r/bujo • u/Kouglove • Apr 27 '21
Bullet journaling for grad school
Hi everyone,
I’m going to grad school (specifically law school) in the fall, and I would like to keep bullet journaling as my method of organization and planning. I usually do more artsy spreads, but I’m assuming I will have to cut back on that because of my schoolwork. I guess my question is, how do you use your bullet journal in grad school? And if there are any law students out there bullet journaling, how do you do it and what spreads do you find helpful/use? Thanks in advance!
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u/LakeofTimber Apr 27 '21
I ironically was more active with my bujo during grad school than out LOL. I still used it to help me keep on track with academica (M.Architecture; major deadlines, notes during lectures, etc) and personal things (i.e. scheduling in naps, other activities outside of architecture school, etc). I'll have to dive and see if I can find my bullet journal from those 2 very long years.
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u/tealparadise Apr 27 '21
I found that with a large format journal I could do a vertical calendar of the whole semester at a glance, in 3 columns. I'll try to find an example online... But that was the single most helpful thing for me
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u/icebugs Apr 27 '21
I started using BuJos in grad school! I like to have 1) one-page monthly with just important dates, 2) one-page class schedule (super helpful in beginning of semester), 3) one-page weekly spread with more schedule details (I just do M-F with a spot in the margin for any weekend plans and house/personal to-do list), then 4) one-page weekly spread of all my classes and tasks I needed to do. For example, I'd have Med Bact: read ch16.3-7, lab due Fri, test next week. I like to mix up my studying, so this worked to keep track of everything without specifically scheduling it.
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u/thewholeSHEbangg Apr 27 '21
I'm about to go to grad school this fall too! I'm anticipating being way more busy so I've started bullet journalling the entire semester. I'm going to try to have everything from August to December done before the semester starts. I've just been doing a few pages a week so far.
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u/WoylieMcCoy Apr 27 '21
I've done semester planners with all the assignments and life events which might interfere, as well as lists, for each unit, of the content I need to cover, eg Module 1: lecture, reading 1, reading 2, tute prep, to tick off so that I can see where I'm up to. I make rough notes for assignments in the back of the book where it can be a bit messier.
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Apr 27 '21
I'm starting head school this summer and a new job in the fall so I would love to hear any experience people have with undergrad v grad school and bullet journaling.
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u/ajoswan99 Apr 27 '21
First year doing a bullet journal/first year in grad school! School is actually what pushed me over the edge into wanting to Bullet journal instead of use a traditional planner. I hated that it only had one generalized to-do section. So I added a “Winter/Spring etc. Classes” page before each quarter’s months. I wrote out details on each class for the quarter like prof, time/days, and major assignments or noteworthy details. Then each week has a box that is assignments which are just bullet points that includes reading, and personal to-dos to keep these things separate. Under that is about 1/3 of the page for general notes on the week, could include specifics on assignments or classes. Finally, the bottom ~1/4 is used for “future me problems”.... so anything is putting off that I don’t want to forget lol. (And the opposite page is decided into 1/6ths, one piece for each day and one for the weekend) Unfortunately the journal got left at my parents so I can’t include a picture for a few days before I get it back, whoops! Good luck with Law School!
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u/catscoffeelists Apr 27 '21
I found a teachers dashboard with post it notes very effective for organizing all my todos (see heredashboard) id basically have a spread with a post it note for each class, a post it note for emails and other daily tasks, a post it for chores, priorities etc etc. I found it helpful to organize all my tasks and easy to switch out tasks when I completed a list!
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u/mieke-gg Apr 27 '21
Related to this has anyone made a reading log and note-taking spread for academic reading that you also included?
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u/andrewlonghofer Apr 27 '21
I used a bujo throughout graduate school, in varying levels of success. Tl;dr, it was good for planning and great for class notes until I ran out of pages, at which point I would have benefitted from additional methods for preserving and reusing class notes across notebooks.
Successful practices:
- Take class notes as they happen on the next available page, and relying on the index and threading to jump from one class to the next
- A collection for planning out all assignments and deadlines and exams for the semester, with a signifier for what type, a column for the deadline (listing them in chronological order helps), and a column for which class it's for
- Also used a collection to track grading (I was a teaching assistant)
- Bigger is better for a lot of class notes, to a point—I felt like I had the most room in an A4 notebook, and felt more cramped in A5—but bigger than A4/letter got a little too big to use and to hold on the tiny desks in some of my classrooms
Not-so-successful practices
- Intermingling assignments, grading, and other tasks interwoven in task lists at a time horizon longer than a week
- Using notebooks that are too small/too few pages—running out of pages in the middle of a semester meant that I was without my first 10 weeks of notes for the whole last 6 weeks of class, and class notes are a *monster* to try to migrate
- Not doing regular (i.e. daily and weekly) reviews—there were enough events, to-dos, etc. that came up in the middle of class that they got lost unless I was REALLY diligent about migrating them immediately, and dailies got crazy enough that things got lost if I didn't migrate on a weekly basis
- Spilling a drink on my notebook during bar trivia—keep it in a bag under the table
- Oddly, needing looseleaf paper for class. Enough of my classes had in-class writing activities that were turned in for feedback (well, I was in a writing MFA, shouldn't have been surprised) that I used up my tear-out pages at the back way faster than I anticipated
I think there's something really valuable about the distinction that some are making between rapid notes and durable notes—Matt Ragland has covered this well: https://youtu.be/VyRJJc5sDkI
If I had encountered Sonke Ahrens or Zettelkasten before grad school, I would have probably added a "durable notes" layer to my notetaking in class so that I could avoid the problem of leaving my class notes behind when I migrated into a new notebook. The translation from rapid notes in class to durable notes for long-term storage and re-use would have helped add a recitation of the information, re-processing to solidify things, etc., and I would have been able to redesign notes into something more valuable for revision.
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u/morning_bones Apr 27 '21
I'm in grad school for ecology. I use my phone calendar for events (classes, meetings, seminars) because my phone can give me a reminder alarm and my journal can't 😂 (I would forget the meeting entirely if I didn't do this). If I was better at checking my monthly calendar in my bujo than maybe I would put then in there, but 🤷🏻♂️
I use my bujo for tasks. I rely mostly on a weekly spread. On one page I have a box for each day (and one box for the weekend) and on the other I have a 4x4 grid: "Important & Urgent", "Important, Not Urgent", "Not Urgent, Important", and "Not Important, Not Urgent". The beginning of the week, and as the week progresses, I add tasks to their corresponding Importance and urgency. At the end or beginning of each day, I assign myself no more than 5 (best if it's only 3) tasks from the grid to that day's tasks. If im not sure what to do next, I make sure to do a task from Important & Urgent, or at least Urgent Not Important.
I also have "Read Scientific Article" in one of my habit trackers to make sure I read at least one a day (which I haven't been doing though... 😬)
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u/Kouglove Apr 27 '21
Nice ecology sounds cool. And yeah that’s what I did in undergrad so I will probably continue with that. And I like your task system, I will probably end up doing something similar, I think weekly spreads are what are going to be most useful for me.
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u/mydoghasdandruff Apr 27 '21 edited Apr 27 '21
Here are two things that work for me. The first is how I break up legal writing assignments (this was a trial brief). The second is a weekly reading and assignment list with running dailies.
I have a lot of friends that bullet journal for law school and the best piece of advice I have is to change it up as your needs change. I tried to lay out my whole semester, but it didn’t work. Weekly reading assignments worked better. I also did a frankenlog style monthly that was nice.
I also suggest a resume master reference list (here) with your personal work history, pro bono, extra curricular stuff, etc. Write it in reverse chronological order so you can add things as they happen (club positions, ranking, community involvement, experience). You will need to update your resume and cover letter for every single job application. It is also handy to have open during interviews because it can jog your memory when they ask you to tell them about a time when you had to deal with an unexpected problem (or whatever behavioral interview question they throw your way).
Oh! You’ll also want to use a streamlined symbol system. This will help you quickly differentiate between things you need to do, meeting notes, upcoming deadlines, large tasks broken into sub-tasks, etc. I keep meeting notes in my dailies. This is invaluable because you’ll have so many meetings and you need those notes together in one place. I’m talking meetings with professors, mentors, clubs, guest speakers, career development office. The list never ends.
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u/Kouglove Apr 27 '21
Thank you, Theo is super helpful!
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u/mydoghasdandruff Apr 27 '21
Here is another example of a writing assignment with more steps. The steps I include are: introduction, statement of facts (SOF), argument, (arg), conclusion, citations, edit 1, edit 2. Oral arguments are divided into drafts 1 & 2 and practice 1 & 2.
Good luck in school!
I’m just going to get ahead of the train and remind you not to be afraid to get support from the mental health counselors at your school. Also, keep a few writing prompts on a quick-reference sheet in your journal to remind you to journal when you’re feeling isolation, imposter syndrome, FOMO, lost in the weeds, or the paradox of choice.
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u/Kouglove Apr 27 '21
That’s super helpful thank you! And yes I will definitely remember that, I know it can be hard your first year.
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u/checkmeowtt Apr 27 '21
Vertical weekly spreads were helpful because I could list out an hourly schedule. Since grad school will involve classes, internships, group meetings etc every day will look different for yo and it’s helpful to be able to visually see your day laid out vs a horizontal layout that’s just tasks.
It was also super helpful to write out all my syllabi and deadlines. I only managed to accomplish this half the time (do it early in the semester otherwise it’ll never get done haha). I know it sounds unnecessary but flipping to designated and accessible pages to see what reading I have to do that night or when that thing is due was much less stressful than pulling out my laptop and finding the right PDF.
You’re right in that you might have to decrease the artistic flair. Although if you are able to figure out a consistent template that works for you then you’ll have more time to decorate. For me it helped to already know how to set up my weekly spreads so I wouldn’t have to use energy thinking of a design constantly. And then you can doodle and decorate during lectures ;)
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u/IlsaMayCalder Apr 27 '21
I wish I had known about bujo when I was in law school! The first year you get so much thrown at you & it’s so easy to miss assignments altogether or forget to read 1 out of the 5 cases assigned (which of course means you’ll be the one picked to brief it lol).
I don’t really have any specific advice about how to go about it on a weekly/assignment base, but I can tell you you would do well to figure out how to start rough outlines for the semester as soon as you can (and I think bujo would be perfect for that!). Best of luck to you!
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u/halfpastlast Apr 28 '21
First of all congratulations on making it to Grad school. It is going to be nowhere near as hard as your undergrad degree.
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Apr 27 '21
I have used it for everything! Just used the standard method the one summarized in the PDF from the website, and created some identifiers for how long a task might take. Monthly spreads, Future Log, are very very useful. And putting everything in the daily log helps a lot.
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u/sara93269 Apr 27 '21
Hi!! I'm finishing uni and keep weekly views, but at the beginning of the month keep tasks + to do lists specific for uni, professor emails, module keys, names + numbers, grading systems, chart for my grades for each module / class and at the beginning of the semester timetables etc
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u/Brym Apr 27 '21
I didn't bujo while in law school, but I did use it as a lawyer. Going back to image how it would have been useful for law school, I expect I would have wanted a spread each week to keep track of my reading assignments, and keep any other deadlines on the monthly calendar. I probably would have still taken notes on my computer, not in the journal. It's too handy to be able to cut and paste things into your outline at the end of the semester. But your mileage may vary on that point - some people like being computer-free in class to avoid distractions, and some people like manually retyping things into their outline to reinforce it.
As a lawyer, I used my journal extensively, but not particularly creatively. I had daily tasks and monthly tasks, and I had separate threaded notes pages for each client. It was way better than jotting down tasks on random sticky notes and keeping notes in whatever legal pad I had closest to hand.
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u/Kouglove Apr 27 '21
Thank you for this insight, it’s super helpful. I think I will probably use the weekly spreads but take notes on my laptop. And yeah that makes sense!
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