Project Management in your Bullet Journal (Free Template)

Project management in your bullet journal can be tricky, if like me you combine work and personal, its important to find a way to seamlessly incorporate bullet journaling into you work or project, regardless of what that might look like.

If you are asking yourself how do you use your bullet journal for project management? Then we have some answers for you!

So! We understand the challenges and have popped together a really lovely simple to use bullet journal project management template for you to download. Scroll to the end too – to see some gorgeous Instagram inspiration!

What is project management in my bullet journal?

So lets start with the basics of Project Management:

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has identified nine areas of knowledge within project management:

1 integration management

2 scope management

3 time management

4 cost management

5 quality management

6 human resource management

7 communication management

8 risk management and

9 procurement management

While these areas are great for professionals in the project management space, those of us that are focused on smaller projects may find this a little over kill!

How do I add project management to my bullet journal?

To get you started we have created a simple bullet journal project management template below.

So what have we identified? It’s important to set up your project summery/scope, so that you have a strong handle on the project going forward and that you can check in and make sure your vision is still the same. So! In our template we have provided this wee project launch page

You will see it has spaces for your project summary, goals, milestones, actions, resources and many of the other basics you might need! DONT FORGET TO CELEBRATE YOUR WINS!

The template also has in place the old school SMART Goals – The acronym SMART has several slightly different variations, which can be used to provide a more comprehensive definition of goal setting:

S – specific, significant, stretching

M – measurable, meaningful, motivational

A – agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented

R – realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented

T – time-based, time-bound, timely, tangible, trackable

This broader definition will help you to be successful in both your business and personal life.

Your resources can be People, IT, Locations, budget etc. Depending on your personal style, you may not want to place your budget in a book you may potentially loose 😛

Right – onto the next page:

Here we have left it more open to interpretation that before. Here we have a standing month calendar which funds down the left hand side, this can be used to track multiple projects at once or different parts of the same project. I have created a key on the right which lets me know that on certain days there are certain deliverables.

There is a section called current which covers the “Current” Items that need to be addressed.

As well as a “Due Next” which is essentially like a future log and transfer for your items that do not need immediate attention.

Now – Milestones can again be used in a couple different ways – either as a track of the milestones and how they are progressing, or a bar graph where you can color in the progress of the milestones and add little red circles for road blocks etc.

Now we move onto planning your weeks! It’s all well and good having a monthly over view, but how do you action these on a day to day/ weekly basis?

Should I have a seperate bullet journal for work?

This question is asked often and while it is not needed, it could be that your projects are so large that they need their own notebook.

However if you use the back of your notebook for project related activities then you should be able to use one notebook for both meetings and agenda and project management for work.

Setting up your projects should be pretty simple and if you are using digital project management tools, you should make sure that you update both at the same time so that you dont have a lag in information.

Adding project notes to my bullet journal

So we start off with a wee calendar on the right which you can use to keep track of projects or dates in general like you would in your bullet journal. There is also space for key or important dates that might be coming up. Next we have a time tracker, to note how much time you are working on a specific project.

There is a space for notes, doodles, affirmations, quotes etc. There is a weekly check in – what tasks do you need to complete on a weekly basis? A running weekly To-Do list of your current priorities and then a space for key project meetings.

Your weekly spread shouldn’t be to complex as you have already set the frame work for your project, so we have kept it simple with the following aspects

Basic sections to include dates, basic weekly trackers, top priorities – Resource management and, project issues and solutions, and finally a basic to do list.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday also leave space for project meetings, team discussions and support, and people to follow up with.

While this is not exhaustive, I thought it would be a place to start and help show you that you can in fact blend your bullet journal with project management.

Alright! The free template as promised! Its in the freebies section, so just scroll down to project management 🙂

How did I use this project planning template in my planner?

I love adding an annual plan to my planner to make sure that I can see any resourcing issues over the course of a couple of months should there be any conflicts that may come up with my time!

I also like being very clear about my todo list – this means that I can create task specific activities that encourage more producitivity.

Finally – I love tracking my projects in my monthly spread, I do this by using some washi to track what is happening during my month. This brings me great joy!

Watch my project management plan with me!

Amazing project management bullet journal ideas

These amazing project management layout ideas for your bullet journal are so structured and creative. If you want some more ways to create or develop project management in your bullet journal, try using a KANBAN board in your bullet journal which was Toyotas clever solution to living project management.