Ironic that I run a software business but I’ve recently switched back to using a notebook as part of my daily routine.
I wanted to started 2020 being more productive and laser focused on goals as I have a lot to hit this year, so I decided I’d lay it all out on a notebook.
I’m a Things (it’s a Mac app) user and I love it. I’ve been with them since they started and bought all the future upgrades for every platform they released on so I could have access to all my tasks and projects.
But I noticed that I was stagnating and wasn’t as productive as before. I seem to lose focus/attention (which is the crux of productivity) and I noticed that I wasn’t as aware of the whole picture for my projects and goals.
I decided to go back to bullet journaling, without the fancy calligraphy and illustrations and layouts that you see online. I have no idea how they can do all those things on a notebook and even have time to actually do their work.
So for me, it’s a very simple system:
Weekly Review of Accomplishments
3 Big Things for the Week
Then break it down to 3 Big Things Daily
The rest of the tasks I can finish or new habits I’m building are icing to the cake. The Big 3 will need to be done always.
I still fell off the wagon a few times in January, doing the easier tasks or because some unplanned work happened, so my head was justifying that I need to cruise and finish the annoying pending tasks.
But I think I’m getting the hang of it.
I don’t put all my tasks into the notebook, I still drop them all in my inbox in Things and I break it down in the Notebook. I don’t have “field notebooks” like the other bloggers and vloggers you see doing this bullet journal thing.
Sure, I get jelous sometimes when I see their monthly spreads but damn! I don’t have time to do that!
Lastly, I know all the things I mentioned above can still be done with a To Do app. I acknowledged that and I did say that I still use a to do app to keep my inbox of tasks as I cannot always have my notebook with me everywhere, anytime.
I think what really affected me is that it gave me a change in what I do. Mentally, if gave me more sense of accountability to write on it, to make sure I check off the tasks unlike just checking off the checkbox.
I’m just starting, but I think it’s going well. I hope you could give it a try, too.
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