I talked in my last post about how I’ve been using a bullet journal recently and have been discovering just how well it works for bucket list living. One of the layouts common to bullet journaling that lends itself well to those trying to check off items from their bucket list is the “tracker.” Trackers come in many varieties – there are daily habit trackers, like this one by Emily:
And mood trackers, like this one by Nina:
There are also sleep logs, and expense trackers, diet trackers, and social media use trackers. But for our purposes, I want to talk about how tracking layouts can also be used to follow accomplishments and steps toward goals.
First of all, what exactly is a “tracker”? A tracker layout in bullet journaling is basically a method for visually capturing progress, often depicted as a graph, but also expressed in themed drawings. The tracker usually starts out blank and as you complete a designated step, you color it in. This makes the accumulation of small steps toward a big goal easy to see. And because many bucket list goals are reached through a series of little steps, I find this very appealing.
What makes bullet journal trackers so great is the way they allow you to notice and remember what you’ve done, and what you have left to do, to reach your goal. For example, I’ve been working my way through the episodes of several TV shows recently, but I’ve found two things happening to me. One: I would reach the end of the series without knowing it and suddenly there were no more episodes left (The Crown!). I hadn’t been aware of how many episodes were in the season, so I expected it to keep going. And two: I couldn’t remember which episode I left off on. So I would accidentally start over on an episode I had already seen without realizing it. Naturally my very first bullet journal tracker was this tracker for TV shows.
Which made me think of my eldest daughter’s bucket list goal of watching every James Bond film. And my youngest daughter’s goal of seeing every Avenger’s movie (except for The Hulk – we’re not so keen on him). And my goal of watching every Robin Williams movie. I need to make a tracker for that.
Now, that doesn’t mean that every bucket list tracker should relate to movies or tv or even books (although Reading Logs and trackers are very popular in bucket listing). Really, you could create a tracker layout for any bucket list goal that requires a series of steps, or repeated activities. If it’s your bucket list goal to bike one thousand miles in a year, then you could create a tracker that allows you to count up the miles as you go with a box for every ten miles. Want to visit every state in the U.S.? Put a printout of a U.S. map in your bullet journal and color the states as you visit them.
You see, the bullet journal tracker layout is so flexible, it’s only a matter of applying your imagination to see how it can help you take note of your progress toward any of a number of bucket list goals. Just pick your most pressing goal that isn’t a single event (or requires multiple steps) and set up your own tracker. Not an artist? Use a simple graph or write out a series of numbers relating to the steps (similar to my TV show layout) and get tracking!
