Bullet Journal – Helping you go from ‘To do’ to ‘Done’!

In my perfect world, I’d have my list of TO-DO’s all checked off, all the time! I’d then spend all my weekends on the couch binge-watching my favourite shows. How incredible would that be!

As much as we would all love for this dream to be a reality, we understand that the world we live in is far from perfect. That has never stopped us from achieving our dreams though, has it? And a largely underappreciated aspect of what goes into achieving a goal is the collection of tiny steps we take towards it. It is all the seemingly insignificant TO-DO’s we check off one at a time.

That is the power of small, but consistent efforts.

Think of your day-to-day life. Isn’t it ultimately a never-ending series of you checking off a list of items that need to be done? Isn’t it something we are able to achieve quite effortlessly for most part of the day without a physical or a digital list to remind us? That is how well-conditioned we humans are in following a routine with almost zero conscious effort.

What then is the purpose of a TO-DO list?

Well, this list is mainly for everything that is OUTSIDE our routine. Things that don’t fall into our daily rituals and hence require special attention from us.

We may work as well-oiled machines going from one task to another from morning to night, but if there is any task that is slightly out of the ordinary, we start to crumble. There is a lot of resistance in venturing to the unknown – could be in the form of calling customer support to sort something out, or call someone you are not looking forward to having a conversation with or something as plain and simple as booking an appointment.

We conveniently push the difficult tasks into a corner of our brain and blame our “bad memory” for not getting it done. The ease at which we can procrastinate and not face the consequences to make us feel guilty has just made it easier for us to never mend our ways.

And that is where a single TO-DO list which you are sure to look at every single day comes to our rescue.

As I mentioned in my previous post (which you can read here if you are new to Bullet Journaling and want some fresh ideas) I had multiple sources of TO-DO lists before I started a BuJo, but I never could have imagined the benefits of writing down my list in a single space. It sounds like such a simple idea, but trust me, once you start making this a habit, you will be surprised with how many tasks are getting done as opposed to how many are being “forgotten”. It is a simple yet effective way of having some control in the way in which you want to navigate your day feeling accomplished.

Personally, what I like to do is look at my list every single morning and choose the ones that need immediate attention and pick 1-2 that are easy to complete. That way next day when I open the list again, I feel great about checking off 2-3 from the list.

What I am suggesting here is to combine some dull and uninteresting tasks with some easy and enjoyable ones and that way chances are you will get more done in a day. The aim is to feel victorious every single morning while crushing the items off the list!! I treat it as a fun game each day, giving myself reward points for doing well 😊

How can we make this creative and fun using a Bullet Journal?

Well, now that we have established the significance of having a list and religiously going through it every single day, let’s talk about ways in which we can make this a bit more exciting.

I started out with a simple list during my beginner BuJo days, but I slowly began adding some character to it. Just some simple designs, borders, themes to match the other pages etc. Nothing too fancy but something pleasing to the eye instead of a boring black and white list.

Here are some of the designs of my TO-DO lists. If you liked any in particular, do let me know in a comment and I’ll be happy to send you a digitised version of the same.

With the million distractions pulling us in different directions through the day, it is such a humbling feeling to realise that you have your priorities sorted out and are doing everything in your capacity to stay focused and get through one task at a time! So the next time you check off an item from the list, take a minute to thank yourself and be proud! 😊