It has been about 5 months since I started using a bullet journal with regularity.  I already filled up my first notebook and am on to my second.  Back in September, I shared some of my favorite page types for boosting my focus and productivity.  Specifically, I shared my Daily Log – my daily to-do list, and the notes I take during meetings to keep me engaged and to facilitate easy sharing with others.  I’m still using both of those pages with regularity, but now in month #6 I’ve added a number of page types that have been helpful.

I think it is important to note that I still have some mixed feelings about my bullet journal.  On some levels, it is deeply cathartic to break out my colored markers in the middle of the day to mark progress on my daily goals and summarize the major points of meetings and other interactions.  It’s like an adult coloring book.  I can attest to the fact that the journal helps me stay on target with daily, weekly, and monthly goals and priorities.  It is definitely a boost to my productivity.

At times, however, I find my bullet journal getting in the way of my focus and creativity.  Sometimes the aesthetics of the thing don’t allow me to be as free-flowing with ideas as I would like.  A notebook should be a space that encourages experimentation, sketching, and drafty diagramming.  But I can’t seem to bring myself to include a first draft of something I know is going to be ugly or awkward.  So I leave it out.

So while there are definitely some things I’m still working out in terms of my expectations and practices with the bullet journal, I definitely have some go-to uses for the journal beyond what I was doing when I first got started.  Here are a few of those:

The Month At-A-Glance

In my first journal, I experimented with a few different formats for the month at-a-glance page, and didn’t really like any of them.  I finally settled on a style that combines a month calendar with the big goals in different areas of my life.      It’s working – at least for now.

The Gratitude Log

I’ve seen different takes on this on a number of bullet journal websites.  Often, the gratitudes are integrated into the daily log.  I tried that, but it didn’t seem to work for me.  So I switched to try to dedicated one page for the month where I record one thing I’m grateful for for each day.

The Fitness Tracker

This is a carry over from my first journal.  It’s worked really well, especially since I’ve finally gotten into the regular habit of counting my calories every day.  Some people might argue that counting calories every day is no way to live life.  I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but for me at least, there is no way for me to maintain or lose weight without being mindful every day – at almost every meal – about what I am eating.  When I slip into mindless eating, which is very easy for me to do, I simply overeat.

Site Visit Summaries 

A big part of my responsibilities at work involves visiting the principals I supervise and their schools.  I’ve experimented with different systems for capturing notes about our discussions and my observations.  Now I’ve been created a visit summary to help me document what I am learning about the principals I am supervising, and so that I have an easy reference later on when discussing each principal’s goals and areas for improvement.