I'm going to keep this as concise and succinct as possible
I really enjoy the idea of bullet journalling
but I don't enjoy how complicated and time consuming it can often end up becoming
the idea of tracking habits and tracking patterns is really powerful
but it needs to be simple, or else it becomes unsustainable and overwhelming
with that being said I did create a video on how I keep a simplified bullet journal
that many of you guys seemed to enjoy
and since then I've further refined things
and added and removed elements as I saw fit
the method that I'm going to be sharing with you guys
is built around this idea of trying to track emotional wellbeing and habits
I feel like I need to see things clearly so that I can assess where I'm at in my life
my thinking when approaching this topic and developing this for myself
has been what exactly differentiates writing something down physically versus digitally
that's something that I encourage you to think about for yourself because we all operate differently
the main differences that I can quantify are that typing or deleting things on my phone or on my computer is a lot faster
so there's a speed advantage, but precisely for that reason writing things down seems to carry more importance
It's kinda like I'm forcing myself to take an additional moment
to think things through or consider them more deeply
that's another valuable thing to think about when developing your own organisational or journaling methods
so with that being said. Here's how I journal to stay on top of my life
I would suggest sitting down somewhere comfortable
uh with a hot drink, a playlist of songs that you enjoy listening to, while doing this
That's what I do, because this is ideal to do in the morning and let's face it
and sometimes it's a bit difficult to get things going
so the more inviting it is, I think the better.
I'll link to a spotify playlist if you're looking for new material.
So to give a brief overview, there are only three parts to my setup here
The daily tracker, my weekly reviews and a monthly reset process
I've gone ahead and gotten rid of anything else because I don't want to bloat my journaling process here
or make it any longer or more cumbersome than it needs to be
That does include even my daily to-do list, which I know create and maintain on 'Todoist'
And that's a clear example, in my opinion
of using the digital speed advantage to do certain things a lot more quickly
So lets dive into things. Shall we.
This is going to be really easy, I promise
It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to set up, honestly.
And I'm just going to explain my thinking behind everything
Starting with the daily tracker, this is something I started doing a little over a year ago
and this is such a powerful way to visually see consistency when it comes to habits
Essentially what I'm doing here is at the beginning of each month I list off the days
And then the habits that I feel are important and valuable for me to focus on
And build, or maintain
The cool thing about this is I do find that those habits
evolve and change as time goes on, and I'm going to come back to that in a moment
I do hand write this one out because I find that it is so much more satisfying
to mark down whenever I've done habits physically rather than digitally checking something off.
Every day or two, I update my progress.
A couple of examples of habits I've been regularly trying to focus more time on
are exercise, cold showers, meditation, time reading, that kind of thing
It can be whatever you want!
Now one of the interesting things that I think that this very quickly reveals
is how unrealistic you can be with yourself.
So for example, in the past I have set the goal of
I don't know, waking up at 5am or 6am
And that's just a really tough one for me to follow through on and do consistently.
And it might not make sense, for me.
It turns out that I am very creatively productive sometimes at night
So it might not make complete sense for me to do that
It's way easier to, come to conclusions and assess things when I can see it all laid out before me
More than just forcing yourself into being some sort of idealised version of yourself
I think this is about, I think this is about being honest, and seeing who you are, and what you're actually doing.
And so, with all of the information that I'm gathering by doing this, I might adjust the habits that I want to focus on, next month.
The other part of my daily tracker is a new addition that I recently made
Inspired by one of my main objectives in 2020, which is to establish more stability in my life
And one of the very specific examples that I gave was, more consistent sleep
I know that this is going to be huge for me.
And I also know that tracking things is probably the best way to better assess the whole situation.
And begin to establish more stability
So that's what I'm doing here, I'm tracking when I officially turn off the lights
And then in bed, ending the day.
And when I officially get out of bed, and am starting the day.
As you can see here, I am not very good at this.
It's a lot harder, than you would think
when you don't have an imposed external schedule like: going to school, or a stable job.
I am certain, that many of the freelancers among you can relate to this.
But again the point of this isn't to beat yourself up, and try to suddenly be perfect.
Currently I'm just assessing the situation
and trying to bring as much curiosity to this as possible
Almost as if I were doing a little experiment.
And I'm a very visual person. So, this is helpful in getting a clearer picture
on what I'm doing exactly
I do think that I've seen some improvement since starting this
From the simple fact that I'm taking a little more time to track it, and be mindful about this
I just want to better understand things by seeing it.
And I will add, that just the act of tracking things has helped improve the situation
There is one really tricky piece to this puzzle that I haven't quite found yet.
I'd appreciate your suggestions if you have any.
But I haven't found a way to enjoy the productivity of mornings, and the creativity of evenings and nights, late nights
It's kind of like I have to pick one or the other
It seems like the Spanish have come the closest of anybody with their siestas
which let them, I guess, stay up later and wake up earlier, and they just sort of catch up a bit in the middle of the day
But I have a hard time napping as a general rule, so....yeah. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Part 2 is a weekly tracker which I use to review how the last week went.
I find this a lot more useful than doing a daily review, which doesn't feel like enough time to sort of assess things
It's easier for me to take things in week long chunks.
The idea behind this is that I'm journaling , on my emotional well being
Sure there is some level of attention placed on productivity, but
not that much, it's more than anything this is about how I'm doing emotionally,
because at the end of the day, that ends up impacting everything
These reviews are very important to me because it's an opportunity to pause and reflect
And get more perspective on where I'm at in life
I don't want to make giant blanket statements here
but I think society does not place enough of an emphasis on pausing and reflecting on things
It's not exciting, it's not sexy, but it's so helpful in having clarity on how to move forward.
And it's also super easy to skip over, which is why I think it doesn't happen more often.
What this ends up looking like is sitting down for maybe 5 minutes, on a Sunday evening, or a Monday morning
And thinking about how the week went in the general sense
Doing these weekly check-ups or check-ins, helps to get a sense of trends which are taking place in your life
Which if you think about it is super powerful
because you can pick up on red-flags or where you're veering off-course, early on.
So for example, I have long suspected that I'm affected by weather
And that in winter time the amount of darkness and I guess generally the lack of light, has an impact on me.
I've noticed that it can be kind of difficult for me to get out of bed, and start the day
And that might require certain solutions, like, light therapy or maybe I have a vitamin deficiency.
But whatever the case, taking this time to kind of journal and actually think about it, is what brought this to my attention
Finally, I do something similar at the end of each month.
Often referring to the weekly reviews that I did
And sort of taking them all together and thinking back on how things went overall
So there's one page for that, and then one page for
laying out where I want to place my focus in the coming month.
Some might call this goal setting, I think this is a little bit different
because it's not so outcome-oriented
I'm making a huge effort on trying to just focus on systems and processes
That is where the process starts over again.
So that's it man, very simple, and offers a lot of benefits, in my opinion.
Especially when combined with a gratitude journal, or something along those lines.
If I had to boil it down, this is about seeing emotional and habitual trends, that are taking place in my life.
And I don't spend more than ten minutes on any given day
These are powerful insights to have, and there isn't an app out there
that I feel makes me reflect in the way that this journaling method does.
Maybe I'm old fashioned - I don't know - but that's where I'm at
I hope this helps. Are you maybe interested in more journaling or organisational inspiration, or ideas.
May I suggest Skill Share, who are sponsoring this video.
In all seriousness, I used Skill Share a few years ago,
when I was going through an intense phase of learning film-making and photography
And then I re-discovered it in the last year, for
the content that it offers in other categories actually, like lifestyle and productivity
It's definitely a resource worth looking into in 2020.
I like it more than YouTube in some cases because it's clearly built and designed
for people, interested in self-improvement.
And YouTube can sometimes lead you down a rabbit-hole
I just find the algorithms can be very aggressive and distracting.
It's just something to think about because it can be an easy trap to fall into.
I definitely fall into that trap sometimes.
You can click the link in the description to get a couple of months of Skill Share premium for free!
To explore what they have to offer, your creativity, all that good stuff!
It's pretty sick, because having Skill Share Premium gives you full access to everything that they've got.
For way less than the cost of in-person classes or workshops, I should add.
An annual subscription is less than $10 a month
I'd like to recommend this very comprehensive class on film-making. It touches on all (of) the important points
And I really enjoyed the approach and exercises in this one. So consider checking it out.
And thank you for watching!
And I'll see you soon!