My Gamified Bullet Journal for 2024 – First Adventure

Hi there! I hope your 2024 has started with joy, new goals, and determination. No better way to keep track of your goals than with a bullet journal, especially if you’re more into a papery kind of planner. I’ve tried to gamify my bullet journal (bujo) for a while now, while still keeping it simple and fast to use. Why gamify your bullet journal? For me, it’s about making everyday life more interesting and having a sense of playfulness toward my goals (read: my brain is all play no work and I’m trying to trick it into Doing Stuff). Anyway, here is a look into my gamified bullet journal for the first quarter of 2024: a mix of classic bullet journal, The 12 Week Year & RPG elements.

Adventure Page and Questlines

The adventure page is the first page of my gamified bullet journal. One adventure is 12 weeks; as I plan by the concept of The 12 Week Year (if you don’t, I recommend checking it out). In an adventure are questlines (goals) that need to be accomplished in that 12 week time. I’ve made my questlines sound RPG-like; for example ”Escape the Archive” is graduate uni. The Tome of Time is my thesis. All these questlines are tied to a story that I’ll write in the ”summary” part (yeah, I was too self-conscious/shy to write it down and let people see it). On the other page, I’ve broken down the questlines into smaller goals. I still keep a master to-do list in an app, so I don’t have to write down all the little tasks that go with each questline.

The Map

The idea of the map is to track 1. Time 2. Progress. Also, I love maps. The hero of this adventure (me) starts to color in the golden path: one circle for every week I’ve met 85% of tasks. I want to beat the boss and get to the Archive Gate first. The boss (red path) colors one in every week. The boss has two more steps to take to reach the gate. What’s the Archive? It relates to my priority 1 questline (Escape the Archive – which is to graduate). I’ve also made up a little story to go with my questlines, and the Archive is where the story takes place.

Treasure Room and the Boss’s Torture Chamber

The treasure room holds loot for the adventurer, who did 85% of the tasks. My favorite part of a gamified bullet journal – rewards. Smaller rewards for daily and a bit bigger ones for weekly accomplishments. The adventurer who did NOT meet the magic 85%? The boss caught up to them. And put them in the torture chamber. Torture chamber tasks are something you don’t like doing, for me, having a cold shower = torture. (I’m still in the middle of coming up with torture chamber tasks… Ideally, I’d have at least four so I can roll a d4 to randomize the task.)

Sidequests

Side quests are tasks I want to do, but are not a priority. I’m a sidequester and will procrastinate given the chance. To avoid getting sidetracked and/or overwhelmed, I keep other stuff I want to do as a reward for completing my priority tasks. My sidequests at the moment include Udemy courses and decluttering the house.

Weekly Pages and the Boss Battle

Weekly pages are basic bullet journal pages but with scores assigned to tasks. In the 12 Week Year a task (”tactic”) is worth 1 point. I score mine from 1 to 3 according to how difficult, important and/or anxiety-inducing a task is; that is why I might have 2 points for sending an email that will take me 5 minutes and 1 point for a task that’ll take me 30 minutes. This way I’m less likely to procrastinate on important tasks. Tasks that are not part of main questlines do not reward points. At the end of the week, the boss appears. If you beat the boss (85% of weekly tasks done), color a golden circle on the map and choose a reward from the treasure room.

Weekly Review and Next Week Planning

A basic weekly review. For my next bujo spread, I want to make the weekly review fit the story. Maybe a ”change camp location” – theme, where you review boss fight tactics and make new ones. Let’s see what it’ll turn out to be.

And that’s it! My gamified bullet journal is still a work in progress, but no better way to test it out than to use it. And then modify it. Maybe next time it’ll be a complete solo RPG bullet journal game.

Have you made a gamified version of a bullet journal, or are you interested in making one? All tips, tricks and ideas a very welcome!