The Weekly Log is, hands-down, the “crown jewel” of my Bullet Journal. It sits perfectly between the “giant” Monthly Log and the “tiny” Daily Log, turning hazy ambitions into seven days of focused action. As the old wisdom (often mis-attributed to Bill Gates) reminds us: we often overestimate what we can do in a day but underestimate what we can achieve in a week. The Weekly Log page is where I orchestrate every day to work together towards the common goals at the end of the week, the month, and the biggest dreams and visions of a “Level 10 Life”.
The classic Bullet Journal methodology designs the Weekly section as a week-end reflection. My need for a Weekly Log is a lot bigger than that. I want to develop a system that also helps me plan out and check in with my goals, align them across time and space of a year, a month and a day, in addition to journal and self-reflect. After years of tinkering with numerous concepts, layouts, trackers, etc., I’ve boiled my process down to one ultra-simple page that covers everything one needs for a productive and joyful week.
Setting up Weekly Log is a weekly activity (hence, I keep it ultra-simple to repeat easily and consistently). If you start out from scratch with a brand new Bullet Journal, Weekly Log setup is also the last step (hooray!) after the first must-have pages like Future Log and the Monthly Log section.
Either way, let’s get your Weekly Log of Bullet Journal set up right now!
Read tiếng Việt version: Set up sổ Bullet Journal (3/3): Weekly Log-Nhật Ký Tuần (1 page have-it-all)
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. When you click these links, I may get a small commission. It won’t cost you anything, and it helps me to run this site. I only promote products and services that I think are great.
🌱 What Is a Weekly Log?
Just like how Monthly Log is where a month both starts and ends, a Weekly Log is where a new week begins and finishes on the same page like a full circle.
With my Weekly Log’s design, a week starts with clarity and intentions, and ends with proud moments, happy memories, and lessons learned. If you’ve been reading since Part 0: How to Set and Plan Smart Goals of this BuJo Setup series, you’d realize that this is also a consistent mindset throughout my whole journaling practice.
For instance, when setting new goals, always start with the “why” forces behind. This provides clarity to your intentions and fuel to your motivation. When starting a new month and a new week, always start with the intentions how you’d like this month or week to look and feel like. It answers the “why” we are doing what we are doing every day.
This spread has two core functions:
- ✅ Set intentions and goals before a new week starts
- ✍️ Capture the weekly journey highlights with a reflection before the week ends
Accordingly to these two purposes, the page has two sections:
- Weekly Goal Plan: to lay out and schedule in the actions that will complete your top 1-3 monthly goals.
- Weekly Reflection: to look back and appreciate another week of your life with three short journal prompts:
- What was I proud of?
- What made me happy?
- What did I learn?
🧭 Weekly Goal Plan: A weekly plan from intentions to actions
- The “why”: writing Weekly Goal Plan helps you break your Monthly goals into bite-sized tasks each week and assign when to do the tasks on a specific day (or days).
- The “what”: I borrow the Alastair Method in combination with Bullet Journal’s Rapid Logging to create this weekly goal plan, which has:
- A main section to write down all weekly goals and tasks
- Pro tip: weekly goals and tasks come straight from the Monthly Goal Plan. Therefore, any weekly and daily activities are contributing towards the big goals at the end.
- A slim column for every day of the week next to the task list
- Remember: knowing to do “what” is not driven enough, you need to know “when” to do “what” too! When scheduling for “when” to work on a task, simply put a single bullet dot in the correspondent day column.
- Separated sections in the plan for outcome-based tasks and habit-based tasks
- This will make the weekly plan more organized and time-blocking more efficient, to see the one-off tasks separated from the repeatable ones.
- A main section to write down all weekly goals and tasks
This bird’s-eye view prevents over-booking and lets you budget time, energy, and support before the week even begins.
🛤️ Weekly Reflection: A short pause yet a strong boost
- The “why”: writing the Weekly Reflection helps you take a moment to slow down, flash back and learn from the short journey you’ve taken each week
- The “what”: It is the exact same three powerful journal prompts I also write per Monthly Reflection.
- What makes me proud of this week?
- What makes me happy about this week?
- What did I learn and take-away from this week?
These questions fosters pride, happiness and growth. Pride reinforces competence; happiness boosts motivation; learning turns experience into growth.
Regular self-reflection can lift productivity by about 20% and make one happier.
Together, the three prompts nudge your brain to celebrate small wins every day of the week, savour good moments, and extract valuable insights. These three elements when combined will be your fuel for the next week.
Before the Week Starts: A 2-Step Weekly Log Setup
Want to try this for yourself? Here’s how I set up my Weekly Log at the beginning of every week:
Step 1: Create Your Weekly Log Layout (2 min)
Draw the layout: the top half section of the page is Weekly Goal Plan and bottom half is Weekly Reflection
- I set up mine with a self-developed template, which is included in my e-book (see more information at the end of the post)
- This template helps organise all your weekly pre-defined lag and lead goals (in other words, goal and habit tracker) with a built-in daily schedule.
Step 2: Fill in Your Weekly Goal Plan to prepare your Week ahead (5-10 min)
Migrate lag and lead goals from the Monthly Goal Plan or remaining to-do tasks from previous Weekly Goal Plan over to the new Weekly Goal Plan
- TIP: You should immediately schedule in the execution days after writing down your goals in the plan. For one, idle tasks rarely happen. For two, you can make sure you have time and capacity to work on all tasks, seeing them being allocated to every day of the new week.
- With the Weekly Log template, you can simply put a bullet point in the weekly column to assign the day for a task (see below).
During the Week: Daily ritual with Weekly Log page
Before Day Starts: pull tasks from the Weekly Goal Plan into your Daily Log (5 min).
As the tasks are already pre-scheduled in (or shall I say, dotted in) during weekly planning, the day can start quickly with a clear expectation.
Before Day Ends: update the Weekly Goal Plan during Daily Log setup (2-5 min)
Mark progress back on the weekly page using Rapid Logging’s keys, like cross or check, migrate forward, or cancel.
You can read in full how I journal with this page in Rapid and Daily Logging: A Guide to Daily Bullet Journal for Focus and Mindfulness
Before the Week Ends: 3 simple reflection prompts
Schedule in 15 minutes every Sunday for this weekly reflection. You’ll thank yourself later!
Spend five minutes on each reflection question: What was I proud of? What made me happy? What did I learn?
If needed, read through the week’s Daily Logs, skim any starred or hearted moments (easy peasy to spot these special notes when you use Rapid Logging and Daily Logging techniques, right?).
This Weekly reflection will be useful when you write Monthly reflection and review, as you have a weekly report on-hands to recall a full month’s worth of learnings and memories.
To reset, rinse and repeat the cycle, do not forget to review quickly the Weekly Goal Plan to help guide your next week’s focus and setup.
🧡 Why This Works
For me, this Weekly Log has the simple design of a Single Page, yet a functional purpose with a Dual Cycle.
- It is simple and quick to set up, especially repeatedly on every weekends, when time might be tight.
- It is functional and purposeful. Planning locks in priorities; while reflection unlocks insights.
- It gets things done, as simple as that. Be it every day, every week, every month.
With the added emotional lift of gratitude and joy collected every day of the week, you’ve got a system that is both efficient and energizing.
Ready for More?
Are you ready to leverage not only your planning and journaling system, but also your personal development and life fulfilment?
Then grab my e-book “Personal Development with Bullet Journal for Beginners”
- ✔️ Printable templates plus step-by-step instructions to get you started immediately
- ✔️ Access to all MyA5 spreads: 12-month Calendar Grid, Monthly Goal Plan, Weekly Log, and more, for lifetime use and reuse
- ✔️ An inner personal transformation in how you intentionally approach your everyday, week, month to bring you closer to all your goals and dream life
GRAB PART 1 (FOR FREE!) OF THE E-BOOK AND JOIN THE WAITLIST FOR THE LAUNCH SOON-ISH
Till next time! Happy Bullet Journaling,
Suani
