Improvement pill here this year i decided to build a new habit of
bullet journaling . Now at first i didn't expect much but after sticking to it for
almost a year i can safely say that it's changed my life
drastically for the better today i'm going to tell you why i decided to build
this habit exactly how it works and also what
benefits it can bring to you now for the past five years i used white
boards to organize my life and keep note of what i had to do and i
didn't just use a giant white board like most people do
i used these little wooden white boards that i would velcro to the wall
and occasionally pull off to write on this system
as odd as it may seem brought a lot of benefits into my life
see you need some sort of system to organize your life
and to serve as a mental compass to make sure that you're moving in the right
direction without a compass like this it's very
easy to get distracted very easy to forget about one's goals
and very easy to lose track of things and this compass of mine
made me into a much more productive person because
every day i would wake up and everything that i needed to do for the day
was right there in front of me on the wall
this allowed me to get a lot more done and eventually hit my goals
in fact this entire channel was built from the ground up because of this
and i love this system so much to the point where when i started traveling
i would bring six of these little white boards with me
everywhere i went but over time i started to realize
that this wasn't that efficient mainly because the boards took up so much space
in my bag and whenever i would move to a new
location a lot of the words that i had written down
would get smudged because it was all written down using erasable marker
but by pure chance around christmas time of last year
i came across a book called the bullet journal method in a bookstore
i picked up the book and skimmed it and that's when i realized that there was a
far more efficient way of organizing my life
i realized that it was about time that i upgraded my compass
so i decided to build a new habit called bullet journaling and here's how it
works first i had to purchase a special type
of journal i'll include a link in the description box below for those of you
that are interested now unlike other journals all of the
pages in a bullet journal are blank with a page number at the
bottom but every page is filled with a grid of dots
you can use these dots however you'd like you can draw boxes lines circles
triangles the possibilities are endless and that's
my favorite aspect of bullet journaling because unlike most
other organizational systems which force you to organize things in a
certain way when you use a bullet journal you can
design it however you like to track whatever you like so let me
show you how i've designed my journal starting off we have the
table of contents which is very straightforward
every time i start a new section in my journal i quickly
jot down the page number along with the name of the section in
the table of contents so that i can refer back to it in the
future that way i can quickly find whatever i'm looking for in a matter of
seconds after the table of contents is what i
like to call the daily summary page for the month in this case it's january
now this is a page that i decided to add because it allows me to do two things
first at the end of every day i can sum up the day in a short sentence
i write down one big event that stood out or what i did for most of the day
and this allows me to look back months and even years and get an idea of
what i was doing at that time it's a fun way to record my memories i
also use this page to track my habits i've been taking note of all the times i
go to the gym and i can observe if i'm sticking to this habit
more or less as compared to the month before
and this allows me to make sure that i'm going in the right direction
for example my current goal is to work out for at least 12 times every month
if i end one month having only worked out eight times
i'll realize that there's a problem and i can sit back and analyze what happened
and make an adjustment to make sure that i'm more consistent next month
i create a monthly summary page like this at the beginning of every
new month after the monthly summary page is the project page this is something
that i actually used to do on my whiteboards
i draw out these boxes to organize all of the video projects that i have coming
up for the channel i write the title of the video at the
top and then i lay out all the components of things that i need to do
in order to complete the entire project first comes the idea for the video
then the script then recording the audio and editing the audio
after that it's the animation the thumbnail editing the entire thing once
more and finally the launch of the video
itself with the deadline that i've assigned for
the entire project this allows me to see where i'm at with
all the projects i have going on for the month
you can use this page for your own projects just to keep track of all the
things that need to be done in order to go from
start to finish after the project page is the section
that takes up the bulk of my bullet journal
it's what i like to call the daily sections
basically i split every page in two and add the dates
at the top of each section and then i use this space to track all of its dues
i have for the day i use a simple system of
stars and dots stars are for extremely important things
that have to be done that day things like working on my next
video importing calls and even certain errands
if the task itself is rather large such as a video project
i will break down the steps underneath the star to show the many steps i need
to take in order to accomplish this task for the day
now this is extremely important because when you break down a big task
such as creating a new video into tiny parts
such as simply coming up with an idea or creating an
outline you will be able to prevent procrastination
because if you chunk a big task into tiny steps
it becomes much less intimidating for example
as i'm working on this video the star that i have in my bullet journal for
this project just says bullet journal and under that
i have a dot that just says draft because that's all i have to do
today i just need to write out the first draft
for the video i use dots for small tasks on the right hand side for things that
are not urgent these are often things that i can
push to the next day like having to call my bank or
responding to a message things like that i'll usually push these
tasks to the next day and the next day and so on until i
finally get around to doing it at which point i'll cross it out
the same thing goes for my start tasks whenever i finish one of the dots under
a star i'll cross it out and once i do all of
the dots i'll cross out the star itself this is the same system i used back when
i had white boards and there's a certain degree
of satisfaction that i get whenever i cross something out which is good
because it makes the habit itself more rewarding it's also important to
note that i don't write a lot for each of the tasks
most of the time i'll just write one to three words for every task
which is just enough information for me to know exactly what i'm talking about
and i found this to be extremely effective because it makes using the
journal even easier than it already is my
philosophy when it comes to building habits is to make it as
easy as possible to do that way you'll never dread having to do it
and finally i'll write the stars and dots for the next day whenever i
remember that i need to do something for that day
so when it comes to video projects i usually just write the star again
with a new dot under it to signify the next step in the process
but also randomly throughout the day i'll realize that i have to get
something done the next day and i'll make note of it there now that
we're about halfway done with the video i like to quickly thank the sponsors
who make all of this animation possible this episode was brought to you with the
help the guys at lingoda what if i told you that you
could fine tune your english spanish german or
french skills in a matter of months and get a 100
refund on what it would cost well at lingoda this is actually possible
all you have to do is sign up for the lingoda language sprint and deposit 55
using the link in the description box below and pick a language to learn
if you show up to class every day for three months you will get a full refund
a hundred percent of your money back this challenge starts on september
23rd 2020 if you attend 30 classes a month you will get 100 of your money
back if you attend at least 15 classes a
month you will get 50 percent of your money back
and it doesn't matter if you are a complete beginner at an intermediate or
advanced level of learning because at lingoda you will be able to
find appropriate courses for your level no matter what
my experience at lingoda so far has been great the classes are very personal and
small you are assigned a teacher to work with
that personally guides you through each lesson and the average
class size is only three or four people which makes the lessons
even more effective you can use coupon code school 40 to get an additional
11 off the deposit to join and the deadline to sign up for the lingoda
language sprint challenge is september 8th so if you want to learn
a language for what could be potentially free and also help our channel out make
sure you act fast and sign up now alright now back to the
topic at hand at the end of every month after the
daily section i have a special page that i like to call the monthly analysis page
basically i go back to my daily summary page and look at all the things that
i've done and accomplished for the month then i
think about the four areas of my life which are my health my wealth my
relationships and my overall happiness and i write a short little summary for
each of these four areas i make notes of any changes or obstacles
that have come up and i try to see if there are any
adjustments i need to make next month to improve this area of my life for
example a couple of months ago i saw that i was
gaining too much weight from eating takeout all of the time
because of the lockdowns so in my monthly analysis page
i made note of this and i decided to start cooking more at home
i also noticed that my relationship with my girlfriend has been pretty good
but i realized that i haven't been taking her out as much as i used to
so i made note of the fact that i should plan at least two or three dates for the
next month if i'm doing well in a certain area and
there isn't any adjustment that needs to be made i'll just write that i did a
good job and pat myself on the back and the
reason i have this page in general is because it allows me to double check
my compass every month to make sure that i'm going in the right direction
and finally we have the miscellaneous pages whenever i need a page to track or
record something that's unrelated to all of the other stuff that
we've covered so far i will create a new page starting from
the back of the book now i don't really have a system for
most of these pages i kind of just make it up as i go
for example whenever i'm reading a new book i will create a book summary page
for that book and jot down all of the valuable points that i come across
i have another page that i've dedicated to tracking my investment portfolio
every month i update it to show where my current wealth is being allocated
and also how much my investments are currently worth and i even have another
page that i use to track video ideas that i come across
sometimes there are good suggestions in the comments or sometimes i'll have an
interesting conversation with someone or sometimes i'll just be in the shower and
an idea comes to me when that happens i'll quickly run to my
bullet journal and jot it down on my video idea page as you can see the
sky's the limit you can create whatever page you want
for whatever thing you want to track and it will always be there
in your journal now the reason why bullet journaling is such a powerful
habit to build is because it serves as an extremely
effective physical reminder see unlike other organizational apps
such as notion trello or evernote which all reside on a
device that you have to turn on to see a bullet journal is
always physically there constantly reminding
you about what you have to do i personally keep my bullet journal next
to my computer every single day with the book open which means that
whenever i use my computer i am constantly being reminded about what i
should focus on this allows me to stay on track and get
the most important things done back when i tried using apps to record
my to-do's i would often forget to check them
and i was never able to get them to stick on the other hand
physically writing and crossing things out with a pen
gives me a special sense of satisfaction that has
actually made this habit very enjoyable which has allowed me to build it almost
effortlessly on top of that this system also serves
as a sort of swiss army knife allowing you to record your thoughts
your finances what you've been doing every day and much
much more honestly you can do whatever you want
when you have a bullet journal so for those of you that don't have some sort
of organizational system or have been trying to use an app but
haven't really had much success then i highly suggest you try bullet
journaling out because it really has made a huge difference for
me this year i get a lot more done nowadays and i
never worry about forgetting things because everything is in my journal
if any of you want help building habits or with self-improvement in general
check out my free mini course in the description box below
you can get it by signing up to my newsletter and you'll also be notified
whenever i decide to run the next habit builder challenge i hope
you found this video helpful and besides that guys
stay tuned