2021 marks the 3rd year of my bullet journaling. I'm using up the final pages of my bullet journal for the month of August and I'll be transferring into another journal for September's setup. It's been one of the most life-altering techniques I've come across and it's been a habit that has stuck with me easily; probably because I've been able to see its impact right from day one.
I'm publishing this post on 8/8 because this date marks the anniversary of the bullet journal - a productivity system invented by Ryder Carroll. And this year, in 2021, the bullet journal is completing its eighth year! 8 years on 8/8! We love such numbers here on Save Ourselves so I simply couldn't pass up on the opportunity to celebrate this occasion with all you lovely people.
So, in this blog, we'll discuss 5 ways in which bullet journaling can change your life.
If you're hearing about the bullet journal method for the first time, here's a helpful resource.
Let's dive right in!
Being more intentional with your resources
Whether it's time, money, interests, priorities; the bullet journal method encourages you to be more intentional and mindful with your resources.
Let's take the example of time. When you make a to-do list in your bullet journal you are writing down everything that you wish to get done within the day. When you actually practise this daily and consistently, you begin to see how much of your time goes where. This allows you to eliminate anything that isn't an optimal use of your time.
Over time, you begin to be more aware of where you want to spend your time and you automatically start making more time for these things. For me, the bullet journal method has enabled me to understand how much I want to prioritise this blog, video creation, reading and keeping my house in order.
Having more data in hand, to take account of your life
The Bullet Journal Method, in its full format, has the scope to let you document various aspects of your life. Here are a few things that you can document
Your time - through to-do lists and schedules
Your priorities - through goal setting
Your daily life - through daily, weekly, monthly logs
Your habits, mood, health, finances - through trackers
Your reading list, watch list, movies, music - through collections
Your experiences in life - through daily entries and reflection
All these aspects, if documented thoroughly, can give you a lot of data about your own life that you can work with. Through all of this data, you can take a better account of your life and make informed, well-thought-out decisions and life choices.
Achieving your goals
It's a wonderful feeling to write something down as a goal in your bullet journal and watch yourself take small actions towards it, finally being able to see that goal come to fruition. Not only does bullet journaling give you the space to figure out and come up with a strategy to accomplish your goals, but it also lets you see the process and builds up self-confidence when you see yourself achieving a set target.
By writing down your goals, writing down steps to take efficient action, noting down your progress, you are reminding yourself how important a particular goal is for you. The habit of writing and rewriting solidifies that idea in your brain. This helps us become more aware and conscious of our actions, thus enabling us to achieve the goals we aspire to accomplish.
Gaining a better perspective about life
There's something about writing about your life every day that helps you look at it differently. The thing is, we are living our lives in the moment, in the midst of all the chaos. Writing down things about your life and then looking at those later, helps us gain a more objective outlook towards it. We are able to detach from being at the very centre of our lives and we can zoom out and get an aerial view. Gaining this perspective helps us refocus. We are able to see things more clearly.
Managing all aspects of your life
As we grow up, there are more and more areas of our lives that we need to start managing and taking care of. There are so many different aspects to keep a tab on that something or the other is bound to slip out from our brains. A bullet journal is like an external hard drive for our brains. It's a place to keep all aspects of our life documented and updated. As a recent graduate, the bullet journal lets me manage my time, social life, work opportunities, personal projects, finances, habits, chores and interests.
No matter what you are doing in life, there will always be multiple things you have to take care of and having a reliable system in place just makes the whole ordeal much more manageable.
I hope that these 5 ways convinced you to start a bullet journal of your own if you haven't adopted the system yet!
Want to see this blog post in a video format? Here, I got you covered!
I create a lot of videos and blogs around my bullet journal setups. Here are a few of them. Feel free to peruse.