If you read my previous post here, then you’ve hopefully spent the week trying out the basic Bullet Journal process of writing a daily list of tasks, having a go at completing them and marking off your progress. How’s that been going?  Take a moment to review your lists. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Did you find the process of writing a list useful?  Why?
2. Did having a list of tasks make you more productive?
3. Did the act of marking off completed tasks make you feel productive or did the fact that there were still incomplete tasks make you feel anxious?  
4. What did you do with unfinished tasks?  Did you rewrite them on another day or did you leave them incomplete on your original list? 

I ask the final question as, in the world of Bullet Journaling, moving tasks to another occasion is known as ‘migrating’.  

Perhaps you need to think about why you’re migrating tasks.  Are you migrating because

• It’s a task that you really don’t want to do? 
• It isn’t time specific so it can be put off?
• It’s a task that isn’t really a priority?  

All of these are legitimate reasons but you need to be honest with yourself about which category they fall into.  If it’s the first, just get on with it. The second, perhaps a list somewhere on your page for any non-time specific tasks would help – you won’t forget them and they’re still on a list ready to be checked off. If it’s the third, does it really need to be on your list? It’s amazing how the act of writing a daily list concentrates the mind and helps you to prioritise. 

From the list above I migrated the task to plan my staff meeting at work to the deadline day so that it didn’t get missed. The other unfinished tasks were left on the list as I felt they would be necessary at some point, but weren’t time sensitive. I use a little arrow towards the top right and write the date I’ve migrated it to so that I know it’s been assigned to a particular day and that there will be a box to check on that day when it’s been completed. This reduces my anxiety that I’ll miss an essential task. 

Over the next week consider your reasons for migrating tasks. You’ll find yourself naturally prioritising tasks. 

Next week we’ll think about symbols that you could use for a legend to help you to navigate through your tasks more efficiently. 

Let me know how your bullet journal journey is progressing. 

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