Why I’ve stopped using my bullet journal
I’ve done a lot of posts in the past about how much I love my bullet journal and my tips and tricks for using a bullet journal. But to be honest with you, I don’t think I’ve used it in the past six months.
Why’s that I hear you ask? To make my life easier.
Bullet journalling took too long
As much as I loved creating the beautiful layouts in my bullet journal with the monthly themes and fun trackers it just ended up taking too long. When I’ve read blog posts about how bullet journalling didn’t work for people it was often because of this reason. I’ve just become busier, and with that taking the time to sit down and draw out my monthly calendar and weekly spreads just wasn’t happening.
When your planning tool takes longer to organise than the actual work it’s not working out for you.
It was a gradual retirement, in the end I found I was just making the monthly calendar spread and doing the rest outside of my bullet journal. When I forgot to add things into the calendar or missed things because I forgot to look into my bullet journal I knew it was time to move on.
Notion took over
Back in April last year I wrote about how I have been loving using Notion to organise my business. I wrote about how I was using both my bullet journal and my Notion together to plan my life. Well Notion has just took over.
It’s quicker to use and it’s accessible on any device. Win win.
I track less things these days, as much as I enjoyed keeping the mood tracker throughout the year I just forgot to fill it out so that’s gone. My Notion is just the important things I need to keep track of, mainly my goals and my monthly plans to reach those goals. I no longer have weekly to do lists, I just have a list of things I’d like to get done that Month and revisit it often.
As I’m not doing as much planning this year, and any planning I am doing is reflected from my yearly goals I feel like realistically I should be able to complete all my goals this year. That would be a first!
My ultimate goal this year is to “Focus on the things I want to achieve and try not to get distracted by other shiny things.” So by everything I do being reflected from my goals I think this will work and in reality my bullet journal was just one of those other shiny things.
I want to spend my time doing the things instead of planning to do the things!
Premade Monthly calendars are my trick
The only thing that exists in my planning life outside of Notion is my Monthly planner, which is mostly just personal life things like when I need to pay bills and appointments. I’m currently using the Monthly Planner Pad by Nikki’s Supply Store, or my own Monthly calendar if I’ve created one for that month’s Newsletter freebie (sign up if you’re not already). I stick these up on my wall and have the important things written on so I can quickly glance at it throughout the month. I normally have the next month up there as well to see what’s coming up.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love bullet journalling. But I can’t do the simple non decorated way of bullet journalling that some people do, if I’m going to do that I’m just going to do it in Notion. Once I get less busy, or figure out a way to make it work for my busier life I’ll pick it back up. But until then I’ll retire it.
Don’t keep doing things just because you like them if they don’t work for you! You can always bring them back into your life when they will work.
- Sophie
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