Intro to Bullet Journaling

Here are three techniques you can use to help you lighten your cognitive load:

• Mental inventory -- aka, must / should / could do
• mind mapping
• semester plan

We'll go into each of these in detail, below.

Mental inventories help you get all your thoughts out on paper. They are excellent at reducing cognitive load, and when paired with bullet journaling, can do some heavy lifting and help you stay on track.

Simply defined, cognitive load is the amount of stuff taking up space in your brain. When you have many items bouncing around in your head, you can start to feel like you are forgetting something.

Mental inventories help to reduce the chance you are forgetting something by getting everything you are thinking of down on paper. The process of physically writing down all the things in your head transfers them to the paper -- so now they are no longer bouncing around in your head. When used in a bullet journal, the things in your head are now in a safe, consistent place.

How to do a Mental Inventory:

• 1. Brain dump. Do a brain dump of everything in your head right now. Don't worry about how it looks or what you are writing -- the point is to get it all out of your head. Use a bulleted list to help you quickly see each item. Give yourself a time limit - 10 to 15 minutes should be enough.
  
   
• 2. Break time. Take a short break, and come back to your list with a fresh pair of eyes.
  
  
  
   
• 3. Delete. Be ruthless. Cross everything off your list that is not reasonable for you to do.
  
  
  
   
• 4. Categorize. Your remaining list is everything you can do in the foreseeable future. Grab a new sheet of paper, divide it into three sections. titled: Must do, Should do, and Could do. You'll want to go through your list and categorize items into one of three buckets:
  • Must do: These are items you must complete. These are urgent and important items that may have a due date or must be completed in the coming week or weeks.
  • Should do: These are items you could be doing -- perhaps they are important, but not urgent. Maybe you have a bit more time to complete them. Or maybe they feel urgent, but they really aren't that important (like sometimes, replying to an email feels urgent but it can wait a bit). 
  • Could do: These are things that are not urgent or important. You've got time. 

Hopefully, your to do list feels a bit more manageable now!

If you are bullet journaling, you can start to migrate items you've written down. Your Must Do and Should Do items could go in your Monthly Log, for example, while the Could Do items can go in your Future Log, or even on a separate "planning" page that you dedicate just to future projects.

Mind Mapping is a tried and true technique to help you visualize all you know about a topic!

How to make a mind map:

1. Select a central idea. Write this down in the center of your paper, and draw a circle around it.
2. Write down another main concept related to your central idea in the space around your central idea. This is a sub-topic. Connect this sub-topic to your central idea.
3. Keep expanding on what you know about this central idea and sub-topics.
   
   

This technique can also help when you need to identify gaps in your understanding. Write what you know, and you can start to see where you have questions or want to explore this topic further.

Semester plans are schedules of everything you need to do over the course of one semester. This gives you a high level view of your semester, and helps you visualize your busy times.

In short, you'll go through the syllabi for all your classes, and to your calendar, add in any project due dates, quizzes, tests, and other relevant pieces of information. Posting this somewhere visible, or keeping it in your bullet journal, will help you see your progress and make sure you stay on top of your semester.

Algonquin College has a step-by-step guide on how to create a semester plan that walks you through how to complete your plan, using Word or Excel.