How I Digital Bullet Journal With GoodNotes

I use my digital bullet journal each day to help me plan my to dos and keep track of my projects. I start the morning with a blank page on my iPad, a fresh start to the new day, and then take a few minutes to write things down.

I began bullet journaling spring of 2018 with a paper journal. I began by reading a few books, such as (Affiliate Link)  Dot Journaling and then later The Bullet Journal Book (Affiliate Link). I didn’t know if the system would stick for me, but I was ready to try something besides a digital checklist.

I made the switch to a digital bullet journal when I got an iPad with an Apple Pencil in late 2018.  Digital bullet journaling has been my planning tool of choice for many years now!

Affiliate Disclosure: I use affiliate links in my posts. If you click on one of these I may make a small commission.  For more read my disclaimer.

Here is exactly how I use the GoodNotes App as my Digital Bullet Journal.  

Setting up the Journal:

Each year I create a new bullet journal in the GoodNotes app. I create a Notebook and then set the default page to dotted paper. GoodNotes provides a lot of digital papers that you can switch between depending on what you need for a given day.  

The notebooks for the year can get long, so you might choose to create a new notebook every few months or so if you’d like it to be easier to flip through. My digital bullet journals end up being over 400 pages each year. I don’t find it too cumbersome to have a notebook that long, but I also focus on daily pages more than weekly or monthly pages.  

Daily Page:

Each morning I sit down and pick a new daily page. I have a collection of seasonal templates that I choose from. I have lots of these available in my resource library for free!

With GoodNotes, you can add any PDF to your Template library, and then it will be a page you can choose for your digital bullet journal.  

Once I have my page for the day, I write down the date and then begin notating my tasks.  

If you were to look through all of my daily pages you would notice that the first few items on my list don’t change. I start with Exercise, Morning Routine, and Hand Wash Dishes. I have thought about changing my templates to have those items on the daily pages all the time so that I don’t need to write them out every day. But, then I remember why I bullet journal in the first place.

Bullet journaling is about writing out your tasks by hand. This is a key component of the system. By handwriting, we are engaging our brain and acknowledging that the task is important enough to be written down.  

When I write Exercise down in my journal, I am reinforcing the importance of that task in my life each day. When my hand writes the word, I make a commitment to myself to do that each morning.  

So, I take a few moments each day to start my list with the same items. They are part of my daily routine and I want to acknowledge and recognize their importance. 

After those standard items, I then begin to write out the other things that are on my plate for the day. These could be blog tasks, homemaking chores, laundry, or appointments that I have for the day.  

Sometimes these items get sorted into sections on my daily page. This helps me see which tasks I can do together. This task batching can help me be more efficient as I move through the day.  

Don’t get too wrapped up in the order of the items. The goal is to sit down in the morning and get everything in your head down onto paper. 

Here are some things that you could put on your daily page:

• Daily routines
• Phone Calls
• Emails to write
• Chores
• Work tasks 
• Errands
• Homeschooling tasks
• Appointments
• Medicine to take
• Daily affirmations

Once you have written down your tasks and ideas for the day, it’s time to go ahead and start working.

I like to get my daily page done in the morning after my coffee and before breakfast. That way I have a clear plan for the day before it starts.

Sometimes I don’t get to it before I eat breakfast. I will start my day without a plan. But then what happens is that I get to about 10 AM. My morning routine is done, the dishes are done, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ll walk around the house without a sense of purpose, doing random tasks, but not really sure why I’m doing them. Or, I’ll begin scrolling through Facebook and lose half an hour in the feed.

I’ll stop, and realize that I’m not doing anything productive! It’s then I usually realize that I forgot to set up my bullet journal page for the day.

I’ll go back and write out my daily page, and then go and check the items off I’ve already done.

Yes, I will write down the things I’ve done already, just to check them off. It feels great to check things off of my list, even if I’ve already done them.  

Afternoon:

After lunch, while I’m enjoying my midday break, I will take a moment to check out my bullet journal page for the day. I will check off the items that I have done or started, and then try to make a plan for the rest of the day.  

I’m usually a little less focused in the afternoons, so having a list of things I’d like to get done helps me prioritize my energy for what matters.

Looking at my bullet journal again in the afternoon is really important. There are usually things that I wrote down in the morning that I have forgotten about. If I were to skip this step of afternoon reviewing, I might not get to those items at all.

I like to do my more desk oriented tasks in the afternoon because I usually have less physical energy after lunch. It’s a good time for me to do the finances, work on my French, and do any writing I might have for the day. 

I also will be available to the boys for their school needs in the afternoon. Since they’re in high school, they usually don’t need me first thing in the morning. But, if they’d like me to review their essays or go over an assignment or two we usually end up doing that in the afternoon. 

In the Evening:

At the end of the day, I open up my bullet journal again and I take a look and see how the day went. I will check off what I got done, and anything that didn’t get done I will either cross it out because it wasn’t worth it or I will move it to the next day by putting an arrow next to the task.

Sometimes, if I’m feeling like I’d like to do a little bit of reflecting on the day, I will jot a few notes down underneath my to dos. It’s nice to have a place where I can keep track of my feelings and also put any notes about what worked and what didn’t throughout the day.

Some evenings, especially if I am headed to bed and feeling a little bit stressed about the next day, I will take the time to fill out my daily page in advance. It helps me to know that I have a plan for my day so that I can go to bed relaxed and confident that I won’t forget what I need to do in the morning.

I don’t always fill out my bullet journal for the next day at night, but I have noticed that when I do that I actually get more done. I wake up with a sense of purpose and energy.

Play around with your bullet journaling. You might enjoy filling out your daily pages in the morning or, it might work better for you to do it at night. That’s the great thing about having a personal productivity plan. We get to play around with it and if something doesn’t work we’ll try something different the next day.

I hope this helps you understand a little bit better how I use my bullet journal throughout the day to keep me focused and productive. 

How do you stay productive throughout the day? I would love to hear your productivity strategies!