Weekly Pages in the Work Bullet Journal can be a tricky thing. The limitations of analog journaling and planning are painfully evident – things like no search capability and you just can’t cut and paste things. I’ve developed a system for my weekly pages in the work bullet journal that overcome some of the obstacles.

Weekly Page Purpose

Weekly pages, for me, work best when they have the most important and time sensitive information. I can see what I need to do during the upcoming week at a glance. I found that it is vital in my work to make sure things get done on time, so I include the following things on my weekly pages:

Upcoming Meetings

Tasks by Due Date

Essential Notes and quick jots for future reference

The Layout

I’m using a Moleskine Classic 5.5 x 8.5 inch grid notebook for work bullet journaling.

I split the page in horizontal 12mm sections to put three days on each page.

In each daily box, I put the date in the top right of the box, along with the page number of the corresponding daily page for easy reference.

On the top left side, I put upcoming meetings as they roll in. I don’t usually have more than one or two meetings a day, so 6 lines is enough to write down all of them.

On the right side under the date, I’ll put the major tasks that are due that day. Again, I have six lines to put the tasks in.

On the bottom 6 lines that span the full width of the day box, I put random notes, phone numbers and references that I might need later.

I usually create a month’s worth of weekly pages at a time so that I can plan ahead for a full month.

Please note that I had to copy and “sanitize” the example page shown here — it’s based on the real page, but with companies and personal names changed.

The Limitations Of Analog Journaling

Analog journaling is great, but the biggest limitation for me is that you can’t cut and paste or automate anything.

If I have a task that gets moved back a couple days, I normally would need to write the task down again on the day that it was moved to.

Being a creature that prefers to not repeat work, I started using sticky notes.

The Sticky Note Idea

So if a task or meeting is being moved, or you just run out of space, grab a 1.5 x 2 inch sticky note (the small ones) and jot the task or meeting down and stick the note to the new date.

When the day arrives, move the sticky notes to that day page so you can get things done without having to rewrite the note a third time.

The sticky notes themselves aren’t anything special. They’re just from Office Depot. Our office buys these so I don’t even have to get them on my own dime.

Sticky Notes save time

I don’t remember where I first saw this. It was from some guy using a Franklin Planner back in the late 90’s (remember those?) The basic idea was to never have to rewrite tasks, so he put every task on a sticky note. If the task didn’t get done, or was moved to another date, all he had to do was move the sticky note.

It was his way of not letting anything fall through the cracks.

If the task is really important, I may write it permanently into the daily page when it’s completed with a check so I can come back to it to confirm it’s completion later if questioned.

It’s really a simple system. There’s nothing magical going on here. The page setup takes about 10 minutes, and filling the daily boxes in happens during the work day as tasks, ideas and meetings roll in.