Whe I first viewed the official Bullet Journal website, I was struck by how obvious the legend system seemed to be.  I tried out the original codes to begin with but didn’t like the dot to signify a task as it seemed to get lost within my writing.  After a little research on Pinterest and Instagram I created my own version.

I chose to use a square box to signify a task as I like to fill in the box to clearly show when it’s completed.  I also find a box easier to spot when glancing through my planner.  I like the triangle for ‘appointment’ as it looks a little bit like an ‘A’ shape so seems obvious and and event is something I’m going to do so the ‘O’ also makes sense to me.

These hollow shapes were then useful at the next stage of the process as I could fill them in to mark them as completed, put a cross through them to show that they had been cancelled or were no longer needed, or I could draw an arrow and write the date that I had migrated them to.

I introduced the letters in the task boxes as I kept finding myself writing the same thing, so ‘E’ for email, ‘C’ for call, ‘P’ for print and I’ve recently introduced ‘T’ for talk to.  These have really speeded up the process of writing in the tasks for each day and have also provided a record of work tasks that I’ve completed.  They’ve also been really useful at work when I’ve had to chase up a delegated task as I can say ‘I emailed/spoke to you on …. ‘ and I know exactly when I’ve done it.

Although I’ve got this legend written on the front page of my journal, I don’t think I’ve referred to it for much more than the first couple of days that I was using the system.  I think that’s because it was so intuitive to me and suited my needs so well.

Due to the nature of the bullet journal, you’re always reviewing its usefulness and how well it works in your current situation.  I don’t think I’ll make any changes to it, apart from adding in the ‘T’ task box, when I migrate into a new planner.   It’s working for me in my current situation and it’s so intuitive I don’t even need to think about it.