida. I started to list all the courses. So this might look slightly insane and a little haphazard, but what I'm going to be doing, what I'm doing for the download that I created for you is I took like this jumbled like mess of notes and organized organized it much better. So let's come in here, let's look at each piece, and like I said, if you want a clean download and template for this, go ahead and just visit the link that's down in the description. But write down each course that you have, the professor/instructor, any teaching or graduate assistants, friends that you have in there, anyone that's a part of your study group. Just, you know, this is about the people right here. This is about the people. The next thing that I want to tell you about is this idea that I came up with in my senior year called the effort rating. And if the— if any part of this is confusing for you, please ask in the comments below. This is one of the first times I've tried to explain this fully, and so I know there are going to be a couple of things that are going to need clarification. Please ask. But this is the basis of the effort rating: how hard will I need to work for the result that I want? And that may sound like kind of a slacker mindset at the beginning, but what it was especially was in relation to this class called financial accounting. Financial accounting is one of those kind of entry-level classes where they actually really try and separate the wheat from the chaff. Like, if you can't hack it in financial accounting, you're not gonna be able to hack it for the rest of accounting or finance. So the professors make it intentionally hard because they want to make sure that you have what it takes. And I was just taking this actually as a part of my minor in business, but the way that I was thinking about is like, okay, what's What's the ratio of the challenge that it presents to me and the maybe inherent talent that I have for understanding the topic? But if the challenge, say on a scale of 8 to 10, was an 8 and the talent that I had for it, like without a ton of work, let's say like a normal amount of effort standard. So let's just assume a standard level of effort that I've been used to putting forth. Is a 4 for this. And so this, this ended up being a 2 on the effort rating scale. Let's look at that for just a sec. So a 2 on the effort rating scale is right on top. Like it was one of the most challenging, if not the most challenging class that I took at Florida. And so something like that, that is a full like 2 points on the scale was maybe way too hard, okay? So it took everything that I had to get a B in this class, and this was as challenging as it could get. The way that I started to think about this though is like maybe the talent is that the talent I could change and adjust, but it came at a significant cost. So I could apply more work, more hours to studying, but I knew it was going to take away from something else, whether it's studying for other subjects things that I was doing socially. I was, you know, I worked all through college, and so I started to think to myself like, okay, like maybe my talent is at 4, but if I worked really hard, then I could kind of increase my talent to a 6. That brings it down to a 1.33, which is right in the zone of growth instead of up here in the zone of pain. So financial accounting for me was definitely in the zone of pain for the majority of the course, and, and it definitely impacted, it did take away from other things. There was a class that I probably could have easily, was more of like a 6 and a 6, so really like kind of in this zone of comfort to slight growth stage, and I ended up getting a B in that also, whereas maybe I could have just, you know, been content with a C in financial accounting, like I just needed it to get a minor, and actually got an A in this other class. So you got to kind of balance those things, but I think For me, thinking about this in terms of an effort rating, and you can't always control these things, like you have to, a lot of times you have to take the courses that you have to take. But the way that you can think of it again, like if it's really like a low, low, low rating, then it's, then it can be really boring. And we don't want that. Like we're thinking about having a growth mindset. And so we want to keep things kind of in the, you know, 1 plus. Thinking about like, maybe if this was again an 8 and a 6, 1.33, that's kind of right in the sweet spot of that we know enough to be effective, but not enough that feel bored or like we're not learning anything. But of course, if it's way over your head, then it can really be in the zone of pain. And that can still be really useful, can still be something that you show a lot of growth in, but it can be rough and often comes at what can be a significant cost. The reason that I bring all this up about the effort rating and zones of comfort, growth, and pain is that I want you to be thinking about two questions: how awesome do you want to be? Not just in school, in life, but like, say, break it down into this specific course. How awesome do you want to be at it, and how much time are you able and willing to give? And it's important to think about like what your constraints are. I may have wanted to be really awesome at financial accounting, but there was only so much that I could change or adjust in terms of the time that I had versus the amount of awesomeness that I wanted to contribute to making this a really successful class for me. You know that I've talked a lot about— for those of you that have been watching for a while, you know that I talk a lot about time tracking. I think it's incredibly valuable. If you're new to this concept and you think this is only for shift workers and freelancers, go ahead and watch the video that's going to come up here. Time tracking. Check that one out. This will help you understand how your— what your time constraints are and how much you can adjust your, like, talent/drive to make something— take something from the zone of pain into the zone of growth. So what I want you to think about in phase 1, one of the main things that I want you to do is time tracking for at least a full normal week. 2 weeks is even better. I know this will be really key for you. The reason is, is that as you start to see like, what's my perception of the time that I have available for work and school and everything, and then the reality sets in of this is the amount of time that I've actually been spending on my courses, on my social life, on work, sleep, and health. You have to know how much time you have and how much time you think that you need to be as awesome as you want to be. So understanding the answer to this question: how much time are you able and willing to give to the courses, to the causes that you think are worthwhile for the semester? What I'm going to do for you, I have a 5-day time tracking challenge, but I'm going to put one together specifically for students. So if you're interested in that, make sure you get on the email list. I'll tell you about it once you download these different— these templates that I have set up for everything. So if you're interested, go ahead and tell me, let me know. You can let me know in the comments. You can also just sign up for the email list and I'll make sure that you know about it. That'll give you all the templates for the student resources. What I want to emphasize to you about the effort rating is it's not something that's supposed to be used for like, ah, which kind of things can I use to figure out like how I can least challenge myself? It's more meant to think about like, okay, where am I really being challenged? Can I, should I readjust some of my other time in order to give this particularly challenging course or project the time it deserves to make it as awesome as I want to? Or is it not worth that kind of effort given the toll that it might take on other things in my life, whether that's other courses, people in your life that are really important, other projects or events, that you want to give your time to. So think about that. It's something that I used when I was going through financial accounting, and like I said, I put a ton of effort into that just to get a B, and there was another course that I could have probably easily gotten an A in if I had put a little bit more time into it, but I moved all of that time into financial accounting instead of putting it towards like this other class, which I don't even remember what it was. The two big takeaways that I want you to have for this video is think about your semester in phases, especially that first phase of what's your perception versus the reality of the courses and commitments that you've given yourself to in this semester, because it might require some restructuring. It may require like moving some things around and even like letting go of some commitments that you have. So definitely track your time for at least a full normal week. And even into a second week, because that'll give you a really good gauge of the perception of time that I had available versus the percept— versus the reality of time that you actually have. That way you can go into the rest of the semester really understanding how your time is structured, the different parts of your day and week and even month where you can put a little bit more effort into studying at this point, because you know you're going to have some more bigger things to do later on in the month. So again, really looking at it from a big picture perspective, What are the core primary dates and events? What does a normal week look like? Bringing that down even further into like, okay, what's this first phase and month going to include? And then breaking that down even further into the week, into your blocks, into the day-to-day and top tasks of what you need to be doing. Last thing, make sure that you spend some time on that last page for wins, lessons, strategy, and the big things that you need to be aware of for next week. Make sure that if you want the templates for all of these, go ahead and download them in the description below. I'm also going to be telling you soon about that 1-week time tracking challenge specifically for students. I've had a couple others, but I want to make these lessons really clear to you. It won't be long, there won't be long emails, just a few paragraphs to give you some prompts and things to be thinking about so you can make the most impact in your day, in your week, and in that semester that's upcoming. So if you're watching this and you're a student, best of luck to you. If you're watching this and you are a parent or friend or mentor of a student, best of luck to you too. Students really need your support and encouragement and guidance. Download these resources, share them, share it with, you know, just people on YouTube and social. You can send it along really easily. That's the beauty of the internet. And if you have any questions about any of this, make sure that you ask them in the comments below. I know especially for the effort rating, there might be some confusion around that. And so please ask, and I'd love to clarify anything that you have. All right, make sure that you give this a thumbs up and a subscribe if you're here for the first time. This is what we do on this channel is talk about different ways to be mindful and practice good time stewardship and get done the things that really matter to us. And a lot of times we use a journal, we use, we use paper, we use pens, we use very analog methods, and I love sharing them with you. So Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time. Bye.