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Monthly Method Podcast is a show for solopreneurs, creators, and artists who have a burning desire to launch a project. The project your best life depends on.
Your host, Polina Bee, is a certified SCRUM master. She brings a proven record of launching successful projects, both professional and personal.
You will hear about tested techniques that lead to calm, consistency and results.
Subscribe to turn your idea into reality one month at a time.
[00:00:00]
What if you could run an agile sprint without apps, dashboards, or digital overwhelm with just pen and paper?
You're about to hear my conversation with Claudia. She's an architect from Germany.
We first met a couple of years ago when she was taking my course where I teach people how to apply agile principles and tools to non-tech projects and goals.
Back then, she showed me something that really stuck with me. She was running her sprints inside a bullet journal.
In this conversation, we revisit a bullet journal. We talk about analog tools versus digital productivity apps. We even coined the term digital infinity.
And Claudia shows very practically how to do this, how to run your sprints inside a simple notebook.
So if you are using a bullet journal and you love it, and you don't [00:01:00] want to give it up. Or you simply want to run your sprints inside a notebook. This video will show you how.
And of course we talk about perfectionism.
One of my favorite topics.
And lastly, if you are listening to this as a podcast episode, I highly recommend you watch this on YouTube because Claudia shows how to do this on paper, and it's much easier to follow if you can see it.
Enjoy.
What Claudia remembers about the course
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Polina: Tell me how you've been since the last time we've talked.
Claudia: That was two years ago.
Polina: I think it was exactly two years, because I remember where I was back then when we talked and it was two years ago.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Polina: And that was like after you took the course and maybe there was some time after the course.
Claudia: Yeah, I think I did the monthly method back then.
Polina: What part of it do you remember working the best for you?
Claudia: I [00:02:00] think the sprint backlog. Differentiating it from the general backlog. Choosing your tasks or projects you want to do.
And then to spread them out on the three weeks.
The cool-off week
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Claudia: And what really stood out for me is the cool-off week.
Polina: Oh, it's the favorite part, I guess, of everyone's life. The cool-off week.
Claudia: Yeah.
Now it's something I didn't do at all.
Polina: And if we don't do it, then there's always a burnout and it takes a lot longer to recover from a burnout than to take a one week off.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: It's much more efficient to take regular breaks. I remember being stuck in this cycle where you push, push, push, then you burn out and don't want to do anything.
For the next 2, 3, 4 weeks, I remember like going on this like YouTube, reading books, trying to gather motivation to actually like go and do something again. And I remember taking so much time to get back to this level of [00:03:00] enthusiasm and, ambition. It doesn't make any sense that I'm spending so much time either recovering or getting back to normal. It's much more efficient to just take regular breaks and not let yourself burn down so much.
Claudia: Yeah, I totally get it. And this is one of the five areas I have to improve in my life.
Polina: Okay.
Claudia: Yeah.
Why Claudia is breaking up with bullet journalling
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Polina: So I remember you telling me that you used bullet journal for your friends. And that was something that really stood out to me because I usually use a Scrum board, or I know people use different notebooks or apps, even though I'm not a big fan of digital apps.
But, yeah. So I wanted you to kind of talk through bullet journal, how you've been applying this, and how the method evolved over time. What are you doing today? Let's talk about your bullet journal if you're still using it.
Claudia: I [00:04:00] can show you how I would implement it in the bullet journal if I would there still, bullet journaling today. Yeah. What I'm not doing because I'm in search of another simpler method because the one thing what really, it's a hassle for me in the bullet journal. It's another mass of text. I'm a very visual person and need things drawn visually.
And, the bullet journal partly visualizes the things because you have the different bullets and this makes it easy to discover events or moods or task in your writing. But, it's still too much text for me, so I can't easily grasp what I have written. So I'm in a phase of breaking up with bullet journaling.
Polina: I mean, you've been using it for a while, so you probably know more about it. I just have the surface level knowledge of it, and I've [00:05:00] watched a few videos of the founder of the bullet journal.
The power of rewriting your goals
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Polina: A few things that I strongly agree with. First one being an analog tool.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Polina: And the second idea I remember, I watched his video and he said, there is a power in rewriting your goals. And his thought was that if you are too lazy to rewrite the goal for the new month or transfer it to a new page, it tells you something.
Right. Maybe it's not worth doing it. Maybe you should forget it. So even like this simple, like a little effort of rewriting something again, it's a small test whether it's still relevant. It's very similar to the backlog idea, where it's every sprint planning, the first time we do is we delete a bunch of things from the backlog that is no longer relevant. And that's the best time-saving hack is that like you delete stuff and, yeah.
So, I really like this idea that sometimes you [00:06:00] need a little friction to wake you up from inertia and see if it's still relevant. I do see the point of having too much text. That's why I like the Scrum board. You can visually see the progress of your. sprint. What's in progress, what's done.
So kind of even the visual representation of the cards tell you a lot of information about the progress.
Claudia: Yeah, that's, really the point of being analog. Having to rewrite things and redraw things on a page. For testing if it's still worthy to have this thing in your life, if it's still relevant. And this little friction is what I really love about bullet journaling.
I found that having digital infinity is not helpful for my life.
Polina: I like this word, digital infinity. I will adopt it.
Claudia: I made it up.
Polina: Awesome. Show me how, you said you have some ideas on how to use bullet journal.
Claudia: I would like to [00:07:00] draw it out for you, what I, would do if this a bullet.
So I fold it in half to simulate a bullet journal.
Polina: Yeah.
Claudia: And, I would have my headline. Monthly sprint. And what I try to do in the bullet journal is to actually organize the sprint. I would, make four columns. Oh, this is not in the middle.
The beginning of the sprint is defining the goal, what I want to achieve with my sprint. So this is the sprint goal. And I would put it in a shape, like an ellipse or something else.
Polina: Mm-hmm.
Claudia: And this is the definition of done.
I can list all the tasks or mini-projects I need to do. And then I begin with my week one, I have my week two, and my week three. So this is managing the tasks as a, let's assume we have a bunch of sprint list.
Polina: Yeah.
Claudia: Then I would simply number my week. So I'm in Germany. [00:08:00] Monday, Dienstag, Mittwoch Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag, Sonntag. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I'll do this for each week.
So tack Friday, Substack, so I have the week plan ahead.
And then I would choose which task I would do on Monday. So this task moves there.
And in bullet journal, you have the option to manipulate the bullet in different ways. So if the task gets done you cross. If you have a task you didn't get done on that day, you move it to another day.
And this is the symbol for moving it. You move it down to Tuesday.
Polina: And you would rewrite it, right?
Claudia: Yeah, I would rewrite it.
Polina: Yeah.
Claudia: And so I have the overview over the whole sprint without the cool-off week. But the three weeks, I am working on my sprint.
And I also can integrate the sprint capacity [00:09:00] by blocking time for other events.
This is a very visual version of the monthly methods for me.
Polina: And so if you have, let's say, two sprint goals, for the sprint, you would have, this on one page and then another one.
Claudia: It never occurred to me to have two different goals. I struggled with setting one goal. So that was not an option, but I would split them on separate pages because this is the collection of ideas, what needs to get done.
Polina: mm-hmm.
In
Claudia: case of, uh, And, uh, you can in bullet journal, you can cross off what you've done. You can, move this to another month. You can move this back to the backlog. Or you can cross off things that are irrelevant.
Polina: Yeah. Probably during the third week, oftentimes we do descoping, so reducing the scope of the goal if you need to.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: And that's when I usually tell people is like, what's the core and what's the fluff? And we get rid of the [00:10:00] fluff. So it doesn't have to be moved anywhere. It just needs to be removed.
Claudia: And you start with an idea what needs to get done and yeah. While you are doing the things oh, I don't need this.
This is a bad idea. This will not work. And then you can cross it off. And other things, move into the second or third week.
Polina: I love it. Well, first of all, I have the left column. It's a very clear representation of definition of done, and people always struggle with it.
It's kind of like what? It's not the collection of subtask. No, it's the final state. And here I think it's such a good visual representation that the definition of done is the final state. And in order to get there, you have all this subtasks, but they don't go into the definition of done.
Claudia: Yeah,
Polina: Yeah,
Claudia: this is not a solution for the daily standup.
Polina: Well, in a way, you can open this. I think it would be a starting point, right? Yeah. So you would look at your calendar, you would open this page and see, okay, I [00:11:00] only have maybe like half an hour today after work to work on this project. What can get done in 30 minutes? And then you just decide to do that.
Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah. And, in a way, if, external situations to range your plan, you could rewrite this on a new page and make a new plan.
Then the next page is just a page away and you can start over.
Polina: Or maybe you can use a pencil to create the plan and then, if something changes, you just erase it.
Claudia: I don't like that very much because pencil is not decided yet.
Polina: Oh, okay. Okay.
Claudia: This makes the bullet journal too precious. I had a long way to take notebook not as too precious. And to use it like it's a tool, a everyday tool, which should fit my life and not be an exhibition object.
Polina: That's the insight that only [00:12:00] comes from a long time of using the bullet journal.
Comparing analog vs. digital tools
---
Polina: And so from your experience, like when comparing analog versus digital tools.
Are you still proceeding with analog or you are considering shifting to digital?
Claudia: No. I would stay on analog because it's so much better to make a mark in your life when you stay analog. I'm really a nerd. I love Notion, I love Obsidian, I love all the tools, and I struggled to make any progress with those tools in my life.
Only as I returned to the bullet journal last year, my life got better because of handwriting, because of drawing on paper, because of rewriting things over and over again.
I can't describe the difference, but digital infinity, yeah. Not the solution. I really try to find a [00:13:00] hybrid solution for my workflow. Let's take the example of a daily log. I love the idea of the bullet channel to have a daily log and to rapid log your life.
And turned out, having too many words on paper is not the right thing for me. What I do at the moment is I draw little pictures of my day. Perhaps I can show this if I find it. So this looks like that.
Polina: Nice.
Claudia: So little flowers, little suns and just a few words, what happened on that day. Sometimes I need a place for putting down a link, a screenshot for elaborating an event longer for storing a transcript or something else.
And so I have a digital daily log in Obsidian. And this is the place where the longer texts go. And I think you need both, but you need clarity on paper first.
Claudia changes Polina's view on journaling
---
Polina: Do you go back to these notes maybe like, [00:14:00] for me, few years ago?
Claudia: Yes, I do. I'm in deep need of a solid review process because that's a weak point and it's important to go back. But yes, I do.
Polina: Yeah, because for me, there was this point where I would read books, then highlight things, then think that I would need to take notes on what I read But then I was like, under what condition would they go back and read all these notes?
So I let go of this idea that they should have some sort of record of what they've read. , Well first of all, I figured out that the second time I read the book, I'm a new person and I see completely different things in the book that I haven't seen before.
So maybe like highlights? Yeah, I think it's interesting to see what you were interested in like two years ago. But the notes, I thought that I would probably not use it as much. But the pressure of perfectionism that somehow I should have record of what I've [00:15:00] read and like documented and everything.
It was like ruin in my life more than it was adding value. Similar with journals, I've been journaling for quite some time. Maybe like in my twenties, but now I have it in a box. And nowadays, once every few years when I'm moving, I would like open a few journals for like 10 minutes and then I close them
Maybe when I'm very, very old, I will go through the notebooks, but I just haven't found a good reason to go back and read all this stuff.
Claudia: It's the intention, but, you are journaling with. For me, my journals contain my thinking process and not my documentation of my day. So it's, for me, an idea generator and, I develop concepts and models
Polina: Oh, okay.
Claudia: in my journal. So this is a thinking space. Oh, I see. And I very much want to revisit them.
And I want to create something out of my ideas.
Polina: Okay. Because I thought [00:16:00] like journals is always about like, oh, this is what happened, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. You have a calendar for that.
Claudia: Yeah. That's the daily log of the bullet journal. It, also serves a purpose because, I spoke to people recently who say my life goes by me so far and, I can't remember what was yesterday. I can't even remember what I ate in the morning or something like that.
The idea of the bullet journal is to do a weekly review and see if you are still on track with your intentions. You normally would have events in your week. That put you away from your intentions and some that lead to what your intention. And this is perhaps similar to the sprint goal.
Mm-hmm. Only if you do the things that lead toward your goal, your will have success.
Polina: And we also have the sprint retrospective, and I think the weekly review [00:17:00] of bullet journal is kind of similar. And sprint retrospective, we review the whole sprint.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: So it's kind of like what worked, what didn't. Usually, the goal is to uncover your own style, your own preferences, your own taste. Oh, I like to work in the mornings on these things, and then the afternoon on these things, and then my day goes so much smoother if I do X, Y, and Z. You do the review so that you can go into the next sprint a little more prepared with a little bit of information that you've learned. So it's kind of like learning the lesson, right? So you do something. And then you're like, okay, what lessons can they learn from this so that I can apply in the future? So it's kind of like transferring lessons from the past to the future.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: Yeah.
Claudia: And this is also the purpose of the daily log because you can spot patterns in your week
Polina: mm-hmm.
Claudia: And in your days. And sometimes, over a few weeks, you can spot patterns and then you can do [00:18:00] something. You can say, I don't want that anymore. And then you can do something about it.
Polina: And now that you're talking about it, I'm having this thought that maybe the whole point of keeping this log is not necessarily to go back and review, but if you find yourself writing the same thing every day, it's like, I hate this, I hate this.
Because you are right in this, somehow your brain registers it a lot more and then it's like, oh, you've been writing the same thing for the last three weeks. Yeah, let's do something about it. But if you're just thinking it, it might go unnoticed. But if we keep writing the same thing over and over again, our brain will register.
Claudia: Yeah. And I think, it's important to write it with the hand. I don't think you would notice it if you were just typing it.
Polina: Mm-hmm.
Claudia: in the daily log.
Polina: Because it takes more time, more effort. You slow down. And if you decide to write it down, it means that it has some sort of strong emotional appeal, either [00:19:00] positive or negative.
Claudia: And you have the spatial memory. Mm-hmm. You remember where you put it on the page.
Polina: Okay.
Claudia: It's also important that paper somehow creates a room. or a space.
Daily standup
---
Polina: Yeah. So, let's talk about daily standup. let's say you wake up, it's regular Tuesday. You sit down at your desk, then what?
Claudia: so we have today, Friday.
The 23rd. 23 and it's Friday. So this would be my header.
And then I have a few things I do every day. For example, Vitamin D, dry, D three, or Omega-3.
And those is my like tracking habits, but day for day.
Those is only a handful. of things, so it's easy to note them. And then I would go into the check in. How did I sleep? How am I feeling? Do I have any pains? This is a quick scale of check-in, which is always the same order, [00:20:00] and so I easily can spot how I'm feeling.
And then I would go into the to-do list in the backlog. In the sprint backlog, I would note the most important tasks for today. If I had an appointment, I would note this also as a task with a time. So our meeting today, it's 4:00 PM for me.
This is the dashboard. Carol calls it the dashboard. I would start with my log. This is a thought, this is a task which popped into my mind. This is a event and this is a mood. And I also can do nested tasks. For example, a thought and I feel this, and, I need to do that so I can nest. the bullets underneath. This is the daily log.
Polina: Interesting. Okay.
Claudia: So on the dashboard. It needs a lot of space to do this, which is a downside of the journal because you go very quickly through a notebook if you do this.
Polina: Thankfully they're not too expensive these days.
Claudia: Yeah, that's true. And you can do this with any [00:21:00] sort of notebook.
It doesn't need to be a bullet journal. You only need the workflow that works for you.
Polina: you put it on top of your daily log, so you can always, let's say someone called you, you got distracted. Then you're like, oh, what's happening? You sit down, but you have this list front and center.
Claudia: Yeah. That would be my daily stand up.
Tracking the 3-week sprint on one page
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Polina: Yeah. I remember the last time we talked, you were showing me something. I thought it was genius how you would have goals or tasks on one column, and then you would put the dot where it's in the to-do column. Then you would connect it to the In progress.
And then you would connect it to done. So can you show that?
Claudia: I think it was something like this as if this were my bullet page.
Then we have the sprint backlog.
And I compressed the three weeks a lot more as week 1, 2, 3. And I have my tasks.
And I would move this to week one. And this, I [00:22:00] plan for week two. I think it was something like this.
And if it gets done it gets crossed out.
But if I can't, I wouldn't ~move to~ move to week three. Yeah. I think it was the system. I have a whole page more, for the other ingredients of the monthly method. Perhaps I could have a backlog for the shiny object.
Polina: Yeah. I would move it to a separate page.
Claudia: I also can have, the sprint goal,
the definition of done, the vision, and the sprint capacity on this page in any order or layout.
I think one could simply do a few boxes Perhaps, this is a better idea to have this on another page.
But the sprint capacity is something which could fit into this.
Polina: Or maybe you can put important dates on there. So maybe meetings or something you should keep in mind when planning when to do a certain task.
Claudia: You could have a calendar with the sprint capacity.
Polina: Yeah.
Claudia: And then you can see there is not much time [00:23:00] here. And this would also make it more visible.
It doesn't take up so much space on a wall. I don't have walls for a whiteboard or a scrum board.
So I invite any person who has walls for this and I always rely on having a mobile sheet of paper or a notebook. And this what makes it so much easier.
Sprint retrospective in the bullet journal
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Polina: if we were to take the best stuff from the weekly review and the sprint retrospective and combine them together, how would it look like?
Claudia: I think the Plus-Minus next method is the best thing I found. I did this with my annual review.
And I separated this from my life areas. I had filled a whole small journal with my annual review and I didn't have an overview of what I have written. So I took a blank page and divided it into the eight areas of life.
And I simply put in every [00:24:00] box the Plus, the Minus, and the Next.
I think this is a very simple and very good structure to make a review.
Polina: So the plus would be for what's working, right? Or was it minus for what's not working?
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: And next would be how to address the minus?
Claudia: Yeah. I had ideas of action steps for each area.
So this is not a sprint, but my annual review.
This is more than I had before.
Polina: Yeah. So kind of like next immediate steps, not necessarily the life plan for the next 10 years, but
Claudia: No, It's a part of a direction I can go.
Polina: Yeah. Yeah.
Claudia: So, it's not an action step, either because I need to think about a fitness plan, for example.
And this is not an action to that step. This is a whole sprint, I think.
This whole experience with the annual review makes it so much more likely that I restart with the monthly methods soon.
Polina: Yeah. Okay. I like this. Plus, [00:25:00] minus, next. I like when things get simpler and, I think it's good for people who are suffering with perfectionism. If they hear a word yearly review, they would probably get scared and think of this like fill out the entire notebook and that's kind of like, oh my God, what's happening?
But if it's just for each area, you put plus, minus, and next, I think that makes it very doable.
Claudia: Yeah. It reduces the scope and that's all.
Advise for bullet journal newbies
---
Polina: For someone curious about running sprints using a simple notebook, what would you tell them or maybe like the biggest beginner mistake?
Claudia: My advice is don't start with a notebook.
Polina: Okay.
Claudia: Start with a blank sheet of paper. It's enough.
Polina: As you said, pick one of the two versions that we've shown and pick one that you like.
And I agree that's more than enough to run your sprint. Every day you go to this piece of paper, you look at it and you decide what to do. [00:26:00]
Claudia: Yeah. The huge advantage of having a notebook is you have a command central where everything related to your life lives in, but, the question, if you are able to set up it in a way that is working for you now. And so experiment with a sheet of paper first.
Much more cheaper than buying a notebook.
The lesson on consistency
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Polina: If you could go back and tell your past self one thing about systems and consistency, what would it be?
Claudia: I think perfectionism is really bad. I lost the monthly method because I think, okay, this is January, but I can't do the cool-off week in week four because there is happening this thing. And in February, week three, there are holidays in Germany and this needs to be my cool-off week.
And so I got lost in how to set up a proper monthly sprint.
The monthly sprint never happened.
Polina: Yeah. [00:27:00] And with the sprints, you have an option. Some sprints can be two weeks or they can be four weeks.
No one is punishing you for adjusting it a little bit. You are doing it for you.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: I think the whole thing should be about flexibility.
So, on that note, I just want to, as a thank you for doing this interview, gift two months of free membership to the focus room.
Claudia: Oh.
Polina: So that's where we do the sprint together as a group. Hopefully, it's gonna be a good motivation to start on the items you've listed in the next column. We are going into the cool-off week this week, but starting the following week. It's our February sprint.
Please join us.
Claudia: Yes. I will. I will.
Polina: The biggest benefit that I've seen from the membership is you observe other people achieving their goals and realizing that no one is perfect and life happens to all of us.
No one is just sitting at their desk [00:28:00] nine to five.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: Accomplishing everything never happens, but we still get things done. I think you become a lot nicer to yourself as a result.
Claudia: Thank you very much.
Polina: Yeah, you're welcome.
Scrum board and going analog
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Polina: I'm sure you'll have a lot to offer to the members when it comes to analog tool.
A lot of members come in and I'm like, do the scrum board, make the scrum board, like, forget your productivity apps. Let's go analog. At first people are like, I don't know.
With my private clients, I'm a lot stricter. So I was like, you have to do it. And then once people do it, they're like, I see what you mean.
Claudia: Yeah.
Polina: Lot better to have an analog system than to try to keep up with digital infinity.
Claudia: Yeah. It's something I had to learn the hard way myself because I'm a native computer user since 1985.
Polina: Yeah.
Claudia: So I had Windows 3.1 on my computer, and I had all the evolution of [00:29:00] digital productivity.
Polina: Yeah. And you're probably an early adopter, so you always want to play with your new toys.
Claudia: Yeah. And shiny objects. And I always wanted to make it work for me. I didn't, succeed with this and only the return to the analog.
Polina: Yeah. And I always like to remind myself is like, especially when I'm traveling to Europe, where they have like all this beautiful buildings. It's just breathtaking and I always look at it and they manage to build this without Asana. We can do whatever we are trying to do without like all these digital tools because I mean, look at this church, look at all of this beauty. And it was all done without digital project management software.
Claudia: That's very good. I'll keep that.
Polina: well, thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom and, experience, and insight from doing this bullet journal journey and,
Claudia: Thank you [00:30:00] so much.
Polina: Yeah, do an analog project management. I'll see you inside the focus room.
Claudia: Thank you. Thanks. Bye.