Creating a Bullet Journal in Notion
- Introduction (0:00)
- Introduce the video tutorial and provide an overview of what the viewer can expect to learn from the video.
- System Context (2:34)
- Explain the overall concept of the notion pillars, pipelines, and vault system, including how it is valuable and how the elements are interconnected.
- New Day Template (3:28)
- Show how to use the new day template to set up and organize tasks, goals, and notes for the day.
- Embedded In-Line Property Entry (6:00)
- Demonstrate how to use embedded in-line property entry to quickly enter and organize data within the system.
- Startup Framework (10:17)
- Discuss the importance of a startup framework and show how to use the notion system to create and implement one.
- Mid-Day (17:05)
- Offer tips and strategies for staying on track and productive during the middle of the day, using the notion system to help.
- End of Day Wind-Down (17:43)
- Show how to use the notion system to effectively wind down at the end of the day and prepare for the next day.
- Closing Thoughts (24:42)
- Summarize the key takeaways from the video and encourage the viewer to leave thoughts or questions in the comments or join the online community. Provide the link to the newsletter and the show notes.
Hi, everyone, welcome back to our ongoing series on how to create a life operating system in Notion.
Today we're going to look at my bullet journal/bullet planner. It's how I plan the morning each day, as soon as I get to my desk. It's part of my morning startup routine. I think of it as my startup routine at the point at which my workday starts. So through this, we do the morning startup.
And then there's an end of day wind down at the end of the workday. And this is the two bookends to the workday at least Monday through Friday.
So we'll walk through that the last two videos were about mindset and identity sculpting. This will show you where that fits into the day, and how I get that done every morning. So this is going to give context to the last two videos on mindset and identity sculpting.
In the two or three videos before that, we talked about how I plan my day and how to use the notion PPV system to schedule a day that's going to be highly effective consistently, every single day. And this is very much tied to that. This is going to pull from the information that we plan the night before each day, so that we have a game plan in place when we sit down at our desk.
This daily planner, as you'll see will draw from that. So if you want to see more information on how to plan your day the night before, check out the videos right before the mindset and identity sculpting videos in the series, a few videos back. But how you start your day matters a lot, the first 10% of how you do anything will have a disproportionately large impact on the rest of the 90%.
How you kick it off really matters. That's why we do our annual review to kick off the year. And that's why I have a morning startup ritual like this to get off on the right foot, really frame the day and get us off with momentum and clarity on where we're going. It makes such a difference.
So this will take somewhere between 10 to 20 minutes to do each morning. And some of you may be thinking, I don't have 10 to 20 minutes to stop and do something else in the beginning of the day, I've got to dive in and attack. But the problem is, if you attack without clarity, if you attack without momentum, if you don't have a clear path, if you don't have the mindset established to be successful in the day, your day will fizzle out early. And in most cases, you'll get distracted and you'll go off path.
This is what frames the day. Again, the first 10% has a disproportionate impact on the rest of the 90%. So we are framing the day for success with clarity with vision and with mindset that's going to carry through the day. And it's going to set mile markers that will hold us accountable for at the end of the day when we do the wind down.
As you'll see there's a real design to set up the day. And then to make sure at the end of the day, you have accountability that you follow through on the things you set up. So with that, let's dive in.
So starting from our command center, which is our top level dashboard, jumping into the action zone, which is our daily focus area. And in this top today toggle will have the items were focused on during the day. This is relatively late in the day. So I've completed a lot of things later priorities now into first and second priority. So just finishing up,
Underneath this, we have the daily tracking area. And that's what we're going to focus on today. So this database is called daily tracking. What we're going to look at today is the template that we walked through to complete it.
But if you want to see the higher level database and how the database was built, check out the previous video I did a while ago called daily data tracking in a notion database. It'll show you the high level structure of the database in order looks like in table view when you're looking at aggregate data over time.
But today, we're going to look at what the template lays out for us and how we go through the morning startup routine. So this has already started because it's currently late in the day. But let's say it's early in the morning, we're playing a new one we'll hit the blue new button will enlarge it will apply the template.
Since I'm creating this, from a filtered database view filtered for today only the page we just came from was filtered for date is today only. And so when I hit or I could delete this, when I hit New, since it's filtered for today, it's automatically going to apply today's date, it's gonna apply the template. I'm going to type the title and since the title can't be a formula, or anything other than text field have to type that in manually, but I'll just take the date that's already there, and type in that date as the title. It'll have the formula to find today as Monday or whatever day it is, then all I have to do is connect it to the week's database so it'll roll up for a weekly review.
I always put the two arrows in for the current week. So I'll just click the two arrows makes it easy to find. Our weekly review talks about how this becomes useful and how all the information we're about to enter will automatically roll up to the weekly database and therefore be available for the weekly review. And the same thing again for the monthly review.
But what we're gonna look at today, since we've talked about the database as a whole, and how that data is used in previous videos like the daily tracking video, and the weekly review video, I'm going to look at now something we haven't looked at in much detail, which is the morning startup routine.
In this template here, we have a throughout the day section here. I typically won't access it here because it's designed to show all that information right here. So we have that box right here, I'm doing a duplicate just to show you how I did it from scratch. But you'll check off the habits in the habit tracker here as you go through the day. And we come back into the one we created, which again, would be the only one for that day, just one each day. And then at the end of the day, we have an end of day wind down.
Now, let me walk through this because there's some clever design elements that make it very fast and easy to do. First of all, daily startup stats, I am not entering anything up here, there are actually a lot of properties here. I'm not entering any of them up here, I've collapsed them, you can hide properties, by right clicking, and choosing hide property, you can make it hide when empty or always hide, I have some of the formulas set to hide when empty.
So that when they're calculating based on entries they make, they will then appear at the top. But for the most part, they're all hiding permanently, so that we don't see them at all.
Hello, I'm working with a daily tracking database that is currently filtered for today's date. This database is where I am currently entering data. By using a filter, I am able to only see data for the current day, which makes it easier for me to enter new data.
When I first sit down at my desk, I enter data such as the time I went to sleep and woke up. I enter these times as fractions, as it's faster to enter the data this way and it's also easier to graph the data in a spreadsheet. Additionally, I use an aura ring to measure the number of hours I slept and enter that data as well. I also enter my resting heart rate and a made-up variable called "heart rate variable".
At the end of the day, I enter more data into the database, including habit and routine information. By using different embedded views of the same database, all the properties are automatically entered for the current day. This makes it easy for me to enter data in a quick and efficient way and have it all organized for my weekly review.
I highly recommend that you do one thing you're grateful for every morning. Pick one thing that means something and you commit to it. You're not trying to get through a checklist, you're owning it. You're like, that's the thing you're really connecting with. You're going to pick one thing that's meaningful and you're just going to embody it and have a visceral feeling for it. You're going to connect with it.
So think of something and really think about what it makes you feel that this thing is in your life that you're grateful for. This person, this event, the circumstance, pick one thing that I am grateful for - the people I meet on this YouTube channel. So that is something I'm seriously grateful for, and I will recognize that in the morning here. And by picking one thing, I'm connected to it. I'm not rattling off a checklist, I'm connecting to one thing in a significant and meaningful way.
Own one thing each day connect with that one thing, don't try and go through a whole checklist. Forget this three gratitudes, pick one and connect to it.
Okay, so what would make today great? Then list one, two or three things - three is probably too much. One and two is ideal. But if you do nothing else, but you get that one thing done, or those two things done, then that is the definition of today being a success. Define those things. And to help you define those things, we have a toggle here that opens up your action items, your tasks that you have planned for today. And usually, the first second, maybe third priorities will be those things. So if you're having trouble thinking of them, just jog your memory by opening this toggle here on what those three things are, or what those one or two things are, and then you enter them there. That is the definition of success for today is to get that one or two, maybe three things done today. This toggle makes it very easy, because almost always it'll be your first second priorities. If not enter something else, you're totally free to enter anything. But if something else is Your the one thing that would make today great, maybe that should be made, your top priority is your defining the most critical thing you want to accomplish today, then not to do list.
Just as important as your to do list is your not to do list, because you know, what has been derailing you the last few days. You know what has been the culprit of coming up short on the things you wanted to accomplish the last few days you know what they are. So call them out here in declare you're not going to fall for them, you're not going to be distracted by them, you're not going to do those things, the things that have derailed you, you're going to define them and specifically identify them and say these are not going to throw me off today. And here we have a toggle.
At the end of each day, we entered improvements and how we could have done better that day. That's part of the end of day wind down. So here we have a toggle that will open a filtered view of the improvements you've listed over the past week. So it will clearly show you what you have identified for yourself as the things you could have done better to improve each of the last several days. And from that, you can define your not to do list because you'll know what you could have improved the last few days over the past week.
Mindset. This is where we do our mindset and identity sculpting practice. The past two videos spoke about how we actually do the mindset and identity sculpting practice. This is a link to that page.
And we spend at least two or three minutes at this point in the morning startup reviewing our mindset and identity sculpting bullet points. You could spend more time, you could spend 10 minutes, you spend two minutes, do at least two minutes. At the very minimum, just commit to yourself, you'll review a few bullet points in there. It takes almost no time. Connect with them and they'll hit those items that you want to make a part of your life, those wisdoms, those insights. It'll keep them close to you. And they'll help you shape your life around them by not drifting away from them, as we so typically do when we hear good ideas, good insights, good wisdom, we drift away and we never see it again. This is the practice by which we stay close to those nuggets that we believe can really help shape our lives for the better.
And then we do a visualization practice. I just did a newsletter explanation going on into this in detail. I'll do a future video on it as well. This is where we close our eyes and we visualize ourselves doing something challenging coming up in. Vision ourselves doing it at a very high level of success. We walk ourselves through it, we create the mental models, and the mental representations of what it's going to feel like doing it successfully. If you don't have a big challenging thing coming up to visualize, then visualize yourself going through today, flawlessly, executing on the game plan. As you laid it out the night before, visualize what is like starting your biggest priority, transitioning from your first to second priority, taking a break coming back to it, design a mental path and a fault pathway that's ingrained that you have neurons connected because you visually walked through and felt it in a very visceral, tactile way, close your eyes and walk through the day executing flawlessly. It'll help create a default path for you. I'll do more on that in the future. We'll get into that in greater detail.
Then I personally have two things I want to check if the things you need to check in the morning. This is the end of the morning routine. The next one is the midday process. So the two things every morning, I checked the Learning Center questions, which is the Learning Center for my notion PPV course, there's a place under all the training videos that anyone can ask questions every single day I answer every single question that anybody has going through the training program. So right here, I will take that link, go to the Learning Center, and answer all questions from everybody going through the course right now. Everybody gets a direct answer on every question from me. And then I'll check that off as done.
And then I'll check the year zero collective that's the online community if you're interested in either the course or the community, that's all available at year zero.io brah, go to the community answer any questions in the community engaged in any conversations that are going on in the community that I have something to add to which is common and often I'm often diving into discussions there. So I will then dive into conversation in the community that check that off. So I'm super active in those two areas. That's why I make them checkboxes for every day. I actually do these again later in the day as well. But at the very beginning of the day, I'm in there contributing answering questions. But the point is, whatever you have to make sure you do every day every morning with links to easy access for those items.
Throughout the day, I have this habit tracker. I'll be checking these off at this point in the morning. If I've already finished some of them, maybe I've meditated. Maybe I had an early morning workout, I'll check them off. And anything I've done already at this point, I'll check off.
After that, I will typically use the same view of the habit tracker. I'll typically, as I'm working through my priorities here, I will be down here checking off my habit tracker, but I have a version of that in here. In case at the end of the day, I miss some, I can check them off during the day. I will check off anything in the habit tracker that I haven't checked off already that I did complete. Then, I'll do my end of the day wind down here.
The end of the day wind down, I will list today's wins. Ideally, the winds will be the same as the what would make today great items. Hopefully, I'm listing my wins as these today great items. But if not, I'll list whatever I did that was meaningful and successful.
Because it's easy to get down on the things we didn't get done, and to be disappointed and hard on ourselves for not accomplishing certain things that we had hoped we'd accomplished. But identify some things because you always get something done. And even if it wasn't the things you really needed to get done, recognize what you did do.
But on a good day, the what would make today great will be the today wins. And that's going to be really a good day when you can check those off and this stuff here. And then finally, this takes very little time at the end of the day. Finally, you have a filtered view here. Again, same database we're in filtered for today.
So it's the same slice of the page when entering data here is just entering properties up here. But in the sequence and context in place of the form that we want to enter them. So, I'll enter my diet and a rating and my diet nutrition, one through five. So I had a two, you can do fractions. Sometimes I do 1.8 you know, do whatever you want.
Then I will do a rating of the percent of time I spent today, doing the things where I plan the night before what I was going to do today, what percent of time that I spent today doing the things I had planned to spend my time doing. So if I spent 80% of my time doing the things that I plan to do, that's good. It's never really going to be 100% things come up. But if you consistently are spending 70 80% of your time, even 60% of your time doing the things you had planned to spend time doing, things are gonna work out. I mean, that's a good chunk of the day doing what you had intended to do, and things will work out then I will do rate similarly, but a different point.
The percent of things that I completed that I had intended to complete, so one is the percent of time I spent working on things I had planned to spend my time working on. The second is the percent of things I completed that I had intended to complete. Both of these working off the night before schedule I set for the next day.
So let's say I spent 75% of my time working on the things I had intended to work on. And this is subjective, but do the best you can. And over time, the the averages will work out. Over time, you'll see the trends.
Let's say you spend 75% of your time doing the things you had planned to spend your time on today. And, you got 50% done that you planned to get done. That means things took longer than expected. And that happens all the time. That's okay. Don't beat yourself up over that.
The most important thing is you're spending the time on the things you plan to spend your time on. But if you're not getting it done, then ask yourself what's wrong? Is it because you're biting off more than you can chew and you're not estimating the time properly? Or is it because you're taking too much time to perfect things that you should have called it finished earlier?
Think about what it is that is leading to you not completing the right number of things, even though you're spending a good amount of time doing it, and then adjust accordingly. Similarly, look at the output, what are you getting done on any given day. This number might be low because a surprise may have come up and an unexpected event might have come up and you have to take care of it.
And then you didn't get the things done and you didn't spend the time on the things you had planned to. That's okay. But if that's happening day after day, if you have many days in a row with 30% or 40% completion, you got to ask yourself, why am I consistently not delivering on the things I set out to do? Again, any one-offs, that's going to happen, things come up, but it shouldn't be consistent time after time.
So if you're consistently under 50%, ask yourself why, 70% or 80% is actually quite good. Don't beat yourself up. If you're not getting hundreds, nobody gets hundreds. But this will give you a reality check at the end of the day.
And then the key thing is you're going to look at this over time. In the table view, you'll see all the days lined up, and you'll see the trends. And then you ask yourself, overall, am I performing effectively at doing the things accomplishing the things that I'm setting out to do each day. And then at the very end, the last thing you do is you enter a text description of what you could have done better to have these numbers higher. For example, faster transitions between tasks, start earlier, whatever it is you could have done to better improve on these numbers you enter here.
All of this rolls up into the weekly review template, which you can go back and look at now if you'd like, and then that will roll up further into the monthly review. So when you open your weekly review, at the end of the week, and your monthly review, at the end of the month, you'd have all this data that shows day by day, how successful you are doing the things you wanted to do, how your habit tracking is going, what how consistently you're doing those things, what your sleep patterns are like, what your fitness measurements are like all the things you've chosen to track in your daily tracker.
This is what makes the notion pillars, pipelines, and vault system so valuable. You do one element, and it fuels and enhances so many other parts of the system.
So, if any of the elements I was referring to in this video weren't clear to you, just check out the video previously in the series on that functional area within the system. Because the system is all interconnected. Each part enhances and empowers the other part, which is how a good system design frames up our psychology, our behaviors, and our actions.
And all of this frames up our psychology, our behaviors, our actions, which is what we're going to explore more and more over the coming month. If this is of interest, be sure to hit the subscribe button and the bell icon to get updates on future videos. Leave thoughts or questions below or join us on my online community for a broader conversation that's at yours zero.io and hit like if you found this video valuable.
I also read a newsletter called Mind and Machine on increasing human capability. I give away several of my best notion templates to anyone who subscribes to the newsletter. You can of course unsubscribe at any time, but I hope you'll give it a chance. I work hard to pack it with a lot of valuable insight. The newsletter link is below in the show notes. Thanks for watching. Lots more to come.
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