Realized my weekly spread was killing my productivity after 8 months of bullet journaling

I used to spend like 2 hours every Sunday setting up these beautiful weekly spreads with washi tape borders and color coded sections. Then last month I realized I was only using about 30% of the space I created. The tipping point was when I flipped back to April and saw 4 weeks of empty habit trackers and a whole column for "gratitude" that I never wrote in. I switched to a super simple rolling weekly format after watching a video from a girl in Seattle who just writes the day and tasks as they come. Now my weekly setup takes maybe 10 minutes and I actually use all of it. Has anyone else found that their spreads were way too fancy for what they actually needed?

3 comments

3 Comments

ruby45020d ago

Blew my mind when I realized I was basically just making art projects instead of actually organizing my life. I look back at my old spreads and laugh because I had a full color coded key for things like "emails sent" and "water consumed" that I never even glanced at after the first week. Now my weekly plan is literally just a piece of lined paper with the days written in pencil and I finish more tasks than I ever did with my fancy dot grid system. Feels kinda embarrassing to admit I spent more time decorating my to-do list than actually doing the stuff on it.

holly_henderson8620d ago

Read something about how perfectionism kills productivity and it totally clicked for me.

leelewis19d ago

You ever catch yourself doing that thing where you spend so much time getting ready to do something that you never actually start? I know that feeling all too well. It took me a long time to realize that waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect setup was just a fancy way of procrastinating. Once I gave myself permission to do things half-assed, I actually got way more done. Now I figure done is better than perfect and it makes a world of difference.