9 Ways To Increase Productivity With a Bullet Journal

Hello Planning Mashers!

Productivity doesn’t have to be boring and difficult with a Bullet Journal it will be simple, fun, and creative.  Today I want to share with you 9 different ways you can use your Bullet Journal to be more productive and get more things done.

And don’t be intimidated, these are actually very easy things you can do, but over time they will guarantee a great result.

Bullet Journal is such a powerful and all-inclusive tool, that’s it’s easy to get lost and absolutely forget that you’re using it for productivity. Unless of course, it’s not your goal, which is totally fine – your BuJo, your rules.

BUT…. in case you DO want to be productive with your Bullet Journal, let me list here are a few simple tips you can follow.

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Using Bullet Journal For Productivity

Bullet Journal played a crucial role in me actually starting to get things done, but I must admit that sometimes I get too lost in the creative aspect of it and, well, neglect that it can also help my productivity.

That’s why I decided to make this list, as much for you as it is for me. As a reminder that my creative journal is also a powerful tool in time management and organization.

These tips help you get back on track and increase your productivity as you wouldn’t believe it, especially if you suddenly find yourself struggling with productivity while in college or working from home.

Brain Dump

You might have noticed I’ve been talking a lot about this tool! This is literally the best way to stop your feelings of overwhelm, which is often the biggest reason why you’re not productive.

Or maybe it’s just me? Let me know in the comments.

What I’m saying is, sometimes I just feel like I have so much to do, I start rushing and feeling stressed, and I make mistakes, and it all ends with lots of crying and binging on junk food (On an unrelated note, GUYS you wouldn’t BELIEVE how amazing donuts are here in La Paz!).

ANYWAYS!

Hopefully, you get the picture when I say it’s one of the biggest reasons why I’m not productive.

To fight that, I use a brain dump (and donuts, but that’s the coward’s way!).  Start from an empty page and write down ALL the things you have to do, no matter how small.

Once you’re done, you’ll feel the stress going down. I promise!  Suddenly, most of your tasks won’t be an unbeatable overwhelming dragon anymore, they are just a to-do list!

The next step is to deal with it – Start by asking yourself if you have 15 minutes to spare RIGHT AWAY and get the easy ones out of the way immediately. The rest? make sure to schedule them and write them down in your BuJo accordingly. 

Done! Now you can breathe easily since you know you already have assigned time to do all these things. Time to get productive!

Cut Down On Habit Trackers

When it comes to habit trackers, the less is actually more! I know how exciting it is at the beginning when you get a million ideas on what to track, and you just can’t wait to try them all and change your life.

Truth is, when you track so many things, your habit tracker can easily become a chore, or maybe something you don’t even look back at.

Been there, done that! This really isn’t a good thing for your productivity, and most likely you’ll just go back to your old ways, even forgetting you ever wanted to track something (khe khe daily yoga I’m talking to you!).

Nowadays, I only track 5 things (more or less). This allows me to actually make a difference because it’s much easier to monitor it.

Another great option is the small weekly trackers. The easier you make it for yourself to use a tracker, the more likely you’re to follow through, so having it in your weekly is super beneficial. Every day when you open your weekly, the tracker is there, reminding you to build a better life.

Some of you might be asking now “But Masha! why don’t you use a weekly tracker then?” First, thanks for noticing! You’re such an observant Masher!

Second, because I’m OBSESSED with seeing the progress over time month by month, so I’m not tracking things on a weekly basis at the moment. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for you though!

Hopefully, soon I’ll be back to those, and I’m fully intent on switching to weekly trackers then!

Make Journaling A Habit

Speaking of a habit tracker – one of the most powerful habits you can develop is to use your Bullet Journal daily. Just like with every habit, when you do it regularly, the effect accumulates.

Using the productivity pages in your Bullet Journal, planning out your time daily will definitely lead to you becoming more organized and getting more things done. 

But I know building new habits can be pretty hard, especially if journaling is not something you did before. Don’t worry though, I have a blog post with my best tips on how to make the Bullet Journal habit stick.

Plan The Night Before

One of the best things you can do for your productivity is to have a day planned the night before. 

Don’t worry, I’m not taking away your morning time with coffee and bujo, you can still look through your tasks and refresh your memory with the heavenly smell of your hot beverage.

However, there is nothing more powerful than already waking up with a plan.

You’ll find that already having a plan at the beginning of the day and knowing what to do in the morning, will not only help you to be more productive and finish your tasks faster, it will also help you to wake up faster.

With a daily plan already in mind, you create a very powerful reason to get off your bed instead of hitting the snooze button.

For some ideas of weekly spreads for planning, check my post Bullet Journal Weekly Spreads To Skyrocket Your Productivity.

But back to speaking about starting the day ….

Eat The Frog

Wait… what?!

Let me explain…

Eating the frog means completing your most important (or difficult, or boring) task, however scary on unpleasant it is. Getting it out of the way as your first thing in the morning will allow you to feel accomplished and get a boost for the rest of your day.

Imagine the morning just started, and you’re already done with that super annoying yet clearly important thing you had planned for the day. How awesome is this?

So eat your frog task as early as possible, before life gets to you. Things will start happening and piling up, and it’s veeeeeeery easy to get derailed (reminds me of that time I planned to shoot a video and instead had to unfreeze and clean the fridge that, for some reason, started leaking). But as long as you already did what you had to do, it won’t matter.

One last thing: when you plan your day, make sure to highlight what’s that one most important task. You can just add a star to it or maybe use a highlighter. Personally, I have a specially assigned priority box in my dailies.

Try Time Blocking and Batching

Time blocking and batching are two techniques that I found extremely useful, especially if used together.

Time blocking means you assign chunks of time in your schedule to certain tasks. This can be difficult because honestly, people are sooo bad at estimating the time it takes to complete tasks! 

This helps to keep you concentrated and focused on that one thing vs your braining running from one thing to another.

Then we have Batching which is the technique of putting together similar tasks. Let’s say, for example, I need to shoot a video, and I take some pictures for my Instagram. I could do the video in the morning and leave the Instagram pictures for later during the day.

However, it’s counterproductive because I will need to arrange my table and lights setup all over again. Batching means that I put these tasks together and complete them one after another. 

There you go – time and energy saved!

By combining these, you can really get the most out of your day. A great tool here would be color-coding. Use the same color for similar tasks, and then just color the time in your schedule you blocked out for all these.

Or, you can do what I did and just assign each day certain tasks. For example, Sunday is my filming day, Monday is for editing, Thursday is for writing, and so on.

Don’t Overload Your To-Do List

I’m sure I’m not alone when I admit that I try to add as many tasks to my day as possible. Being productive means having things done. 

You go, Masha and your million things to do every day!

Nope, it doesn’t work that way. 

Having an endless to-do list means your important things might get lost. Also, you’re basically inviting that horrendous feeling of dread and overwhelm to magically appear.

What you should do, is to pick just a few (I usually do around 3) big tasks to tackle each day. I’m not talking about little daily chores like doing the dishes, I mean big things like set up your BuJo for the upcoming month (Yup, it’s a very big thing for me!) or shoot a new video.

Clean your task list, and you’ll see that you’re becoming more productive!

Create Routines

Decision fatigue is a thing, and the more decisions you have to make the less energy you’ll have to be productive.

The solution to this is establishing routines. If you do the same thing every day, you don’t really spend any of your mental energy on it, it becomes automatic.

That’s the reason why you can see so many spreads with a morning routine, evening routine, or even just my ideas day pages. This helps you to see what routines you can place in your day to make it easier on yourself.

There are many ways creating a routine can help you, so be sure to check my post Creating Routines For Success And Structure.

Try New Things

Your Bullet Journal is a fully customizable, powerful tool. This means that as you grow and your life changes, so can your Bullet Journal.

Some pages that worked for you before and made you more productive worked before but might need some tweaking as your life changes.

At the same time, you might find yourself needing help with some completely new things. This is why it’s so important to keep experimenting and customizing your journal.

If you’re looking for some ideas, check my post with 300+ Bullet Journal page ideas to organize all areas of your life.

Ok, so there you go. These are the little tricks I use in my Bullet Journal to ensure I get the most out of my day. Even though I don’t use all of them all the time myself, I try to incorporate at least some. 

You can do the same! Try out some of these, play around, and see what works best for you.

What tricks do you use in your Bullet Journal to be more productive? Let us know in the comments below.

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And remember: Keep Bullet Journaling, and Don’t Be a Blob!