How to Create a Bullet Journal in Notion

I. IntroductionA. Explanation of the purpose of the video, which is to demonstrate how to create a bullet journal using Notion

II. Setting up the journalA. Dragging notes into relevant linked pagesB. Organizing notes for later useC. Highlighting important items for clarityD. Removing the key from the template for a cleaner experience

III. Customizing the journal with Notion featuresA. Adding tables, calendars, and boards for task coordinationB. Using the journal for planning a full week aheadC. Using the journal as a journal and writing out something every morning

IV. Organizing completed tasksA. Creating an archive area for completed tasksB. Adding completed tasks to the archive areaC. Creating a 2-day archive for past days

V. ChecklistsA. Explanation of how to create checklistsB. Examples of types of checklists, such as a shopping listC. Adding checklists to the today area for reference

VI. ConclusionA. Recap of the basic process of creating a bullet journal using NotionB. Emphasis on the customizability of the journalC. Encouragement to try the Skillshare class and additional featuresD. Thank you to viewers for watching and encouragement to have a productive dayE. Additional tips on productivity and general organization

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Hello everyone and welcome back to another video. It's Francesco here. Welcome to the Keep Productive YouTube channel. On today's video, we are diving into how to create a bullet journal inside of Notion. This is going to be an exciting video, so stay tuned for this full feature.

So guys, as you can imagine, let's kick things off with a few messages. The first of the messages is that we will be having the creator of the Bullet Journal, Ryder Carroll, here on the YouTube channel this week. I'm not sure whether it's gonna be posted before or after this video, but it will be on this channel to discuss his latest book and the methodology behind the bullet journal. It's gonna be quite an exciting podcast or YouTube feature. We did a video I think it was about two three weeks ago and it's going to be available very soon.

The second one is to check out Rebecca Ford's YouTube channel. She has been posting so many great Notion videos and I will include it below because she's doing such a great job in helping people find and improve the way that they use Notion. I love her working practice and use of Notion. She had a great one on task management that also included features of journaling in there, too.

The third and final message is to join the Notion Made Simple Facebook group. We have over 750 members in the last two weeks and it'd be great to have you there whether you're a beginner or intermediate. You can learn, post questions and also learn about what Notion is developing for the future. So, I'm really excited. So feel free to join that one. I'll be there and loads of other people from this Facebook or YouTube channel will be there too.

And so, guys, let's dive into today's video. Today's video is focusing on creating a bullet journal experience inside of Notion. I've done a mock-up. I did a mock-up the last week of it. This is what it will look like by the end of it and I based it off the video, there Brian account posted, I think five or five to seven years ago. I can't really remember it's been plenty a while ago. So you can see here that this is what will aim to create today from scratch. So that you know how to do it and apply it to your experience and the great thing about bullet journaling is this is really a bare-bone structure? Obviously, you can add so much to it, adapt to your own methodology and even go further with the book that they recently released.

So guys in today's video, we're creating all of that. We're gonna create a brand new page. I'm gonna call it my bullet journal to really customize it and I'm gonna give it a lovely icon. And the great thing is you can customize the icon whenever you like. So I'm gonna put this sort of book here and of course you can add your own cover to it. That's actually quite a fitting cover with the actual cover of the book being blue. So I'm gonna leave it like now.

When we get started with a page, I tend to add a quote, so I'm gonna add a quote and say: "Francesco's bullet journal process." And that gives a nice entrance to the page. And what I'm going to do is just below that is I'm gonna create a sub-header and we're going to start by creating the index. The index is almost where you find everything and it's a good starting point when you're creating a bullet journal inside of Notion.

I'm going to put a divider between those just so it's a bit clearer and I'm also going to go to the bottom will narrow the bottom and create another sub header called collections. This will make sense a little later into this video.

We're going to start with the index. So to start things off, I'm going to create this structure of each page and then I'm going to go into the page is an add a bit more detail. Now the first of the pages is solid future log future log if I just create a new page and then it's tied to that future log and Gonna add a road. I'm not toilet. I've got a toilet recommendation. I'm gonna add a road map and click Add cover. So that's great. All I have to do is go back now, I've created that structure if I wanted to I could go to rename and add the page number, but in this case, I don't actually have to. That's one of the benefits of obviously doing it digitally.

So you can imagine I'm going to create a month view. A month view is essentially allowing you to see what's coming up in the month. I'm gonna give it a calendar view and I'm gonna add a cover as well. So if I go out of this, I've got future long future loggers for your next three plus months you could you view your next couple of months in here. So it could be you know, everything all the way to April. We'll be creating our page in a second. Month view is for pretty much your tasks and your calendar activities for that this month or next month that you want to have in in view.

And I'm going to create a day view. So I'm going to create page and day view. I'm going to go and add a lovely not money a lovely Sun to that one and I'm gonna add cover here. So if I go back to my bullet journal, I've created the real bare bone structure of it the future long for your future mumps ahead and it could be whatever planning in advance and the month view to actually see your tasks and calendar as well as a day view for planning and journaling your day.

Now down here. I'm actually gonna add a divider just below this one. I I think I've already done it. So I'm gonna add a new page called checklists. This is for my notes that are static. So I will click checklists and I'm actually going to create it with this one here. I'm also going to create a page for past months and I'll explain why I did that the end. So I'm going to put a boat there. So if I go out here, I've created all the pages. I really need to make now.

So as you can see here, let's start with the future log. Now the future log should be a place where you coordinator your next couple of months. Now a lot of people would argue let's just create a calendar a calendar in line here. But in this case, I'm actually not going to do that. I'm gonna go to header and gonna type in the next couple of months for the next six months and have that here. So, there we go, I've created a few of the months - spelling mistake for February, I can never spell it.

And what I'm gonna do is I'm really simply gonna keep the next three months down this left hand panel. I'm gonna move February up here. I'm going to move March up here against these ones and I'm gonna move April up here now.

What I'm going to do is space these out so that I have enough information.

Ready to add there and I'm going to leave this for now. But for example, I'm going to go back to my bullet journal page and in the month view now. So the month view should really include your tasks and your calendar events coming up. So I'm going to add a little task area with a header: "Tasks." And I'm going to add a few simple bullets to get you started.

Of course, we're going to be creating a template out of this, so we're naturally going to keep it really simple. And then I'm going to add a table in line. The reason why I won't do this is because I want to add the calendar view, but I wanted to look like how rider does it in his feature. So I'm going to put "calendar" and what I'm going to do is move this tab over to here.

I'm going to make this one smaller and I'm going to create this one as the number of the day so that it's relevant for every single month that I create it for. So I've got "number" and I've got "day" and I haven't needed to change that. So here we go. I'm going to put 1, 2, 3 and list out all of the days for the month. So do remember this, once you've created the template which we'll be using in this feature, you actually won't have to keep repeating this. So do not worry now. As you can see here, I've got the day, and when you have that month available and you know, like the first starts on a Tuesday, then you've been out Tuesday there.

The final thing you need to do here is turn this one into a text area and just add what's happening. So once I add that, I'm just going to make a little bit more space for it. And as you can see, I've pretty much got my month view ready now. As I was mentioning, this is dead simple, so we're not really going to go much further than now.

So if I go over to day view, what I'm actually going to do in day view is simply create an area for my tasks and also an area for any related notes at the bottom. So just below here, seeing as that we're creating a template out of this, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the traditional bullet journal notifications almost of what each of the messages means.

So in this case, I'm going to keep a bullet as a task. So that actually equals a task. I'm going to put a checklist, so that's simply to do on the basic blocks. I'm going to put a delete that previous one as an event. And I'm going to add a toggle list as a note. And finally, there's some include you'll signify which is an important tasks that you need to complete. Normally inside a bullet journal you add a little star next to it, but in this case, I'm going to put a bullet and call it the signifier. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the right. I'm going to add a yellow color to it so it is an important task. Essentially, so that's nice and clear. So that's my basic structure done.

What I might do is just below these add some dividers. So there we go, I'm going to go out to the bullet journal area.

As you can see, I've pretty much done the structure of all of these guys, which is great now. I'm not going to create a template for the future log because I probably will just add to this or change it as I go. It's not really necessarily needed or you could create a template if you wanted to for six months. But really not necessary, month view, I'm going to create a template for and day view.

So, all I'm gonna do is press the slash and type in template button. Now, I'm going to start with the monthly one. So I'm going to call this template add new month. And I'm going to just give that a capital. So add new month. What I want to do is I want to delete the page that's in there and I'm actually gonna drag the current monthly view that we've got here and I'm going to press and close now.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to put this one up here. So it's really to the right hand side and then shuffle everything up. So it's inline and neat and with everything else. So great, I've got a monthly button template and I will demonstrate that afterwards. I'm also going to do the same for a daily view, so all I have to do is add new day and do the very same is just drag that daily view up here and press close. Now if I drag this one up here, I've got a new month view and a new day view.

So great. I have pretty much got structure of this bullet journal in sign of notion already. So I'm going to create a new month for you first. I'm actually gonna start by doing that one. And as you can see a new month view has created and it's actually opened it up for me now. I'm gonna take this month you and just pop it below the future log. The first thing I'm going to do is rename it and call it November because that's this month. So, there we go. I've got November done.

And what I'm also going to do is i'm gonna click add new day i'm gonna get a new day view. Obviously it opens up straightaway. If I go here, what i'm going to do is I'm actually going to call it the what's a day to day? And what you can do is you can actually title it today, but you could do that inside of the this one here. So for example, if I needed to just quickly make an edit to the title of it. I'm going to put today because essentially it will take today's date and then when today's date is gone it will take the previous day. So that's a neat way of doing it. So here we are. I've got a minor vembur and I've got today. I'm gonna start by starting to populate in November.

So I'm going to say next month. I have let's see a few of the things. I've got next month to do let's record a video a day and very simply you can start adding your tasks to this main area here. These are maybe your most important goals of the month. It could be really simple like that and you can start adding the days as well as what's happening on those days to your calendar views. So it's really easy to do and as you can imagine something that you can populate fairly quickly. Now if I go to my bullet journal you pretty much do the same for today. So if I click in you can start adding the tasks for today, but they're a bit more specific. So let's add a few.

I could easily just drag it into that area and it would go into the linked page that was relevant. So, if I had a longer note or a couple of notes that I wanted to sort out for later, I could easily do that there.

So the great thing is as well if I wanted to be clear and be like okay planned full week ahead is so important. I could yellow back rounded and it would be the clear item as you got used to this. You could probably remove the key from the template and that way you get a bit of a cleaner experience.

Now, of course using notion you can add tons more like tables calendars or even boards if you wanted to coordinate tasks a bit better. I know Rebecca uses that in her video and it looks like a great way to organize what's coming up.

So if I go back to here, you can see I've created a really simple process here, a way to plan at my future mumps a way to have a view of what's coming up in my month and also a way to view the today and you're probably wondering where do I put all of this when it's all done. Now, you could create an archive area like I've done here, a really simple archive area. Say for example, when November's done, I could pop it in there or you could do that same with today. You can actually create a 2-day archive but it's a good way if you wanted to to actually see past days and any because some people use this as a journal as well as a methodology to write out something every morning so you could even add that section to your today area.

Now you're probably wondering checklist, what are these guys now. You could pretty much start any checklist you like like a shopping list, for example. And if I type that one in, add a lovely icon, I don't know why that came up. There we go. You can start adding a shopping list straight away like broccoli. I don't know. So you could start adding any checklists you like and of course if it was relevant to the today area, you could easily add it in there for reference. So for example link page and I go down and I type in shopping list. So you can see that appears there and it's easily linkable there.

So guys, this is a really basic demonstration of how you can create a bullet journal there again. It's not something that's gonna go hideously in advance. And again, it's really customizable to what you work with, but it pretty much looks like the one I created the other day. So we have done it and we created it from scratch. Although I have adapted a few things as you can see here. I put the title in these ones and I wasn't using the app today but you can see here that it pretty much resembles the same thing. So guys, hopefully that gave a nice overview.

Please do try the Skillshare class. I am adding five additional features to it if you're watching on Skillshare. Thank you very much. Feel free to join me here on YouTube, too. Anyway guys, thank you so much for stopping by today. Make sure to have a great day, be productive and all see you guys very, very soon. Cheers.

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