How to Master Your Time Using Your Bullet Journal

It's hard to keep track of everything that you need to do and the things that you want to do. Your days are full of meetings, classes and other responsibilities, and social obligations. You have a job, and you have dreams—and it can be difficult to balance those things.

Everyone knows that time management is the key to success, but there's a reason it's so hard to master: you have to invest your time in order to create and implement an effective system.

But what if we told you that you could use bullet journaling to help you manage your time?

While bullet journaling (or bujo) is typically used as a creative outlet for organisation and planning, it can also be just the tool you need to get your time management under control.

Well, we've got a few tricks up our sleeves for getting the most out of your bullet journal when it comes to managing your time.

Make time to plan

This may be one of the last things you want to do when you're feeling bogged down by your schedule, but it's actually one of the best ways to improve it. By carving out a special time each week to sit down and map out your upcoming plans and goals, you can ensure that you're working smarter, not harder.

Know your top priorities for the day

Being able to identify what is—and isn't—important for every day means that you can focus on getting things done instead of just running around in circles. If scheduling allows, start with the task that is most important or urgent first, before moving on to other items that may be less pressing. Try the MUST, SHOULD, WANT Method to help you prioritise your tasks.

Write down everything

Anytime something pops into your head as something you need to do or remember, write it down! Don't trust yourself to keep it in your memory—you'll just end up forgetting about it later. Instead, get into the habit of writing down every possible thing that needs doing, so you can review them later and decide what's important and what isn't.

Keep track of your goals

The key to any kind of goal-setting success is being able to review your goals often enough that they stay fresh in your mind. That's where a bullet journal comes in handy: You can keep track of all your long-term goals along with all the related tasks, and then refer back to them daily as you write out your daily tasks.

Don't over-index your bullet journal

As you know, indexing is a huge part of bullet journaling. It's how we keep track of all those different lists and projects and thoughts that our mind throws at us all day. But when it comes to time management, it can be easy to get carried away with indexing, so much so that your index becomes overwhelming and unmanageable. To avoid this, focus on indexing only the space where you'll be taking notes on how your time is spent each day.

Finally, revisit your journal every week.

Assess what went well, what didn't work quite as well as it should have, and what you could use some help with. If you find that a particular task or event fell through the cracks more than once, make sure to make note of it so that you can figure out why next time around.

To wrap up, what sets this system apart is its simplicity and flexibility. You're free to change things around or adapt for your own specific needs, to make it work best for you. It's not meant to be a prescriptive system—it's a tool, built for inputting information about what you need and want out of your life.

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