How a Bullet Journal and Strengths Finder Helped Me Learn To Love My Job

This post originally appeared (written by me) on Medium .

I found myself getting a little overwhelmed at my job. I had started 6 months before, and at the time, I wanted to be more organized and purchased a sophisticated planner . The planner had me map out various ambitions and goals and made me think that I could accomplish everything my heart desired if I followed the steps laid out by the structure of the pages of the planner. Somewhere along the line, I noticed the pages of the planner were largely blank, and I felt guilty and anxious.

I believe the mistake had been to try and completely transform many habits at once — it was too much to take on for someone who rarely used to-do lists or anything much more than calendaring functions of Google and Outlook. I did come across the concept of Bullet Journaling though.

While Bullet Journaling has its own subculture that can become intimidating and make it hard to define, my favourite explanation is that it is part planner, part journal and part to-do list. You can take any notebook and create your own bullet journal. There are pages for an index (so you can reference any extra content you create) and ‘future logs’ which are simply annual and monthly (or the optional weekly) overviews. Beyond that, it’s simply one page a day, writing things down in bullet form. Different bullets have different meanings, but overall the system is flexible enough that I figured I could give it a try, and if I missed a day or a week, I could pick it up where I left off without feeling like I had wasted paper (or my money — my first bullet journal resided in a branded promotional notebook provided by a supplier).

I would put meetings (and sometimes appointments) in the journal as items that carried the same amount of space as to-do tasks. When colleagues or customers made unexpected demands, I wrote them down too. Things that didn’t get done got migrated to the next available day, and everything that got done gets marked with an ‘X’. Anyone who uses to-do lists on a regular basis will tell you how gratifying it is to mark items done, but by including things that were ‘done’ without being ‘to-do’ beforehand, I could look back on the day and realize how productive I had been, even if some or all my plans had gone off the rails. It made it easier not to lose track of outstanding items and fill out timesheets at the end of the week too.

None of this is new or revolutionary to those who use bullet journalling, but I did enjoy feeling more satisfied and motivated by seeing how the time had gone. I even included family activities as their own bullets and used a heart-shaped ‘signifier’ (a symbol to identify the nature of the entry) so that I could know that I was still being a good husband and father.

I have, however, come up with some signifiers that might be new to bullet journals. The Strengths Finder is a book/website often used by those in a career transition. It espouses a school of thought that says shoring up weaknesses is not a good use of anyone’s time, but rather, identifying strengths and spending time using them increases both productivity and satisfaction. I bought a copy of the book, which in addition to being a guide to the individual strengths and how to best use them, provides a code which can be redeemed on the website to generate a report on your strengths through a long online questionnaire. My strengths were identified as

Getting into the definitions of my individual strengths would make this article too long, and my individual strengths are not what is interesting, but rather that there are actions or activities that I should be undertaking regularly (if not even daily) to be my best. The ideal job is one that lets you work with your strengths daily — and while I believe that no job is perfect, it’s important to track when you can operate to your best potential. I created signifiers for each strength (a ⚝ for Intellect, a 🚪 for Input, a △ for Consistency, ⬜ for Learning and a 💡for Ideation) and in reviewing tasks for the day, identify which met the criteria for one (or more of these strengths).

When I read a white paper or brief, I could mark it as Learning or Input, likewise for Webinars. When I engaged in some writing (like this article, for example), it got a star for Intellect. Brainstorming sessions on strategy or sudden epiphanies on strategy could get the Ideation lightbulb, working on processes or systems gets a triangle for Consistency. I wanted to include a photo of a good sample page, but the best ones all had confidential matters on them.

The more often I could signify my work according to my strengths, the less my job seemed to be about putting out fires or sitting in meetings, and the more I liked my job. Our jobs are generally the biggest component of our waking hours, so being able to have a positive attitude of gratitude can be a great mood booster for the entirety of the day or even the week.

Applying my Strength Signifiers to my daily journal entries is a process that hasn’t yet become a natural habit, but I’m convinced that I’m on to something that enhances my productivity, motivation and general mental health. I even applied these signifiers (as well as others like an up arrow ↑ for outdoor/physical activity and a down arrow ↓ for reflection/meditation/downtime) to a year-in-review exercise I performed. I simply leafed through my journals for 2017 and wrote out the most significant achievements and events of every month, applying signifiers as I went along. I hope to continue to evolve my bullet journal practice and continually play to my strengths in my professional and personal life.

The unexamined life is not worth living — Socrates

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit — Will Durant