- Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel.
If you're new around here my name is Charli
and I'm a designer.
Today though, we're not talking about design specifically
we're talking about bullet journaling and organization.
Now, if you haven't heard of it before I'm probably
not the best person to explain bullet journaling to you
but there is a really awesome video that I watched
when I first heard about it and was curious about
what this whole thing was.
And, this video is made by the guy who created
bullet journaling, the system itself.
So, you should definitely watch that.
I'll link it down below.
That'll be a great introduction to what it is.
But, at a basic level I guess I would describe it
as an analog way of structuring your notebook
and your tasks and you to do lists.
You can also use it for much more than that, of course,
it can be like a sketch book, or more like a diary,
like a traditional journal.
But, what I personally use it mostly for
is task management and keeping track of my projects
and my goals and my daily to do lists.
I was actually quite surprised to discover
how much I have gotten into bullet journaling
and how effective it's been for me because before this
I was definitely a heavy user of apps for to do lists
and task management.
But yes, in switching to this analog system
I've pretty much stopped using apps for organizing
my day and my projects apart from at work,
we still do, 'cause you gotta share it with the team
so it makes more sense.
But, for my personal stuff and my daily to do lists
I've just been using the bullet journal.
I think I'll explain more about the different parts
that go into making a bullet journal when
I'm flipping through mine, but all you need for now
to start with is that it's a way of writing
in a notebook and organizing a notebook
to help you get stuff done and helping you
stay on track of your tasks, at least that's
what it is for me.
I guess we'll start with the journal itself.
This is what I use.
It is the Leuchtturm, I think is how you
pronounce it, bullet journal.
Leuchtturm collaborated with the guy who created
the bullet journal system to make this notebook
that is especially set up for bullet journaling.
You can use whatever notebook you like.
You don't have to use this one.
It is kind of expensive for a notebook, but I wanted
to get it because I figured I could use a little bit
of extra help when I was first getting started with it.
So, it's got Bullet Journal engraved on the cover there
which looks quite cool.
It's got dotted pages and it's nice cream paper.
And, it comes with page numbers already put in
the corners as well.
And, I will show you why that's handy
when we're flipping through it.
But, it also has these little page tab ribbons
as well for keeping track of various sections.
The pen I use to write in it is this Muji gel pen.
It's a 0.7, a lot of people go crazy for bullet journals
and have like lots of different colors, and lots
of different pen types, but I'm not very good a drawing
so my bullet journal is kept very simple.
It's kept to the basics.
I don't use it as a piece of creative expression
like a lot of people do, so I'm very sorry if
you're disappointed by the lack of Pinterest worthy layouts.
The most important thing about my bullet journal for me
is that it can help me stay on top of tasks
and organize things and write in it quickly, as well.
Like, it doesn't take a whole bunch of time
to get set up, which is definitely the point.
I use Identify System which is laid out in
the bullet journal video that I told you to go watch,
but basically I do a dot for a task, a circle for
an event or like a meeting or something that
I have to do at a certain time.
Then I do the task I cross it off.
And, if I don't get it done that day and I'm
moving it to the next day I do a little forward arrow.
You'll see throughout this other things that I do
throughout it, but that's my quick way of writing lists
and marking those things off the list.
So, with all that said, let's get into having
a flip through this and I'll show you
how I've got it set up.
Okay, I don't have a fancy top down tripod
so this slight angle is gonna have to do.
Let's start into the bullet journal.
So, to start off with is the the index.
And, this is why I was saying that it's important
to have page numbers in your bullet journal notebook.
Of course, you can write them in yourself,
but I didn't wanna go through and write hundreds
of pages of page numbers.
So, I'm glad that I ought one that was pre-numbered.
So, in here is where you just write, whenever you
create a new section what page it's at so you can
refer to this later.
So, as you can see I've mostly got months,
but there's a few other things in there as well
that I'll show you.
Another part of the bullet journal is the future log.
And, this is probably one of my favorite like set-ups
of the bullet journal and this is an idea
that I got from someone else having the calendar
inside there and then content and notes about
the month written there.
So, the future log is meant to be an overview
of your year, I suppose, so you can zoom out
and see it from a high level everything that's going on.
So yeah, I've split each page into three and then
have a little calendar for each month in there.
Within my calendars I've been doing things like
I circle the dates that are a public holiday
that I have off work.
And, if I'm going away somewhere then I'll do this
little underline system, as you can see,
April is gonna be a very busy month of trouble for me.
Something else I do that you would have heard me
talk about if you watch my podcast is I give
each month a focus to help me try and concentrate
on getting one thing done because that's,
when you've got a lot on the go, it's really hard
to give attention to all the things equally.
SO, each month I like to focus on a certain part
of my projects so that I can move forward
with them and give myself permission, in a way,
to forget about other stuff and go for
the most important thing.
And, here is where I can write ideas for what
my monthly focus might be for each month as well.
And, I'll show you when we get into the month pages,
month layouts where that comes into play again.
A lot of people bullet journal with various spreads,
pages that, for tracking certain things.
I haven't really got too far into that.
I did make this one with my goals for the year.
This is the goals that I talked about in my
design build (mumbles) 17 video.
I thought it'd be helpful to have them there
so that I can refer back to and remind myself.
This is keeping track of my YouTube subscribers
and my email list subscribers just as a way of
having a record of that, I guess.
I'm gonna blur out this page because it talks about
fiances, but this is where I keep track of yeah
where I'm at with my savings each month and also
this is a place that I've set up for myself
to mark down different sources of income
and different sources of expenses because I am
a contractor now, which means I have to worry about
that sort of thing.
But, I've honestly not found myself using this
analog source for that I prefer to just put it
straight into my spreadsheets.
So, I don't think this one has been very useful.
Then, I've got some blank pages before we start
getting into the months.
I'm just gonna jump to March to show you
the set up of my months.
So, as you can see I use the little gray tab
to mark the latest month we're in.
So, this is a layout that I've really been liking
for setting up my monthly overview.
So, this is a bit more detailed that you saw
in that future log back there, but again it's
pretty high level.
And, up here is where I wrote the monthly focus
that I've decided on for the month.
So, March's focus was email, which is why
if you subscribed to my email list you probably
got some emails from me last month.
It's actually the 31st of March right now
as I'm filming it, so I need to set up for April.
So, I'm gonna walk you through that in a second.
Aside from these monthly pages and the future log
that I showed you back at the start I really don't do
anything too exciting with my bullet journal.
As you'll see here it's mostly just days and lists.
So, every day I will write it in caps and put this
square around it so that I can easily like scan down
my list and find the thing that I'm looking for.
Then, the way I write my to do list for the day
is that the left hand side is my work tasks
and the right had side is stuff that I wanna
get done for my personal projects or my side projects.
What I'll also do in each day is use it as a space
to write notes from any meetings I might have had that day.
So, for example, this one here I've got some of
these lines which stands for a note for me
where I've written some notes of stuff.
Then, I'll often draw like a little icon and a title
for that group of notes I suppose.
So yeah, most of my notebook is these sorts of days
with a square around them and then just messy
looking lists, but honestly this is neater
than most of my lists have ever been before this
thanks to the dotted lines and I guess the system
for crossing things off as well.
It's much neater to just have a little cross at
the side there then like draw through the whole thing.
And, if you do see me drawing through the whole thing
it's because that thing was canceled and decided
not to do anymore.
So, it'd be like deleting something if it was in
a to do list app.
If I just go back, though, to my index
'cause there's one spread I wanna show you.
Okay, so page 23, let's go there.
So, this is an example of like a planning spread, I guess.
So, it's not done on a certain day like these ones are.
Instead, it's across the spread and it's planning
for a project rather than a certain day.
So, this one is planning my posters,
which plug, plug, are now for sale in my online store
so you should do and check them out.
This is where I sort of just drew a little icon
of each of the posters that I was gonna print,
and then marked what colors I was gonna print them in.
And, then had this little key for when I photographed them
and printed them as well.
This is also where I jotted down notes when I was
planning out shipping costs as well.
So, it was handy to have everything in one place
rather than scattered around throughout the different days.
So, I grouped that all together.
Yeah, I've not done many of those yet.
It's mostly just been, like I said, these days with
the block around them and my lists.
Something I really like about the bullet journal
is that you set it up yourself and you can do
these random pages here and there and you can take up
as much space as you want per day.
Like, this day for example is much bigger than
my recent days have been, but I'm not trying
to cram everything into one space.
So, I can make each day take up as much space
as it wants.
Let's set up the month, though, shall we.
So, to start off with one quick thing you're gonna do
is write down the dates in April.
Then, I just pull up the calendar app on my phone
and see what days of the week they are so I know
that April starts on a Saturday.
I should have known that because it's tomorrow.
(laughs)
So then, I just write them in here.
Then, I take this little ruler that I have and I'm just
gonna rule a line down beside these dates.
At the top I'm just gonna do my little doodle for the month.
Some people get really creative with this stuff
and I have not been super creative at all,
but that's all right I like how it looks.
And, like I said, this isn't like a creative journal for me.
It's just a way of organizing stuff.
Okay, if I go back to my future log and I see
stuff that's happening in April.
Okay, that's that side unless more things and events
or stuff I have to go to comes up for April
that will be written in down here.
On this other side, first of all, I'm gonna put
my monthly focus.
And, the next month I'm gonna focus on writing.
There's a bunch of stuff I need to write
like blog posts and planning for courses and things.
Then, I like to have a high level plan
of what I'm doing each week of the month.
So, in here I've got week one.
Oops, that just totally smudged,
but like I said it doesn't matter.
It's just for organization.
Normally, these pens are pretty good and don't do that.
That's kind of odd.
Okay, so in these week rows what I do is write down
the overall things that I need to get achieved that week.
So, those are the things that will need to be worked in
to my daily tasks at some point during the week.
So, I don't tend to fill this out super in advance
unless I know exactly when something needs to be done by.
If I know that coming up in week one of April
I need to get my Pricing Class edited.
And, I'm also gonna write Branding Workshop in there
because that is for VidCon and that is next week.
So now, when I am setting my to do list for the day
I can refer back to this and make sure that
I'm working this into my week.
So, that is my set up for a new month, smudges and all.
Doesn't matter, all I know is that it's gonna
help me stay organized and keep on top of things.
So, that is my bullet journal.
Thank you for watching this video if you did,
indeed, manage to stay till the end.
I know it was a long one.
I just had a lot to say about this thing.
I've really been loving it and loving staying
organized with it.
So, if you've been interested in starting bullet journaling
yourself then I hope this video might have been
useful for you to see some of the ways that
I structure mine.
Remember that you can make yours completely
personal as well.
Like, you don't have to follow anyone else's system.
You can do whatever you like in your bullet journal.
There's no like one correct way to do things
which is what I love about it.
So, hopefully this video might have helped
you get some ideas though of things that you
might want to do in yours or that you might not
want to do.
If you do bullet journaling yourself already,
I would love to hear about your set up down below
in the comments and about how you've been finding it,
what you've been using it for.
Like I said, mine is for task management
and organizing projects but I know other people
use them for like organizing life in general
and keeping track of mental health et cetera.
So interesting to hear about down below in the comments.
Give this video a thumbs up if you did enjoy it
and all its organization nerdiness
and I will see you in the next video, bye.
(mellow music)