You’ve probably already heard of bullet journals, a very easy and highly flexible personal organization method that you can adapt to your needs.

If you love lists to organize your activities, this tool is ideal; all you need is a notebook and a pen. If you're meticulous about decorating everything you do, add some stickers, colors, or markers.

The purpose of a bullet journal

A bullet journal aims to keep a record of the activities you are going to do, to give you an overview of past days, what you need to do today, and what you will do in the future.

It gives you great control, and if you carry it out with discipline, you will see that you will gain a lot in your productivity, as you will have annual, monthly, and daily records of what you have done, what you still need to do to reschedule, etc.

This method was created by Ryder Carroll, and although it seems simple and minimalist, it offers great results.

How to start a bullet journal

There are many ways to create a bullet journal, as well as to personalize it, but here we tell you the general structure and some tips with which you can start one whenever you want.

First, number the pages of the notebook you are going to use; this is essential for organization. Then, develop this structure:

Page 1 – Introduction

Pages 2,3 – Index

Pages 4,5 – Six-month (or annual) log

Pages 6,7 – Monthly log

Page 8 – First Daily Log

Note that in your introduction, you can put the phrase that will represent this bullet journal, such as some words that inspire you. Additionally, you must establish a series of symbols with which you will organize your activities. These can be whatever you decide, and you can even use different colors. Many people use, for example:

• Task

O Event

– Note

X Task completed

> Task migrated

< Task scheduled

* Priority / Important

! Idea

? Research

The index is nurtured by the logs you fill in. For example, if the daily logs for a particular day are on page 16, you note the day and page number in your index.

For the six-month or annual log, divide the page horizontally into three, and each block will contain a month. Therefore, if it is an annual log, you will need 4 pages for these records. For monthly logs, it is recommended to use one page per month.

These activities are those that correspond to large projects due to the time it will take you to do them or their importance. Meanwhile, daily activities are those that you can do in a single day, routine tasks, and specific appointments; you make these entries by writing, for example: Wednesday 02/06/21 --- below this title, the tasks and activities you will carry out. If a page has room for more days, you can use it, but it is recommended not to exceed three days per page.

The most important thing is to use your symbology and analyze by day, week, or month what you have not done to reschedule or eliminate it, because at this stage you can verify if it was really something important to do.

If you need to make longer notes or record other types of ideas that do not involve an action on your part, you can do so from back to front in your notebook and also note it in the index. This helps you avoid mixing elements in the organization of your bullet journal.

With this, you now have the basics to create your bullet journal. Give it a try! It's very useful, and you'll love it.

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Photographs:

@notes.by.val and @noteswithlu in their The Yellow Clip notebooks