One of the best things you can do to clear your head and to improve your level of self-awareness is to journal. There is nothing quite like being able to empty out your thoughts in a place that is for you and you alone. Journaling allows you to reflect and then adjust your plan for tomorrow and beyond.
Evernote has a free plan, which is more than enough for using the program as a Bullet Journal. If you upload a lot of things to Evernote, or want to email info to Evernote, you probably will want to upgrade to a paid membership. If you use Chrome or Firefox, be sure to add the Evernote or OneNote clipping tool to your browser. Combine the bullet journal paper method of note-taking with the digital powers of OneNote to enjoy the best of both worlds. Get Started With OneNote With 9 Simple Steps Instructions in this article apply to OneNote for Microsoft 365, OneNote 2019, OneNote 2016, and OneNote for Windows 10. I also made sure to tag every entry with bullet journal as well. Evernote can actually search multiple tags, so this will come in handy when you are looking for something specific that was in one of your journals. This has less to do with any deficiency in Evernote and more to do with my preferences for how I like to do my Bullet Journal. To me, Evernote is a second brain. I put things there that I want to learn, refer back to, keep track of, etc. It holds my web clippings, my research, my product manuals, my inspiration, and my bills. Keeping my Bullet Journal in OneNote captures the best of analog and digital. I have the artistic and creative freedom to make even basic to-do lists as beautiful or as plain as I want, and I can easily access my Bullet Journal anywhere I have access to the internet. To learn more about OneNote, click here: OneNote.com.
At first glance, you may think it takes too much time to journal. Sure, if you decide to journal on paper that can be a valid point (The Five Minute Journal makes it easier as do several other books designed specifically for journaling). The good news is you also have the option to use technology to create a journal entry in just a matter of seconds.
While there are dedicated applications for journaling available, there is one app that many people already use that can be adapted for journaling quickly and easily.
And that app is Evernote.
Why Evernote?
Evernote has several built-in features that help simplify journaling. Here are a few reasons why it is my journaling app of choice.
First off, Evernote is accessible from a variety of devices. This means you can begin your entry at the office for work tracking and then at home you can add to that entry to discuss other home and life matters, all without skipping a beat.
Second, Evernote has location awareness built in. So if you're traveling, you'll get to see where you were when writing entries and what time of year you were there.
Third, you don't just need to do written entries in Evernote. You can also do audio entries or use an image to represent (or go along with) a written entry. This versatility makes it a real journaling powerhouse.
Finally, Evernote has incredible search options. So if you want to look back at entries when you decided to try to become a morning person to see if it's worthwhile for you (Hint: it often doesn't make a difference to your productivity), then you could use tags for entries or simply search the text in notes based on 'morning person' or 'early riser'. You can also search images that have words in it, thanks to Evernote's amazing OCR (optical character recognition) technology. If you want a journaling app that can find whatever you've written with just a few keystrokes, Evernote has got you covered.
How to Start
If you've been looking to start the journaling habit, it is important to start simple so you can build momentum and see your progress. Let's go through what you need to do to set up an ongoing journaling setup in Evernote.
Step 1: Create a Notebook for the Current Year
Creating a notebook in Evernote is pretty basic stuff, so all you need to do is create a notebook that you'll use exclusively for journaling. Ideally, you should name your notebook with the year of the journal first (as numbers sort higher in Evernote than letters), but you can always place an asterisk or an underscore in front of the notebook name if you don't want to go that route.
If you want to create separate notebooks for each month, you can do that as well. But I must warn you that can get pretty unwieldy and you can only have a limited number of notebooks in Evernote. I recommend you go with one notebook per journal year and just take it from there.
Step 2: Use Separate Notes for Each Entry
Each journal entry should have its own note. If you want to have multiple entries per day, just edit the note you used earlier in the day. This keeps it simple and clean, so that the notebook doesn't get too overwhelming.
I recommend using the date to name each entry as this keeps the notebook cleaner. If you would like to title them differently, then you'll still know when each entry was created thanks to Evernote's 'Note Created' field. You can always edit that field if you want (as you can see in the image below) but I think it's best to leave it be. The 'Note Updated' field is another nice feature in that it tells you when you last edited the note. This is particularly useful if you add to that entry throughout the day.
Don't forget that you can use your voice to take notes into your Evernote app if you want to speed up the process – at least on the Mac and iOS. Speech to text on both of these operating systems works quite well in Evernote. Just be sure to go back and re-read what was transcribed so that nothing gets lost in the translation.
Step 3: Create a Reminder Note
If you're new to this whole journaling thing, then you'll want to keep yourself on top of the ritual. That means finding a way to trigger when to do your next entry. If you're not using features in a task management application or calendar to act as a daily reminder, then Evernote can help you out on this front.
As you can see in the image above, Evernote allows you to set a single reminder in a note but it won't make it repeating. That means that when you create a note to act as reminder to do your journal entry, you'll only be able to set the reminder for one date.
So what I do is set it for the next day (after all, I'm already in Evernote and ready to go with today's entry) and set the ideal time for me to be reminded. I like to journal before bed as part of my evening routine, so my time is set to 11:00 PM. Then every time I go into Evernote to write a new entry, I simply go into this reminder note and set a reminder for the next day.
Again, it's not the most elegant of solutions, but it works. There are plenty of other ways to create this reminder. But if you want to get used to the idea of going into Evernote daily to write in your journal, this will definitely help you do that.
Step 4: Write on
The last step is both the simplest and the hardest: write in your Evernote journal notebook every day. No matter what. Build that habit. Your future self will thank you for it.
(As an added bonus, you'll also get better at using Evernote!)
This is just the beginning of using Evernote for your journaling habit. Once you've got this process down, you'll be able to find new ways to make your Evernote journal even better. Here are just a few of those enhancements:
- Create a menu Shortcut to make finding your journal faster.
- Create appropriate tags so that you can highlight milestones in your journal.
- Create a Journaling Notebook Stack so that you can combine yearly journal into one convenient location.
- Create automation routines in IFTTT so that some journal entries pretty much write themselves!
I'll dive deeper into these topics and other ways to make Evernote an even better journaling tool in a future post. Until then, start with the basics and keep writing in your journal every day.
And start doing that today!
One of the key components of TimeCrafting is completing a Daily Log, which is basically a fancy name for journaling. You can learn more about other components of the productivity method that I've created and we teach at Productivityist by clicking here.
Do you want ideas, insights, and information on how to craft your time in just one weekly email?
Then you want ATTN: sent to you.
ATTN: is a weekly digest from Productivityist that delivers a week's worth of content in a nice little package directly to your inbox. Just enter your email to subscribe.
The moment I discovered Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal, I fell in love.
Elegant and inspiring, the Bujo simply integrates appointments, activities, ideas, and goals. It eases the crush of to-dos that never get done. The index organizes daily, monthly and long-term lists, sketches, collections of ideas – whatever information you want to memorialize – in one handy location.
I loved the system. But paper has never really worked for me. I struggled to find the right notebook and pens that wouldn't smear or bleed. Bujo Pinterest boards distracted me, I clicked through literally hundreds of images each more elaborate than the last. I wasted reams of grid paper trying to find the perfect layout.
In the end, my Bujo typically sat unopened on my desk while I tapped away at my computer, using Evernote to organize novel and freelance ideas, clip articles from websites, record business-related information, organize images, presentations, recipes, and more.
As you can see in the image above, Evernote allows you to set a single reminder in a note but it won't make it repeating. That means that when you create a note to act as reminder to do your journal entry, you'll only be able to set the reminder for one date.
So what I do is set it for the next day (after all, I'm already in Evernote and ready to go with today's entry) and set the ideal time for me to be reminded. I like to journal before bed as part of my evening routine, so my time is set to 11:00 PM. Then every time I go into Evernote to write a new entry, I simply go into this reminder note and set a reminder for the next day.
Again, it's not the most elegant of solutions, but it works. There are plenty of other ways to create this reminder. But if you want to get used to the idea of going into Evernote daily to write in your journal, this will definitely help you do that.
Step 4: Write on
The last step is both the simplest and the hardest: write in your Evernote journal notebook every day. No matter what. Build that habit. Your future self will thank you for it.
(As an added bonus, you'll also get better at using Evernote!)
This is just the beginning of using Evernote for your journaling habit. Once you've got this process down, you'll be able to find new ways to make your Evernote journal even better. Here are just a few of those enhancements:
- Create a menu Shortcut to make finding your journal faster.
- Create appropriate tags so that you can highlight milestones in your journal.
- Create a Journaling Notebook Stack so that you can combine yearly journal into one convenient location.
- Create automation routines in IFTTT so that some journal entries pretty much write themselves!
I'll dive deeper into these topics and other ways to make Evernote an even better journaling tool in a future post. Until then, start with the basics and keep writing in your journal every day.
And start doing that today!
One of the key components of TimeCrafting is completing a Daily Log, which is basically a fancy name for journaling. You can learn more about other components of the productivity method that I've created and we teach at Productivityist by clicking here.
Do you want ideas, insights, and information on how to craft your time in just one weekly email?
Then you want ATTN: sent to you.
ATTN: is a weekly digest from Productivityist that delivers a week's worth of content in a nice little package directly to your inbox. Just enter your email to subscribe.
The moment I discovered Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal, I fell in love.
Elegant and inspiring, the Bujo simply integrates appointments, activities, ideas, and goals. It eases the crush of to-dos that never get done. The index organizes daily, monthly and long-term lists, sketches, collections of ideas – whatever information you want to memorialize – in one handy location.
I loved the system. But paper has never really worked for me. I struggled to find the right notebook and pens that wouldn't smear or bleed. Bujo Pinterest boards distracted me, I clicked through literally hundreds of images each more elaborate than the last. I wasted reams of grid paper trying to find the perfect layout.
In the end, my Bujo typically sat unopened on my desk while I tapped away at my computer, using Evernote to organize novel and freelance ideas, clip articles from websites, record business-related information, organize images, presentations, recipes, and more.
I didn't make the connection until someone in a minimalist Bullet Journal Facebook group posted an article from a website that is now under construction. I wish I could share the link and credit my inspiration; this is the best I can do.
In any case, here's how I've spun those ideas into a system that I not only enjoy but use every day, a system that has made me more productive and offers endless inspiration.
The Concept
I'm going to explain this backwards. I started with a single note – a combined Daily/Weekly Log. But my Evernote Bullet Journal lives in a 'stack', or a collection of notebooks that has evolved over time. (Learn more about notebooks and stacks here.) I keep my Daily, Monthly, and Future Logs and Habit Tracker in a notebook called *Bujo Daily (the asterisk moves the notebook to the top of the stack).
Bujo Archive, Bujo Collections, Bujo Ideas, and Bujo Templates complete my Bullet Journal stack. I use the 'Top List' view so that I can see and easily access all the notes in my notebook while I'm working.
Here's how the notes and notebooks break down:
Daily/Weekly Log
I used the Evernote table tool and onyxandindigo.com design to create this hybrid log. The two column table has 15 rows (I combine Saturday/Sunday). On my Mac, Evernote limits table creation to six rows, but it's simple to add rows – just Control+click inside a cell.
My Daily note has a little more structure than a standard Bujo. That's not because I'm a structured person, it's because I'm lazy. Rapid logging in a traditional Bullet Journal requires using symbols, which takes some extra effort on a keyboard. My gratitude list numbers automatically, as do the check boxes in my schedule section. And it seemed easier to create a bulleted list of 'Reflections' than to figure out how to create an eye (exploration), or type an exclamation point (inspiration) or asterisk (priority).
Like I said, lazy.
Index & Collections
The standard Bullet Journal Index page helps you find information in your notebook. You simply write down a topic – or Collection – and record the page numbers related to that topic. Even though Evernote doesn't have numbered pages, it does have one spectacular feature you can use to create your Index and Collections: Copy Note Link.
The note link includes the note title (how awesome is that?), so it's just a matter of copying and pasting.
Because Evernote has an endless number of pages, I felt an Index could become unwieldy, so instead, I set up a numbered Table of Contents. It's included in my primary notes, it connects virtually every note in my Bujo, and it looks like this:
Monthly/Future Logs
Have I mentioned how much I love the Evernote table tool? My monthly log is an 8 column, 8 row numbered table. I use it to list birthdays, holidays, special events, important deadlines or appointments:
It took me a while to create a Future Log, and I'm still tinkering. I think of it as my 'big picture' space to record major project deadlines and prepare for travel and other milestone events. Copy Note Link keeps this space connected to my project Collections:
Evernote needs one more feature, in my humble opinion, to make it the perfect Bujo space: a way to link notebooks and stacks. You can create a note with the same title as its notebook and copy that link to your Index – the note opens inside the notebook or experiment with adding saved search links.
Templates
Evernote Bullet Journal
When I started with Evernote, I copied and pasted entire the previous notes to start a new week or month. This involved a great deal of deleting and a little swearing. Then I stumbled across Uncovering Templates, the Hidden Gem of Evernote. Now I move the completed note to my archive notebook and copy a blank note to my Bujo Daily notebook:
Using Evernote For Bullet Journaling
So that's how I Bujo, Evernote style. This is still a work in progress. I welcome questions and comments – leave a note here or find me on Facebook. I'd also love to know how you're using Evernote as a Bullet Journal.
