How to use Google Calendar and a bullet journal together

Last Updated on October 29, 2023

How to use Google Calendar and a bullet journal together

When it comes to planning our life, and working through our to do list, there’s often not a one size fits all solution to solve our planning needs, and when this happens, we may need to use more than one planning tool to help us get the most out of our days.

This may mean combining digital planning tools with paper ones, for example, combining Google Calendar with a bullet journal.

If you’re interested in how to use Google Calendar and a bullet journal together, but aren’t sure how, then here’s how I do it, which I hope will provide you with some ideas on how you may be able to do it as well.

Related post:
How to use Google Calendar and a paper planner together

How I use Google Calendar

The digital planner that I use is Google Calendar, and because it’s on my phone, it means that I can add to it any time something comes up.

I use Google Calendar as a catch all, it stores all my appointments, recurring events, ideas, and to dos, before I put them in my bullet journal.

Every entry in my Google Calendar is colour coded. So anything for me is peach, anything for my children is blue, home related items are green, family days out and holidays are red, meal planning and grocery items are yellow, and blog activities are grey.

Related post:
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How I use a bullet journal

I use my bullet journal to plan my days, make sense of things that have happened, keep lists, and to detail anything and everything that’s currently happening, or that I need to do.

Related posts:
The complete guide to starting and setting up a bullet journal
Bullet journal tips to make planning easy
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How to use Google Calendar and a bullet journal together

Every Sunday night I plan for the week ahead, which is when I use Google Calendar and my bullet journal together.

The first thing I do is draw up a weekly calendar in my bullet journal for the following week. To do this I divide two pages into 8 squares, where I write each day of the week in each square, and the last square is for notes.

I then open Google Calendar and write all of my appointments for the following week into my bullet journal.

I don’t include location details in my bullet journal. I leave this level of detail in Google Calendar, I just write the time and what the appointment is in my bullet journal.

Once this is done, I then record everything else for the week from my Google Calendar into my bullet journal, in smaller steps where possible.

For example, if in Google Calendar I have an entry reminding me to start looking for a school for my son, I’ll create a bullet journal collection called school search. I’ll then write down all the tasks that I need to do to find him a school, and then allocate a date next to each task, which is the date it needs to be done.

Once the date is written, I’ll put the task into my Google Calendar on the date it has to be done on, and then write it in my bullet journal again when I’m planning that week.

Once everything from Google Calendar is in my bullet journal, I add any chores that I need to get done in my bullet journal, then if I have time on any particular day, I’ll add an item from my brain dump list that I keep in Evernote.

During the week if I need to remember something, or if I have any notes on anything, I’ll write them in the notes box in my bullet journal.

At the end of each day I look at my bullet journal and tick off what I’ve done, cross off anything that’s no longer important, and move anything that wasn’t done to the following week.

I love that I can put things into Google Calendar on the go. I also love breaking tasks down into smaller steps, and physically ticking things off in my bullet journal, so combining the two when planning works well for me.

I hope you’ve found some ideas on how to use Google Calendar and a bullet journal together, that you’d like to try.

Related posts:
5 collection ideas for your bullet journal
5 weekly log ideas for your bullet journal
How to use a brain dump to do list to get things done

How do you plan your week?
I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.

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