5 Simple Bullet Journal Weekly Spread Tricks To Increase Productivity
Hello Planning Mashers!
One of the things I love the most about Bullet Journal is how it helps me to be more productive.
If that’s also what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place. In this blog post, we’ll talk about ways you can skyrocket your productivity with Bullet Journal weekly spreads.
Weekly spreads are really the basis of the Bullet Journal system for me, and I love playing around and trying out different techniques to make them the most productive.
They are like Lego castles and can be completely customized for whatever you might need from them, just like pretty much everything in the Bullet Journal system.
Meaning that, of course, you can tweak your weekly spreads to help you be more productive.
Increasing Productivity With Weekly Spreads
There are a few productivity techniques that I tried and worked for me, so today I want to share them with you and show you how they can be added to your Bullet Journal weekly spreads.
This will be a great example for you, so next time you come up with some techniques that really rock your world, you’ll know that you can absolutely add them to your weekly spreads and get even more out of them.
As always my biggest tip here is to try different things and see what works for you.
This post may contain affiliate links. They will be of no extra expense for you, but I receive a small credit. Please see my Disclosure for more details. Thank you for supporting Masha Plans!
Daily Priority
Among the things I tried that worked for me, the first and most impactful one was finding a daily priority.
This helps to keep the priorities straight and make sure that even though the day may go crazy and I might not finish all I had planned, at least I did the most important thing.
You can add it to your weekly pages in different ways. Use a highlighter to note the crucial task, have a special section in your daily boxes to write down the goal for the day.
By adding a daily priority and starting the day from it, you guarantee that every day you move closer and closer to your goal.
Plus, if you did just one thing from your list, but it was a very important thing – it’s enough to have a little feeling of accomplishment and motivation.
Pomodoro Bullet Journal Technique
Another technique I’ve loved lately is Pomodoro. With this method, you set a timer for 25 minutes and spend them in very focused work.
You can plan out a short break (5 minutes) or a long break (15 minutes) and then go back to your concentrated 25 minutes of work.
This method allows you to tackle your task list one step (or 25 minutes) at a time. It’s much easier to stay focused if you do it just for 25 minutes, so you’ll end up completing your assignments faster and delivering better quality.
The key here is not to take very long breaks. Having a break sounds like, hey, time to check my Instagram. But DON’T! IT’S A TRAP! Open social media, and you’ll be gone for hours. So make sure you have a timer for the rest time as well, or just stay out of all things social.
The way you can add this to your weekly spreads is by creating a Pomodoro tracker. Create as many circles per day as Pomodoros you want to work on, and color each one of them once it’s completed.
You can really play around with it by – for example! – using different colors for different types of work. For instance, the two big things I’m working on are working on my blog and writing for another project.
So I can have Pomodoros colored in different colors to clearly see how much time I spent on each task and make sure I distributed the time as planned.
Divided Weekly Action Plan
Usually, when you sit down to plan your week, you probably just create a huge to-do list. It probably looks huge and chaotic, and a lot of things are getting lost within it.
A trick that will really help to get it all done is to divide it by categories. Use whatever categories are applicable to your life, for me, as you see it’s blogging, YouTube, and others.
By dividing the tasks that way, it’ll be easier for you to understand your to-do list at a mere glance. Plus, it’ll help you ensure you’re not missing anything important.
So every Sunday, you can have a sit, think of what you’ll need to accomplish, check back with your monthly log and plan out your week.
Running To-Do List
Another great way to increase productivity with your Bullet Journal weekly spreads is by creating a running to-do list.
A running to-do list will help you plan your week better, balance your days, and reduce the stress of scheduling your week.
To explain how it works, let’s start with a setup. What you need is to create a 7 boxes wide table, for 7 days of the week. You can make it as tall as you want to. I usually see that around half or ⅔ of the page is enough, but, of course, it depends on how busy your week is.
Next step – start writing your tasks along the side of the table. You can include any tasks you wish. Personally, I prefer not to include any small trivial tasks, but it’s all up to you.
Now that you have your list done start scheduling the tasks. Draw a circle on the day when you want to achieve the task and then a horizontal line from the circle to the task. Go on until you schedule everything on your list.
If you accomplish the task of the day – color it. If not – add an arrow to the circle and reschedule it for another day.
This will help you to create a stable schedule for the week.
Batching
My new favorite technique is batching. This means putting similar tasks together on the same day.
For example, if I need to write a new post, film a video, and take some Instagram pictures, it would make more sense for me to film and take pictures together because that way, I won’t need to rearrange all the things to just take a picture.
This technique really helps to save a lot of time and makes completing some tasks much easier. I do hate spending 20 minutes setting up my table to take 1 Instagram picture, but if it’s already set for something else, it’s so much easier to span that photo.
What I’m doing, however, is batching by days. While using a running to-do list it became pretty clear that I have certain types of tasks, and it’s really easier to just batch them together to a certain day.
So now I have an email day when I work on everything email-related, a design day for my printables and other design work, a filming day for YouTube, and all the other good stuff.
If it’s the first time you are trying this, I’d advise starting by creating a running to-do list or a divided weekly to-do list like we mentioned before.
After that, you can either schedule your tasks daily, so you have similar tasks together, or you can assign certain days to certain tasks. If you choose the latter, you can also color-code it.
Choose what are the types of tasks you’ll group them by and assign a color to each group. Afterward, just add that color to the header of the day when you’re planning to accomplish them.
Finding Your Perfect Weekly Spread
It’s going to take a while to figure out what kind of weekly spread would work best for you. But I have something that will help you speed up the process!
Printable Bullet Journal weekly spread bundle from my shop.
This bundle has 7 printable weekly spreads with different formats and lots of space and areas to try out any of these different techniques.
Each spread works for both Monday and Sunday start; you can print them out and use them as many times as you want.
Get your bundle HERE.
You can also get this set of printables and 7 more weekly spreads if you sign up for my signature course Perfect Weekly.
It has everything you need to know to figure out the best weekly spread for you to reach your goals.
And it also comes with a set of 14 printable weekly spreads.
And as a reader of the blog, you can sign up 10% off with code WEEKLY10. Click here to learn more.
What tricks are you using to improve your productivity in your weekly spreads? Share with us in the comments!
Hope this post was interesting; if you find it so, please share! If you enjoy my content and want to show your appreciation, please consider supporting me with a cup of coffee.
And remember! Keep Bullet Journaling, and Don’t be a Blob!
