In the last year, I finished my Master’s Degree in Microbiology, got a startup up and running, and maintained an affinity for learning new skills. This is my first Medium post and I decided to write about the productivity system I use with Bullet Journals.

I was initially turned on to Bullet Journals (I’ll just call it bujo from here on out) by co-founder. I was impressed by the simplicity and flexibility of creating your own templates to manage your week, month, year, or whatever. At that point in time, I had been unable to find a calendar or journal that worked with my style or met my needs. So I bought the standard lined Leuchtturm 1917, over the Moleskin, and went wild! Actually, I was totally stuck.

Looking at a notebook filled with blank pages was intimidating. I didn’t know where to start. Some people can pick up a blank page and crank out a simple, elegant format right away. But how do these formats work together to create a valuable tool? I will argue that some people, myself included, lack some of the creative ability to design functional and visually appealing bujo templates. So what did I do? I Googled it!

The Search for the Perfect Template!

However, when you Google something like “bujo weekly templates,” you are flooded with page after page of artsy and beautiful templates on Pinterest or Instagram. No offense to these templates but when your day consists of maybe 3 errands and personal goals like “stay hydrated and gain more Instagram followers,” this is not a one-size-fit-all solution for other professions. So I kept looking.

I searched YouTube and Facebook and found a bunch of videos/blogs by people designing “simple”, “minimalist”, “for guys,” templates but ran into the same problem. These templates compromised functionality and use of space with visually appealing templates that do not meet the needs of a professional working life.

Something else was bothering me too. Across the board, people show off their beautiful templates, but do not discuss the planning process. Why did you fill 50% of your day with a full-color picture of a rain cloud? Why did you choose a circular monthly calendar instead of a rectangular one? How does the circular calendar change when you have 28 days instead of 30 days? Why does the calendar only use half of a page and not a full page? My classical mindset was raging! I needed numbers.

This bugged me. But being a tinkerer, I decided to set out and deconstruct the standard bujo templates in order to engineer a new bujo system. That is what I will discuss below. I will also share my working Google Sheets templates for this system so you can try it out too. This is my first article so if you have comments or questions, please reach out so I can improve my work!

Breaking Down the Bullet Journal

First off I want to say a few things about my methodology. For the last year, I was using the lined Leuchtturm 1917 journal. I did a lot of experimenting in there but I had initially intended to buy the dotted version and made a mistake when ordering on Amazon. Here are a few of my reasons for going with the dotted journal.

1. The vertical distance between lines was smaller so I could fit more content into each page

2. The dotted matrix allowed for greater flexibility and reproducibility for page designs

3. The dots are less distracting than the thick horizontal lines in other journal styles

Having then done some research about what people on Pinterest put in their journals and comparing that with my needs, I established 7 Page Types that make up my bujo system:

The Yearly, Monthly, and Weekly Spread Page Types make up the planning process and the remaining Page Types are for habit and behavior tracking. These two processes are intertwined for the ultimate purpose of goal completion.

Let’s talk numbers! In the dotted journal by Leuchtturm, a single page contains 27 x 39 dots, or 26 x 38 squares (988 squares per page). As such, a spread (two pages) is made up of 52 x 38 squares (1976 squares per spread). I whipped out some trusty yellow engineering paper and started sketching out some templates, relying very strongly on my ruler. I went through several iterations but the following templates were my favorite in terms of space utilized, functionality, and flow.

From all of my research on social media sites, I became somewhat inspired by the usefulness of color in an otherwise black and white journal, since I only use a black pen, I decided to label my pages with a small piece of colored washi tape. But I will get into that later. Right now I want to break down each of these page types, discuss the layout, and ultimately describe how they all work together.

Yearly Spread: What is the Big Picture?

In a recent Accelerator my startup went through, I learned about the Rockefeller Habits, which focus on 5 key factors for a successful business. While I do not strictly follow these habits, there are a few aspects that strongly influenced my bujo system, being data driven and planning.

Looking at an entire year requires some deep meditation on your goals, both personal and professional. Think about your vision for the next year. Do you want to learn a new language? Do you want to finish writing your PhD thesis? Do you want to improve the growth of your company?

All of these goals are achievable. But they require planning. Having a list of your goals for the year is fantastic but deconstructing those goals into achievable and realistic monthly and weekly, and even daily, tasks is essential for completing them. This deconstruction process is a strategy that mentors like Tim Ferris discuss. An outline of the Yearly Spread is shown below.