Bullet Journal for Small Business | Part Three

BuJo for Business

Today we are continuing our series on using the Bullet Journal for Small Businesses. You can see the first two parts of this series here and here.

Being a small business owner can get crazy.  Often the business owner has to manage literally everything, purchasing inventory & supplies, managing that inventory, preparing the items to be sold, restocking a shop space, the record keeping and on and on!  This to-do list can quickly become long and never-ending!

I started using the Bullet Journal system a couple of months after starting my own furniture flipping business in late summer of 2016.  My little shop had grown as far as sales were concerned and I was realizing how out of hand things were becoming.  So I decided to use my BuJo for tracking business related things.

The first thing I needed to get under control was my inventory.  Since I am a furniture flipper and repurposer (is that even a word ??) I decided that I should track the purchases I was making for resale.  Some of the items I had purchased had been put on the wayside and then I forgot about them!  Stale inventory can put a big dent in my profits.  Not good!

Here is my sample inventory page.  It includes a description of what was purchased, the cost, the purchase place (PP), the date it was purchased and then finally the item number it became when that project was finished. The last column indicates the date it was finished. BTW, I also tag each item with painters tape and include the date, purchase price and short description.

This might be overkill on tracking, but any of the columns can be eliminated.  For my business, the most important columns would be: description, cost, date purchased and item#.

BuJo for Business

Here is a real life version of that page.  I like to use Washi tape on the edge of the paper so that it is a quick reference for me.

BuJo for Business

And another image.  You can see that the order of the columns is different.  That is part of the beauty of the Bullet Journal method; it is so adaptable!

I list out the items as I purchase them with as much info that I have.  When the item is completed, I can add the item number, the day it was completed (sometimes I forget that part!) and I use a yellow highlighter.  The yellow highlighter helps me to see quickly which projects have not been completed yet.  I am still working on getting older projects finished before they have been in my inventory storage spot before too long.

The bullet journal goes with me to my workshop.  It is a great reference for the projects I need to be working on! I use this master list to create a weekly list of what I can conceivably accomplish. Sometimes I go a little overboard of what I think I can accomplish!

BuJo for Business

Another thing that must be tracked is the mileage small business owners put on their vehicles.  This is a great tax deduction that we should take advantage of.

BuJo for Business

And here it is in action!  It is pretty straighforward. I use the trip meter in my vehicle to track the mileage.  That makes it so easy to jot down in my bullet journal when I am finished with the trip!

I track the miles for each month and then add up a total for each of those months.  This will just save a step at the end of the year.

Don’t mind that cleaning spread on the right hand side – I’m still working on getting my housecleaning under control!

BuJo for Business

As a blogger, I have topic ideas come to me at the craziest times!  Fortunately, my bullet journal goes everywhere with me so when those ideas pop into my head, I can jot them down.

I also have a column for the date it was written.  Not really necessary, but it sure is fun to check it off as done!

BuJo for Business

Here is the actual page in my journal. I don’t have a designated column for the date it was finished, but I did add the dates to the side. The next page I do for blog posts will include a ‘written’ column because I love crossing tasks off my lists 😉

BuJo for Business

All three of these spreads are continuous throughout my journal.  When one page is filled, I just begin a new page wherever I am in my bullet journal. Each page can be referenced in the Index of the Bullet journal.

The bullet journal system has helped me so much in my personal life as well as my business life.  Since I am my own boss, the BuJo is my accountability partner :). We all need that!

Thanks for stopping by!  If you need more help with the Bullet Journal system of planning, I highly recommend you see the short video on YouTube by Ryder Carroll, the creator of the system!

Also, check out this post for more explanation!

Hope you have a great day!  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments!

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

2 Comments

    1. Cynthia Gayle says:

      Thanks Elmo!! So glad you enjoyed the post!