This quarter students enrolled in the News and Daily Living course were assigned writing a news article on a topic that has to do with OLS. Below is one of the articles that focuses on the benefits of a Bullet Journal.
Written by: Briggs
The Bullet Journal is a time management planner that was introduced to the Learning Strategies in a college environment course. The Bullet Journal is very helpful because it helps with time management. It’s a place where someone can see important assignments and how many assignments there are, which will help reduce anxiety. It’s a visual way to help prioritize assignments.
The students who use it have shown improvement in their time management skills, because of it’s a very simple layout that is very visually helpful. The format of a bullet journal starts with a large month calendar in the front page that shows upcoming events that are going to happen, this is called the overview page. And then it goes on a format of two pages for each week that is listed in the month. The page of the left shows the days of the week along with a timeline. The activities that are here are usually set in stone as fixed activities. These are events that are usually activities that must be done in a certain time. The page of the right shows where the Flex Activities are shown. Flex stands for flexible, which means it’s a task that can be done during any day of the week. When they’re in need of work with a date when it needs to be completed, these are called weekly tasks. Located on the end of the Bullet Journal is a small list known as the Future log; this is a list of events or tasks that don’t need to be completed right at this moment but can be added among the weekly tasks when it’s due date comes close.
When the instructor was asked why she thought that the Bullet Journal would be helpful to her students, Cindy-Lea Wang responded, “I think the students who use the bullet journal on their own turn in their homework on time more consistently.” She introduced the bullet journal in winter quarter 2017: The students that used the Bullet Journal showed that it helps prioritize which assignments are more important, and it visually shows how much work there really is, which helps brings people back into the present and helps against anxiety of thinking that there is more work than there really is.
“I wish I learned it sooner” says a student who uses the bullet journal to help against “Scatter brain.” “Scatter brain” is a casual noun for a person who tends to be disorganized and lacking in concentration. When asked whether this would be good for new students, two students that use the bullet journal explained why it would be helpful. “Yes [I would]. And no. Yes to [the] students who ask me questions about assignments and don’t know how to turn them in, I’ll share this with them. But if there’s someone who already knows how to turn in assignments, then I won’t want to pile in the amount of work for them,” says one student who uses the Bullet journal every day. The other student says, “Yes, I would suggest this to someone, because if you have a scatter brain like I do, it helps you get back to earth and get things done.” This student uses the bullet journal for school work but does not use it for everyday purposes.
This quote belongs to the instructor that introduced the Bullet journal into the learning strategies class named Cindy-lea Wang. “I thought being able to visually map out their time would help them manage their time better.” When asked how it has helped with the students’ performance, Cindy-lea said, “I think the students who use the bullet journal on their own turn in their homework on time more consistently.”
News and Daily Living is one of the many courses OLS Students take to obtain their associate degree from OLS. More information about our curriculum is available on our website. To learn more about our program register for an Information Session.
Last Updated January 16, 2020