Weekly Journal 145 - Bullet Journal

Bullet Journal Reviews/Reflections

For the longest time I struggled with the feeling that I wasn’t getting the right projects completed. The Bullet Journal method has been a big help in that area by helping me to ensure that I’m capturing information and tasks throughout the day so that I don’t forget anything. Even with that I was still struggling with prioritization and a feeling that I was stagnating. At the time I wasn’t really doing the weekly and monthly reflections that the Bullet Journal method describes and now I think that was the missing link.

Weekly and monthly reflections are like a review. It’s about taking a little time, I typically spend 15-30 minutes per week, to review the events of the previous week or month, and figuring out what worked and what didn’t. If you can be honest with yourself, this is an opportunity to identify problem areas that you can work on to make small improvements in yourself. For example, I use it to review things like my diet and exercise progress, my spiritual disciplines like Bible study, prayer, and fasting, and to gauge progress on my personal projects. A review can be as structured as you like it to be. It can be as simple as doing some free-form journaling or asking the three questions:

• What went well?
• What could have gone better?
• What can I improve?

I personally like Matt Ragland’s WRAP method. I list out my Wins, Result, Alignment, and Pivot items each week in my journal, and use those to inform my planning for the next week and beyond. There are countless other methods out there to choose from. I would recommend trying out several and finding one that works for you.

Regardless of what productivity system you use, if you feel like you are still missing something I would highly recommend adding some form of regular reviews to your practice. It’s been a real boost in my life.