In our last post, we discussed how to become more mindful and productive using the Bullet Journal system. We also mentioned the idea of the Custom Collection, personalised sections of your BuJo dedicated to specific purposes.
One of the most common custom collections is the goals collection, which helps plan for every goal from the short-term to the “someday/maybe”.
Today we’ll run through how to use BuJo to define your goals, develop helpful habits, track your progress and ultimately reach your goals.
But first, let’s have a look at the process to understand why journaling (and BuJo specifically) can be such a powerful tool.
Decluttering the mind
Ryder Carrol (creator of the Bullet Journal) held a Ted Talk on the topic of decluttering the mind through journaling.
Many of us are “busy” (or “functionally overwhelmed”) a lot of the time and we spend so much of our time and energy focusing on things that don’t matter.
Conquer Decision Fatigue
Decision fatigue is real, and it happens when we give unimportant thoughts the mental space they don’t deserve.
Ryder goes on to discuss how we can determine what matters. It really comes down to two questions:
- Does this matter (to you or someone you love)?
- Is this vital (like paying taxes, credit card debt, student loans, etc)?
If you can’t answer these questions, think to yourself “What would happen if you never completed this task?” If there would be no repercussions, it probably doesn’t matter.
Take a Mental Inventory
We discussed the mental inventory in our previous Bullet Journal post, though just to sum it up, mental inventories come down to three parts:
- What you’re currently working on
- The things you should be working on
- What you’d like to be working on
How to Declutter the Mind
Ryder discussed a 3 point plan for achieving meaningful goals in life.
- Reflect on things that matter, and take notes in your journal to complete your “mental inventory”.
- Ideate small, new projects that interest you. Your projects will move you closer to achieving your goals.
- Dedicate time to reviewing and updating your mental inventory everyday.
Each step of the process aptly spells out Rid, as it aims to remove clutter from the mind. Clutter is anything that may act as obstacles to achieving our goals.
Define your goals
Set up a Goals collection to define your goals. Flip to the next blank spread of your Bullet Journal and title the left page “Goals – Professional” and the right page “Goals – Personal”.
Next, proceed to list out your professional goals on the left page and personal goals on the right.
Pick Meaningful Goals
Goals should be inspired by your felt experience. We all have passions and purpose. This is where our goals benefit us the most.
For example, paying off your mortgage and student loan is a more useful goal than making $1 million. If your goals are purely monetary, have a look at some ancient financial lessons.
However, a more meaningful goal might be to “start an online mental health consultancy”. And that’s because there’s a clear value your goal offers the world.
As we should focus on our most important goal(s) at any one time, it’s important to focus your energy on goals that are most meaningful to you.
You can do this by following your passions and purpose.
Prioritise your goals
Once you’ve listed out all your goals, review them individually. How much meaning do they bring to your life? And do they align with your core values?
Are they worth the time and effort you’ll be putting into achieving them? If not, cross them off your list.
Prioritise the remaining items. These should be your focus areas.
Develop helpful habits
Now that you have a list of your most important goals in life, check in with your planned actions in the daily logs (daily) and your Goals collection (weekly or monthly).
Angela Duckworth’s (PhD & author of Grit) research showed that perseverance and passion for long-term goals indicate success “better than any other predictor”. We leverage our BuJo to devote our long-term efforts to goals that matter to us. The Bullet Journal is a system to reach our goals.
BuJo, in conjunction with Stoicism, can help us reach our goals by clearing our minds and gaining cognitive distance.
Using migration, daily logs and other aspects of BuJo, we can develop long-term, helpful habits that help us reach our personal goals and achieve our own definition of success.
Focus on your priorities
When you have a long list of goals, it can be tempting to start a new project every week – even if you haven’t completed the one you started last week. Be wary, the Goals collection can serve as a distraction unless properly managed.
Remember to focus on what you can control. That’s where we may have the greatest impact. Some things are simply not up to us. That’s when we must learn to embrace our fate, amor fati.
Set your goals, and only set out on a new goal from your list when you’re satisfied that you’ve completed a goal. Only then should you return to your goals list, cross off your achieved goal and pick your next focus area.
Track your progress
Now that you’re checking in with your goals daily, you should have a good idea of how you’re progressing with them.
As long as your goals are present in the daily and monthly logs, and you take regular action toward them, you are on your way to achieving them.
Tracking Habits
Habit trackers are another way to keep you motivated and on track to achieving your goal. They’re custom collections that review how often you do something.
You can set up a habit tracker by creating a new collection with a relevant title and drawing a calendar for the next 3 months. For each day you perform a relevant action, you can colour in the day with a pencil or crayon.
The darker the colour shade on the day, the more you performed the habit that day. Think of it as a conditionally formatted colour scale. This view will help us review our behaviour and reinforce better habits.
By updating this tracker regularly (daily or weekly), you can get a more visual sense of how much time you dedicate towards achieving your goals. Who knows – this might even be the wake-up call you needed to re-prioritise your life.
Remember that what you do consistently is more important for success than what you know.
Daily Reflection
As we check in with our bullet journal everyday, we can use this opportunity to see how we’re progressing towards our goals. As the Stoics had their own morning and evening routines, we can review our own progress everyday with questions like…
What did I do well? Could I have done something better? What should I have done that I did not? And what did I do that I maybe shouldn’t have?
Asking ourselves these questions daily are the surest way to make progress toward our goals. Daily reflection will help us find new solutions to the obstacles that stand in our way. Remember, the impediment to action becomes action. The Obstacle is the Way.
While we’re on the topic, I’ve found it incredibly valuable using Stoicism to achieve my goals.
Reach your goals
As you review your goals, develop helpful habits and track your progress, you will eventually complete your most important goals.
Cross off any completed goals with the completed task signifier “x”:
∙ Fluency in a second language
↓
x Fluency in a second language
Updating your goals
As you cross off your achieved goals from the list, you will have a clear view of the remaining goals. Learn more about BuJo syntax.
You will also likely add new goals and remove goals that no longer align with your passions or purpose. After all, we should constantly refine our goals, as we discover new passions, adapt to new priorities and live through unprecedented times.
It seems like everyone’s picked up a new goal or two during the pandemic, and the Bullet Journal is a mindful way to stay on top of your goals – throughout COVID-19 and beyond.
The Bullet Journal Method
Ryder Carrol reviews the system in more detail and explains various mindfulness concepts behind it.
Order The Bullet Journal Method and maximise the value from your Bullet Journal today.