a busy mom
and her bullet journal
December is here already and, as a project manager, I usually have to work in the future, sometimes more than in the present. Therefore, I already had to start my 2017 journal.
Anyway, my work bullet journal is actually very boring and it stays pretty much true to the original Bullet Journal®. If you're coming to my blog for the first time and you would like to know what I'm talking about, here's a YouTube video from the Bullet Journal® inventor himself that you can watch at your leisure. I use an extremely boring composition notebook, which is what I have available at work. No complaints here, as it's free. But if you're used to colourful Leuchtturm1917 then yes, you're going to find this one boring. Keep reading to learn the general order and layout of my work bullet journal. Year at a GlanceI don't know about you, but I cannot live without a calendar view for the entire year. As I've said in previous posts, I'm a very visual person. With that said, the first thing I do is glue a print-out of an official company calendar that includes all of the approved holidays. I apologize for not posting a picture of that one since I am not allowed to share that outside the company. This is corporate policy and I must adhere to it. If you were wondering, there is nothing special about it: Apart from the fact of the company logo in the upper-left corner, it's a regular calendar layout with three months per row, highlighting the approved holidays with a rectangle. Page NumbersAs you might have guessed, the pages are not numbered. I must confess I do not like this, but I have gotten used to numbering the pages myself about 5 or 10 ahead of the one I'm using. It only takes me a minute to do so. Therefore, it is not really a big deal. Signifiers / Legends / Keys
IndexThe next two spreads are reserved for my Index. One thing that did not work in 2016 was that my projects and associated collections were getting lost in the Index. After searching the Internet and checking the official Bullet Journal® web site for hacks and ideas on how to handle my index in a way that would work better for me, I started to use the right page on my first Index spread to track projects. This created two problems: Duplication (now I had entries for projects both on the index itself and on the projects tracker or index, as well) and I soon ran out of space on my regular index; plus the fact that now my index was split with a project list/index in between the index pages. (Have I already said how much I dislike having to flip pages?) So for 2017, I decided to just reserve the first full spread for the Index itself and use the second spread (at least the left page for now) for the Projects Index. We will see how this works as soon as my Index starts to fill up in the upcoming weeks and months. Project IndexAs I explained in the section above, I use the second spread reserved for my Index to track projects. Projects can be nested. Some are sub-projects, other ones are small projects that are part of a bigger project or plan, Etc. I'm not sure how I'm going to be handling this one this coming year. I hope better than 2016. I'll try to share as soon as I have used it for a few months. Future LogAnd this is another area where I depart from the original concept. I call my Future Log the Month-to-Month log. Reason being, I was getting too confused with that term. I don't know if it is because I do not speak English as first language or what. But Future Log to me sounds more like a list of things that you have planned to do sometime in the future and not a list of tasks, events, and the likes for which you already know when they might take place and you are already creating entries for them on the planned month. I didn't come up with this name. I "borrowed" it from Julie from Life + Paper. You can see her picture here. When I first started to bullet journal, I looked over the Internet for ideas on how to solve some little issues I had with the original concept and I found her blog, and particularly her month-to-month log picture, by accident. The picture above shows the first semester of the year whereas the one below shows the last semester of the year. These tend to fill out very quickly, sometimes forcing me to use two columns in each month. At the time of taking these pictures, all I had were entries for approved corporate holidays and shutdowns, as well as dates for one of my main projects. I'm in charge of designing training courses for my team. This is precisely the project that forces me to start using a bullet journal sometimes a couple of months before the year actually arrives. What Comes Next?As with the original Bullet Journal®, the next spread would be for the Month Log... at least for now. I haven't decided, yet. I may need to create a collection or two before that can happen. These collections are going to be migrated from 2016. I have a couple of projects that span 3 to 5 years and we're about 2 years into those. I will need to migrate from my 2016 bullet journal and I may want to do that before I start the month log for January. If you are familiar with the concept of threading, you may be asking yourself why I don't just thread to the 2016 bullet journal. While that may work in many cases, it would not be practical for me. I already have to carry laptop, bullet journal, and many other things to meetings and I move from building to building to attend conferences, trainings, and other job-related events. I do not want to have to carry more than one notebook with me. Moreover, now that I have been using the bullet journal® for a year, I know what works for me and what doesn't and my 2016 bullet journal was more of my prototype or pilot bullet journal. It would be very uncomfortable and inefficient to have to go through all those messy pages. With a new year comes a new opportunity to improve the process and I'm all about making it easier. If you are not familiar with threading, here's a link to a very comprehensive post from Kim at Tiny Ray of Sunshine with many different ways of threading and picture examples. In case you're curious about my month log, it is just a spread, just like the original concept. The left page lists the days and short entries for each day. I use the right page to list the tasks I want to accomplish on that particular month. Once again, I will reserve from posting pictures of those due to confidentiality and corporate policies. Nevertheless, I have a feeling you get the idea. After the Month Log, I have my Daily Logs and other collections. Once again, if you need to learn more about those or get a refresher of the original Bullet Journal®, please visit the official web site or check the introductory video on YouTube. Additional Ideas and HacksOne last thing. I use a colour system to more easily track large project-related collections (see picture below.) I just draw a little square on the edge of the pages and I always use the same line for the same colour. This helps me to flip through and find related pages faster. If you would like to learn more about these hacks, Kara from Boho Berry has a blog entry listing over 20 different hacks and ideas with pictures and everything. You can also take a look at other hacks on Megan's Page Flutter blog. Thank you!I hope you enjoyed this post and feel free to share your comments, questions, or ideas on either this post, or how you're planning your journal for 2017. Happy journaling! Supplies
(Yes, like I said, boooooring!!!!!) :o)
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AuthorMother, daughter, wife, full-time project manager, semi-pro photographer, certified Spanish translator, and even self-taught plumber and electrician when needed. Yes, you will see me more frequently at Lowe's than at any other store. Archives
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