Take control of your work schedule and skyrocket your business productivity with my bullet journal for work layouts, ideas & hacks.
Most business owners set professional goals. But, wise entrepreneurs use bullet journaling to track these important goals.
Who is a business bullet journaling for?
Do you wish to have better control over personal life work-life balance?
If you’re a working professional, small business owner, or entrepreneur who struggles with time management and prioritizing your task list, the bullet journal method, also known as BuJo, is something you should consider.
In this post, I’ll explain how a bullet journal for business will boost your productivity and help you achieve your professional goals faster.
Keep reading!
What is Bullet Journal?
So, what are bullet journals? When it comes to finding a productivity system, nothing is more innovative and flexible than the bullet journal method.
The Bullet Journal was developed by New York City digital designer Ryder Carroll.
Bullet Journaling has revolutionized the way we organize our personal and professional goals!
The methodology is to turn a plain notebook into a bespoke organization tool with a basic structure in common.
As a business owner or professional, you may choose to keep a separate bullet journal for business.
Still, all of these spreads can be easily implemented into your existing monthly and daily tracking system if you decide to keep a single journal.
How Does the Bullet Journal System Work?
Whether for personal or business use, the bullet journal system follows the same basic skeleton.
First, you start with a monthly log, which will often include a calendar of events, a list of tasks to be completed for the month, and potentially a place for goals and habit trackers.
Secondly, you have daily, weekly and monthly logs to take information and events from the monthly log and transfer them here.
The daily log acts more like an essential rolling to-do list. If you complete a task, you can tick it off; you can cross it out to cancel it or use an arrow to move it on to the next day.
More complex bullet journals use this basic format but add additional useful pages and elements to fit a more personalized user need, Trial and error are needed when designing a bullet journal that works for you.
Nowadays, art supplies and journals are readily available in the market. And you can have fun mixing and matching all of them.
You can choose from a wide variety like cut-outs, stickers, or doodles. Don’t worry if you’re not the creative type, because everyone can doodle (if you wish to). Check out my post for some bullet journal doodle ideas.
Even those who claim they don’t have any artistic blood in their body.
The fun thing with doodles is it doesn’t have any standards. It’s the result of your imagination, an expression of your thoughts and feelings written down on paper.
How to Bullet Journal for Work?
Bullet journaling for work is a great way to boost your motivation and productivity.
The key is to create short, specific notes that will help you to keep track of your daily workflow.
Use bullet journal symbols, color codes, and task lists to prioritize the most important projects.
Calendar spreads, mind maps, and goal trackers can also be used in a bullet journal; allowing you to take complete control over your time management and monthly scheduling.
I’ll get into this is more detail below…
One of my favorite bullet journal spread ideas for work professionals and entrepreneurs is a two page spread to keep track of your goals.
For example, you may choose to start your bullet journal with your year’s business goals.
You can categorize your goals for different parts of the business, so you cover all bases. This may have the financial revenue goals you wish to meet or your social media targets.
If you work for a company, your goals may be to do with your work performance targets.
It is a good idea to keep track of your goals every day to make sure you are keeping yourself accountable.
It’s a good idea is to go over your goals quarterly and regularly update them.
It is hugely motivating to see yourself hitting and exceeding your goals in this way, and your bullet journal will certainly keep you on track!
For more on this, watch the video below.
Some additional tips for how to improve your bullet journaling are:
- Include an index
Many bullet journal notebooks are specifically designed to add page numbers. This can be important and useful for business needs as you can track the pages that certain pieces of information are stored. For example, if you are looking for financial information to help complete your taxes, an index will make it easy to reference this information quickly. - Create a bullet key
One of the bullet journal’s essential parts is creating a key that works and makes sense for you. Of course, the bullet journal comprises basic symbols such as checkboxes and bullets, but other symbols could be used to symbolize different business needs. - Keep Your Bullet Journal Simple
This all may seem very complicated, but the best thing to do is to pick a handful of spreads that will work for you. If you choose too many spreads, there is a chance that a bullet journal will instead hinder your productivity. A bullet journal is only useful if you can keep up with inputting information and data into it. Test the waters with simple spreads first, and when it becomes more of a habit, start to implement new spreads.
6 Bullet Journal Ideas for Business Professionals
I’ve collated the most productive spreads that can be super useful for professionals and small business owners.
Here are 6 bullet journal for work layouts you should try:
1. Business Finance Tracker
If you own a small business and are in charge of incomings and outgoings, it helps note down daily business expenses.
You may already have an expense and income tracker for your personal expenses, but this can be easily transferred into a page for business use.
A straightforward one-page table will suffice where you can note down a description of the expense, the category and keep a running total of your monthly business costs.
This can be useful to tally up at the end of the month and help identify any changes you may need to make to your business budget.
You may also want to include an expense tracking graph at the end of the month to identify your business spending’s highs and lows, which may be useful data for the future.
2. Social Media Posting Schedule
As a small business owner or social media professional, it’s essential to keep track of your social media posting and engagement with potential customers.
You can easily add a column to your regular weekly spread to include an idea for a social media post for the day and rate your level of engagement for the day.
Additionally, you can keep a spread that tracks your followers in a graph throughout the month so you can see whether your social media posts are having a positive effect on your business.
3. Work Meetings and Events Calendar
If you attend lots of meetings and events, then it may be useful to include a separate work meeting and event calendar to your personal one.
This can have the same calendar grid format as a regular monthly Planner, but you will have more space to dedicate to the meetings’ details.
As with the monthly planner/calendar, you can transfer events and details to your daily log as you need to.
4. Professional Development Plan
If you are looking to improve in your career, it is a good idea to keep track of how you plan to get there.
For example, keeping track of any courses, you want to take for work.
You will be able to look back on your weekly spreads and see how much you are working towards these goals and how much you procrastinate and move tasks on to the next day.
Hopefully, this will help you break bad habits and have you working like a boss towards your next goal!
5. Project Management Tracker
Whether you’re working on a project with a client or and internal project, we all need an effective project management system.
In a way, your bullet journal is essentially one big planning system.
But, for specific projects, I suggest making a two-page project management spread.
This can include a master task list to keep your project organized. You can also include milestones and targets; which are awesome time management trackers.
6. Mind Maps for Work Life Balance
Mind mapping is a great BuJo technique that is used to collate your thoughts and free your overwhelmed brain.
This is essentially an organized brain dump. This can be sort helpful for visually sorting your different goals, tasks, and ideas into categories, as well as the order of importance.
Some people prefer to use images and doodles to express their thoughts. Others go for a more minimalistic approach.
There are no rules to your mind mapping page. This can be as neat or as messy as you’d like. The key is to get all your thoughts onto the page and out of your mind.
How Do I Create a Bullet Journal for Work?
Starting your journal doesn’t have to be complicated either. It all boils down to the medium that you’re comfortable with.
With the thousands of ideas you have in mind, it’s important to brain dump your thoughts. Then you can prioritize your task list based on importance.
Start by dedicating a whole page in your journal for brainstorming everything. This may include random work tasks, future projects, and meetings.
Getting everything down in your journal will help you see the big picture; making it easier to sift through which ideas to keep and which to throw away.
If you’re creating a bullet journal for business, this process may include doodles of what you envision your product and services to be.
For those of you looking to start your own business. BoJo is great for brainstorming logo designs, office layouts, and even the employees you wish to hire.
Starting a business bullet journal can be inexpensive. Check out my cheap bullet journal supplies post for some ideas; as well as the best bullet journals for work.
Use Bullet Journaling to Sky Rocket Your Business Productivity
It would help if you took advantage of the bullet journalling method for your business.
It can be so easy for things to become easily confused in our brains within a clear organization system.
You may choose to write your thoughts down in a regular diary, but the bullet journal for business process ensures you keep yourself accountable and allows yourself to quickly move tasks to a day that you can complete them.
With the bullet journalling system, you have the flexibility of creating the spreads that work for you, and you can decide how much space they need to take up.
If you need to focus a lot of finances and want this to be a primary focus for your business journal, you can easily create finance trackers and graphs and goal pages to see your progress in meeting your financial goals.
If your focus is on building a more substantial social media presence and engagement with followers, you may choose to focus your journal more on post scheduling and post ideas.
The system’s beauty is the flexibility that it affords you and that flexibility ultimately leads to spreads that improve your productivity!
Keep to Rapid Logging
Here’s the thing, journaling and taking notes can sometimes be time-consuming. And, when you’re a busy entrepreneur or work professional, that’s time you don’t have.
Bullet Journaling for work should not feel like a chore. It should feel helpful and a useful way to collate your professional thoughts and goals.
Rapid logging is the habit of keeping your journal short, bulleted, and coded for effective referencing.
To do this, organize your notes by topics, number your pages, and stick to writing short sentences and bullets.
This will not only speed up your note-taking, it will enhance productivity and overall bullet journaling experience.
Why not use a digital bullet journal?
Well, the traditional bullet journal method suits people who work better with analog productivity tools.
For some people, the simple act of writing something down with pen and paper can help them to remember better, and the creative design aspect of the bullet journal gives you the motivation to keep using it.
That being said, there are some great digital journaling systems that exist for those who prefer a more technology built process.
Bullet Journaling for Work Anxiety
When you have a thousand ideas in your mind, it’s easy to get drowned with everything.
From inventory management to hiring employees, from manufacturing your product and marketing, most aspiring entrepreneurs get too overpowered, they quit before they even start a project.
Journaling in general has been proven to have many mental health benefits.
Here are some ways to keep your cool and become more productive with journaling:
- Visualize what you want to achieve.
- Get educated.
- Eliminate self-limiting beliefs
- Acknowledge the gap and confusion.
- Create a plan and stick to them.
- Trust your instinct and get moving.
The key to everything mentioned is to have a “business bible,” a go-to guide and journal to keep you on track in your journey to success.
It becomes a MAP that’ll help you navigate your way through the business jungle.
Planning is crucial in the journey. And that’s what bullet journals do.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Zig Ziglar
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Don’t fret before you even start. Your “business bible” doesn’t have to be as academic and professional as others usually make.
Customize your own, reflecting your own style and taste. One way to do that is to create and doodle your bullet journal.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Everything will settle down in due time. Use this opportunity when things become overwhelming to go assess and go back to your storyboard.
Doodle your bullet journal and watch the magic unfold right before your eyes.
Liberate yourself from the toxicity and self-limiting beliefs that held you down.
Let your inner artist shine through and color your life again. Find healing within to energize your wounded soul and spirit. And when your cup is full, go back and conquer the world.
Overall, a bullet journal for business is a great way to organize both your personal and work life. And, you can personalize it to your specific needs!
Make sure you have your bullet journal at work or with you.
If you work from home, keep your journal in your desk or office.
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This will help you to keep up with your monthly and daily bullet journal spreads to ensure you are squeezing the most productivity out of the system.
Remember, no single bullet journal method will work for everyone, and it is a process to find what works for you and your business needs.
There is no harm in trying a spread that doesn’t work for you. Experiment and figure out how you are going to bolster your productivity.
