bullet journaling bullet journaling and planning

How I'm Setting Goals + Managing My To-Do List

by The Productive Pixie - January 16, 2021

One of my favorite things about the bullet journal system is its adaptability. I can switch up my bullet journal system from month to month, or from day to day, to find what works best for me at the moment. I am switching up my planning system and I wanted to explain it so you can try it too if you are looking for a new bullet journal set up to try!

How I'm Setting Goals + Managing My To-Do List in 2021

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Updated for 2024

Just a side note, I was planning on posting the second half of my 2021 bullet journal set up last week, but due to finals and studying for school, I was not able to. I am planning on posting the second half of my bullet journal set up soon and some tips on how I study in case you are interested!

With that being said, I am excited to get into how I am setting my goals for 2021 and managing my to-do list. I gave a brief overview of I how I set my goals for 2021 in the first half of my bullet journal set up, but I wanted to go more in-depth and show how I am planning on reaching each of these goals.

How I'm Setting Goals + Managing My To-Do List in 2021

1. Level 10 Life + Year in Review

Because I already went over how my Year in Review layout and my Level 10 Life layout work in the first half of my bullet journal setup, I'm not going to go over them in this post, but you can read that post, to see how both of those bullet journal pages work.

Basically, my Year in Review layout goes over what I did well in 2020 and what goals I was able to complete, and what I want to be able to improve this year.

My Level 10 Life layout is from the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod and it helps me to identify what I can do to improve my life. In simple terms, this layout is where I wrote down ideas of goals that I might want to do in 2021, but they weren't specific.

2. 22 Before 2022

Next, I took my ideas from my Level 10 Life layout, and I decided on 22 specific goals and habits that I wanted to start this year. You can see a picture of this layout by scrolling up.

I am focusing on setting habits this year, instead of goals that I have to do every day, so that way if I miss doing something for a day, then I can still complete that goal because I am just trying to turn it into a habit by the end of the year.

Some of my goals are to...

Learn 3000 words in French
To read 12 nonfiction books
To run 35 kilometers
The habit of eating at least 1 fruit daily
To cook at least 1 recipe a week

Next, it's time to plan out how to reach these goals month by month.

3. Master Plan

I have six pages for this layout, and each page contains two months: a column for each month. At the beginning of the month, all I have to do is look at all of my goals, and then write down what I need to do to complete a little of most of my goals. (Some of my goals I only have to do one time like running 35 kilometers)

Looking at January, you can see at the bottom I have a habit tracker. This is where I am tracking all of the habits I am trying to make this year.

Above this, I have a sort of to-do list. Some of the items on this to-do list I have to do multiple times. For the goal of cooking at least 1 recipe a week I have a small tracker below it, that I can fill in. There are five weeks in January, so I have five boxes. The number of boxes I will have will vary depending on how many weeks there are in the month.

Another of my goals is to read 12 nonfiction books. So I broke that up and am reading one book each month. I can plan out all the months in advance, or I can take this goal a month at a time just in case I don't finish a book in a month, or it takes me less than a month to finish a book.

It's not the prettiest bullet journal layout. in fact, it is very plain, but it does the trick and is very helpful!

So, am I Not Using Monthly Layouts This Year?

If you read my posts regularly, you will know that I post a plan with me for my monthly layout every month, but this year I decided that I am not going to a monthly layout for the start of the year, and I am going to see how it works out.

This is the beauty of the bullet journal system, if I don't like it, I can always go back to using monthly layouts.

This is what I am doing instead of monthly layouts.

I started testing this out at the end of December and I really liked this set up so I wanted to continue using this method. I have a whole column for every day. I can write my to-do list, which is what I mainly use it for, but I can also write down what I am grateful for on that day, and just use the column as a brain dump so I can organize my thoughts.

And I already have my master plan with the habits I am trying to create for the year, so I don't really need monthly layouts in my bullet journal right now.

How I'm Setting Goals + Managing My To-Do List in 2021

So that is how I am using my bullet journal this year, along with a lot of collection pages, which you will get to see in the second half of my bullet journal plan with me. :)

If you liked this post, you might also like these ones!

Do you use monthly layouts in your bullet journal? Have a great week!

If you found this post helpful, pin it so you can use it later as inspiration for your own bullet journal!

Tags : bullet journaling, bullet journaling and planning

How I'm Setting Goals + Managing My To-Do List