How to Effectively Harness the Power of Bullet Points

By Elisi Studios

Writing in a journal can help heal physical wounds faster. If you’re an avid journal writer, you’ll likely know the benefits that this practice brings, such as mental clarity and a boost to memory.

But, have you ever considered writing a bullet journal? Such a practice could help you stay organized and help you to get more work done.

Drawing attention to important information and helping your habits stay on track by creating mini headlines, explore how to use bullet points effectively.

1. Keep Them Short

Your bullet points should be short. If you can say something in three words, why say it in ten? This will help draw your attention to the point, remind you of exactly what you need to do, and help you effectively do it.

You can then explain your bullet point further below the header if you need some extra clarity.

2. Keep Them Concise 

There is no point in having a short bullet point if it isn’t concise and to the point. You should keep all of your bullet points easy to understand. 

Remove any words which detract from the main point. As you skim your bullet journal, it’s important that your points are concise to keep you focused!

Furthermore, your bullet points should be used for only the most important points. Don’t add irrelevant points as these will detract your attention.

3. Limit Bullet Points

If you’re bullet journaling to help you stay on track, you will find that it’s important to keep your points focused. 

Therefore, limit those which can’t be achieved that day. Your bullet journal should help you move throughout your day and remind you of what you need to do. It should not hinder you and have you pondering exactly what you meant earlier. 

4. Reduce Punctuation

You’ll find that when you have poor grammar, it’ll be harder to focus on the bullet point at hand. 

This is not quite as important as having short bullet points. But, you may find that although you felt called to add 10 exclamation points, they’re actually distracting!

You wouldn’t write a work email with terrible punctuation as it will make you look bad, so don’t do this in your bullet journal.  

5. Do What Feels Right

After building the habit of bullet journaling, you’ll find what works best for you. Over the first few weeks, you’ll quickly figure out whether doodling helps you focus or whether having more white space keeps you focused. 

Then, when you’ve found the magic formula for bullet journaling, stick to it! This habit has huge benefits such as boosting your creativity, keeping you on schedule, and improving your mental health.

Bullet Points Are Popular for a Reason

You may be wondering whether using bullet points is the right option for you. But, it’s certainly worth a try. 

Nowadays, a lot of the content we read online is written in bullet point format. This is because it works at keeping our attention. So, it should work in your own journal too! 

If you’ve found this article useful, it may be time for you to invest in your own bullet journal. Try our online bullet journal today.

How to Choose Lifestyle Habits That Improve Your Life

By Elisi Studios

Have you been thinking about changing your life for better? Maybe you’re unhappy or one of the 900 million people that feel unfulfilled. Maybe you’re ready to feel more successful. 

Whatever the case, it never hurts to work on ourselves and there are simple lifestyle habits that you can adopt to do so.

Keep reading to learn how to choose the best lifestyle habits to reach your personal goals and improve your life.

First, Figure Out the Important Things

The first step in choosing lifestyle habits that will improve your life is to figure out what you want to improve in the first place.

Consider the things that are most important to you in life. Maybe it’s your family. Maybe it’s improving your career. Maybe it’s bettering your health or mindset.

Whatever they are, write down the top three things that you want to work on. This will help you plan your new lifestyle habits to fit your individual goals.

Now, What Are Your Passions?

A key to self-improvement is reuniting with or finding things you love. Too often people lose themselves and their lives become less fulfilling because they forget to spend time dedicated to their passions (outside of work).

Write down some of your favorite things and hobbies. Then, you can plan how to include them into your daily or weekly routine.

Set Goals

Now that you know what is important to you and what things you love, you can set goals to include them in your new lifestyle habits to improve your life. 

Goals are extremely important on the journey to self-improvement. They give us motivation and keep us focused. Be sure to set small goals, so you can have many successes along your journey to your large goal–a better life.

In your goals, you should include the things from the first two steps. For example, let’s say your family is one of the things you listed as important to you and you’re passionate about traveling. You can set a large goal to take a family trip, as well as small goals such as spending an hour each day with your family and putting a certain amount of money toward a travel fund each paycheck.

Plan, Plan, Plan

One of the most important lifestyle habits of successful and happy people is planning. Successful people plan each day, each week, and month.

Being organized will not only make you feel less stressed and more in control, but it will also make you feel super accomplished with you accomplish everything you had planned for the day and week.

We don’t recommend planning more than a month or two at a time though, because that can become overwhelming and cause more stress.

Get Up Early

Another important lifestyle habit to adopt is waking up early. The morning is a great time to think about your day, plan, and look back on your progress. It also always you to get a head start on the day which means you’ll have more time for yourself and your goals. 

Plus, everyone needs alone time to reflect. The morning is a great time to dedicate to this because you’ll find it very peaceful and (usually) quiet.

Let’s Start Your New Lifestyle Habits

Now that you know how to choose lifestyle habits that improve your life, you’re ready to get started. The best way to start is to get a digital bullet journal. A bullet journal allows you to plan, keep to-do lists, and track your daily habits. And, it’s all online so you have it wherever you go on any device.

Learn more about our digital bullet journal and try out here.

Jot These Down: 7 Amazing Mental Health Benefits to Journaling

By Elisi Studios

Most successful people keep a journal. But you don’t have to be the next Bill Gates or Walt Disney to enjoy journaling. According to the University of Rochester, journaling can ease stress, anxiety, and depression.

Here are 7 of the top health mental health benefits you can enjoy when you start a daily journaling habit.

Ease Anxiety

What’s a good way to get rid of the swirling thoughts running rampant through your head? Putting them on paper. Many people can get relief from their anxiety by releasing their thoughts. Take time to look at your anxiety. How many of your worries do you need to worry about now? Can you make changes to your behavior that would help them go away? You can find more tips to fight anxiety here.

Fight Depression

Like anxiety, journaling can help fight depression. Every day take time to list the things you’re grateful for or something that made you happy. Talk about one good thing that happened to you every day. Want more tips to boost your mood? Check out parts one and two here.

Clarify Your Thoughts and Feelings

This may seem like a weird mental health benefit, but it is. When you’re struggling with a big decision, journaling can help you weigh your pros and cons. Once everything is on paper, you can come to the best solution. Sometimes having an answer can provide peace and relief.

Release Your Stresses

What’s stressing you out? Are you mad at someone? Has someone hurt you? Write about it in your journal, and let it go. Use your journaling practice to forgive people who have done you wrong.

Organize Your Priorities

Overwhelmed with everything you have to do? Write it down and prioritize your list! Once things are on paper, your brain doesn’t have to hold on to that information anymore, so it can relax and let go. On top of that, you feel more in control because you know what you have to focus on first.

Improve Immune Function

One of the most surprising health benefits is an improved immune system. That’s right! Regular journaling can actually help keep you from getting sick. It can provide relief for those with autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis. Improved immune systems could come from relieving stress and anxiety, but it’s hard to say. Nonetheless, it’s a benefit we can all enjoy.

Improve Your Memory

Daily journaling can improve your memory. It forces you to practice active recall about things that happened during your day. But reviewing your journal can also help you recall – in your own words – things that happened a long time ago.

Journaling Provides A Wealth of Health Benefits

Whether you tried keeping a journal before, you can always start journaling today. You may enjoy keeping a fancy leather-bound journal and a nice pen. Many people struggle to carry their journal daily and thus drop their habit.

But you can start a journaling habit today, right on your phone. Download the Elisi App and start journaling today!

Calendar Integration

Since Elisi’s launch, calendar integration has been the most in-demand feature.  The app’s initial conception featured the compilation of a weekly to-do list, with no planned design for calendar events. However, after utilizing Elisi as a daily tool in the long term, we all realized the convenience that calendar events could offer. For this reason, we began work on calendar integration with Elisi. 

Surely, we have confronted some obstacles along the way. We needed to figure out how to parse iCal files, how to sync calendars across devices, and how to display the events in daily boxes, without overloading the interface or losing information. The hardest part, however, has been to avoid overfilling the interface with calendar events in the cases when an already full calendar is integrated. For now, we have made it easy to hide calendars, but we are open to other solutions that are more intuitive. 

To add calendars, please make sure you update Elisi to the latest version, click on “calendars” from the planner, and then simply follow the instructions.  We hope that you like this feature, and please don’t hesitate to give us your feedback.

Achieving A Work-Life Balance Using The GTD Technique

By Elisi Studios

People waste a lot of time. How much? One study involving small business owners discovered they wasted an average of almost 22 hours every week.

You might be wasting time right now, reading this to distract yourself from whatever it is you know you should be doing. Do you struggle to make the most out of your day? A productivity system may provide the discipline you need to stay on track.

Getting Things Done, or GTD, is a technique that can boost your productivity. Never heard of it? Written almost twenty years ago, it’s still considered one of the best books on productivity.

We’ll cover the basics.

What is the GTD System?

The Getting Things Done system doesn’t try to tell you how to do your work. Instead, it focuses on how you organize and tackle your daily obligations. The idea is, without organization, you won’t know where or what to begin.

Trying to remember everything is — well, it’s a waste of time. David Allen, the creator of the system, advocates the use of a to-do list or work calendar. This way, you can concentrate on the task and avoid being overwhelmed.

The Five GTD Methods

There’s a lot to unpack from the GTD methodology. It was a self-help book after all. But when trimmed down to its five basic tenets, it’s easy to understand.

1. Capture

Stop relying on your head to keep everything straight. The first step of the GTD process is to capture every task at hand. And by capture, we mean to get them out of your head and written down on a piece of paper.

Your organizational system doesn’t matter. Choose what fits your fancy. The important part is to, without fail, jot down even the most trivial of tasks.

Whatever you use, make sure it’s convenient and available. The worst thing you can do is tell yourself you’ll write it down later — and then forget.

2. Clarify

Since you’re listing tasks as soon as they come to your head, they’ll need some clarification. Perhaps you remembered you need to finish a college essay. Don’t leave it on your to-do list as complete college essay.

That doesn’t give you a good place to start. Break it into pieces, such as researchessay, construct outline, and so forth.

3. Organize

Now that you’ve broken your tasks into smaller parts, take some time to prioritize them. Remember to consider the deadlines of these projects, as well as your workload.

During this step, you should also categorize similar actions. Have a lot of writing to do? Clump those assignments together.

4. Reflect

Priorities change. As more tasks spring up, you may realize an assignment was not as stressing as it was before. You should spend a few times each day skimming through your list and making changes should you find them necessary.

As well as looking for changes, you should reflect on your current tasks. If you don’t look at your list to keep yourself organized, then what’s the point of making one?

5. Engage

With an organized list full of simple actions, you’ll know which task to start first. Keep your priority system in mind and work through your list at your leisure. Not only does this system erase the anxiety that comes with disorganization, but it also gives you the clear guidance you need to get started.

And getting started is everything.

Stay Organized With Elisi

The entire GTD system is hinged on the use of an intelligent and convenient planner. Simply put: Taking notes on your phone won’t be good enough.

Instead, consider the Elisi app. It’s a comprehensive digital journal that features a calendar, a to-do list, notes, and more. Try the Elisi app and see how it can increase your productivity.

Pomodoro Timer, A Time Management Tool You Should Try

By Elisi Studio

Time management is of the essence, and it’ll take some focus and concentration to put these sorts of practices into place.

Thankfully, there are plenty of time management tools that will help you out tremendously. Regardless of what sort of task you are focusing on, the tips in this article will help you get focused and stay focused.

Start with these tips so that you can use everything from apps to Pomodoro Timers to get help.

1. Use Time Management Tools on Your Phone or in Your Web Browser

There are several apps you can put onto your phone that will help you focus. Some of these apps you can look into include Forest, Wunderlist, Evernote, and Elisi.

If you want to use a time management timer, there are also apps that can let you make use of the Pomodoro technique. By striking this balance with your workflow, you’ll get the most out of these strategies.

Whether you download an app on your phone or use a web browser as a timer, you’ll have the help that you need.

2. Learn the Pomodoro Technique and Use it Regularly

The Pomodoro technique is one of the best productivity hacks that you can use on a regular basis.

With this technique, you are on and active for 25 minutes and take breaks of about 5 minutes.

The science behind this technique is that experts say your brain can’t focus for much longer than 25 minutes at a time. By voluntarily taking a break and then getting back to work, you will keep your mind fresh and avoid burnout.

3. Go For a Walk and Get Outside During Your Breaks

To really get the most out of the Pomodoro technique, be sure that you are moving your body and getting some fresh air.

When you walk, you increase your blood flow, which also increases the blood flow to your brain. You can also rejuvenate yourself by going outside and taking in some sunshine.

Both of these matters can keep you fresh and energized so that you feel great when it is time to go back to work.

4. Add a Meditation Practice to Your Time Management

The mental and productivity benefits of meditation can’t be overstated.

When you add meditation to some of your breaks, you will have more clarity and better cognitive function. Doing this will help you sustain an inner peace that will also carry you throughout every workday with a positive mindset.

Get the Most From Your Time Management

When you put these time management tools to use, you’ll be able to earn more money, study more and get more done.

Whether you work a 9-to-5 office job, are your own boss, or just want to study hard and retain the information for an exam, these tips have you covered. You’ll be able to maximize on this by not only using the Pomodoro technique but also incorporating some apps or tools that can be helpful.

Consider these tips so that you have a time management system that serves you.

Introducing Monthly View

Since the launch of Elisi, one feature that has been requested most often by our users is a monthly calendar view.

Initially we didn’t include a monthly view because we felt the weekly granularity provided a good balance between an overview and an actionable to-do list. However, customer feedback clearly indicated that a monthly calendar is needed by many of our users, and is better for planning the far future than a weekly view.

Designing the monthly view presented its share of difficulties, from both UI and technical viewpoints. There was the challenge of keeping the UI clean while still being functional; with a monthly view it is surprisingly easy to put too many things on the screen and lose focus. The technical challenge is how to optimize performance when suddenly Elisi had to show much more information than in a weekly view.

After several iterations and many weeks of internal testing, we are releasing the monthly view for everyone, starting today.

We hope you like Elisi’s interpretation of a monthly view. Please give it a try and tell us what you think.

Introducing Goals

Elisi has been a great tool for all of us at the Elisi team. We use Elisi to manage our daily lives, and to work on to-do lists and our hobby projects. On a big screen, Elisi really helps by putting everything in front of our eyes, so we can make organize things better, and track progress with confidence. 

Then the question arose: how would it be if Elisi could show all the items related to a single goal, and hide everything else? 

Say you are working on a bike project. Your goal is to build a bike from scratch. What if Elisi could act like a project board? Notes would show only notes about your bike design, lists would show only the lists related to your bike build, and planner would show only your bike-related to-dos on your weekly view.

And wouldn’t it also be nice if you could have multiple goals, such as work, life, bike, and kids, and Elisi were able to switch quickly between them? 

Well, that’s exactly what we’ve been developing. Today we are introducing Goals. With goals, Elisi becomes the project board that lets you focus on one objective, with the help of all existing Elisi modules. 

To start using Elisi goals, click or tap on the week number display, then select “Enter goal mode”. The rest of the process should be pretty straightforward: anything created in goal mode will belong to the goal. You reassign goals from each item’s details page. 

Please give the goal mode a try and let us know what you think.

4 Self-Management Skills You Can Easily Incorporate Into Your Life

Remember when you were a child and you thought that when you grew up, you’d be able to do whatever you wanted? How wrong we all were.

For many of us, it’s harder to achieve goals as adults because no one is pushing us. That is, until we learn the self-management skills that let us push ourselves.

Self-Management Skills Everyone Can Use

One of the few guarantees in life is that you will lose motivation every now and then. Keep yourself on track with these self-management techniques.

1. Creating Accountability Systems
Everyone talks about setting clear goals and writing them down. As important as that is, it’s rarely the only thing we need to keep us moving.

Hold yourself accountable for each task. For some people, positive reinforcement works best, so set rewards you can earn. For instance, if you complete this task today, you can watch the new episode of your favorite TV show.

Other people are more motivated by negative consequences. You might tell yourself that if you don’t complete that task, you have to deep-clean your refrigerator.

Use trial and error to find the rewards or consequences that motivate you best. Above all, track them in your planner and follow through with them.

2. Crafting Success-Based Routines
Sometimes we have big goals but we never start the little steps it takes to achieve them. This especially true if we’re working toward multiple goals at the same time.

Set up a daily routine that includes steps toward each of your goals. This might include an exercise regimen, reaching out to business contacts, organizing one area of your home each day, and more.

When you have that routine, keep track and hold yourself accountable. A bullet journal is a simple way to see your progress.

3. Managing Stress
As important as motivation is, you can’t solve all of life’s problems by working harder. In fact, pushing yourself too hard and burning out will do more harm than good in the long run.

Make your mental health a priority and include stress management in your daily routine.

There are plenty of helpful options: meditation, exercise, aromatherapy, bubble baths, reading a book, or playing a video game to name a few. Find out what works and make time for it.

4. Being Selectively Social
Self-management isn’t just about you. None of us exist in a vacuum, so the people you surround yourself with will impact your success too.

Keep this in mind as you look around your social group. If there are people in your life who push you to do things that go against your goals, take a step back.

Try making friends with people who have similar goals. This could include your co-workers or other people in your industry. If weight loss or fitness is a key goal for you, get social with other people at your gym.

Being Your Own Boss

Whether you’re your own employer or you just need to hold yourself accountable for your outside goals, self-management is no easy task. In many ways, it’s easier to motivate others than it is to motivate ourselves.

If you’re struggling, the self-management skills above can help you get out of your own way and get on the road to success.

For more help, check out the Elisi self-management app.

Why is Meditation Good for You? 7 Benefits You Will Find From Meditation

Do you deal with brain fog? Trouble focusing? You may need to add meditation to your daily routine.

If you’re asking yourself “why is meditation good for you”, then you need to check out this list of seven benefits you’ll enjoy once you start meditation.

1. Helps Achieve Goals

Wondering why meditation is good for you? For starters, it can help you achieve your goals. Whether they be personal or professional goals, adding meditation to your daily routine can improve brain function.

When brain function improves, so do the levels of brain integration. This increases your attention and allows you to be better at problem-solving, so you can better achieve your goals and be more productive.

2. Increase Your Creativity

Do you deal with writer’s block or loss of creativity? Meditation can help. If your mind is full of chatter and chaos, you’re not able to create.

When you meditate, you’re able to quiet all the chatter. This allows for incredible content and ideas to flow more freely.

3. Serves as a Memory Booster

Do you struggle with remembering things? Are you constantly making notes and keeping reminders on your phone? Give meditation a try.

Meditation can improve your memory by clearing your mind of the mumbo jumbo.

4. Pain Reduction

Wondering why you should meditate? If you deal with physical pain, you can benefit from meditation. Meditation and mindfulness can greatly decrease the pain levels in people with chronic pain.

By enhancing emotional and cognitive control, an individual can experience less pain as a result of using meditative practices.

5. Helps with Depression

If you struggle with depression, you should give meditation a try. Why does meditation work for depression? Deep breathing and clearing the mind can decrease depression.

When you regularly practice meditation, you increase your control over how your brain processes. This can help you better recognize negative thoughts and triggers so that you can work through them easier.

6. Reduce Stress

Do you struggle with stress and anxiety? Just like meditation helps with depression, it can also alleviate stress and anxiety. Meditation can lessen the release of cortisol, the stress hormone that affects your entire body.

Deep breathing exercises help calm your mind so you can deal with stressors in a more productive way.

7. Get More Beauty Sleep

Looking for more reasons to meditate? If you struggle with getting a good night’s sleep, meditation could be the answer you’re looking for. Meditation helps to calm your brain and clear your mind of the racing thoughts that keep you from getting your beauty sleep.

Why Is Meditation Good for You?

If you’ve assumed that meditation is just a fad, think again. There are so many benefits to using meditation and becoming more mindful. Now that you know the answer to “why is meditation good for you?”, you can start practicing today!

Want more ideas on living your best life? Check out Elisi self-improvement blog for more tips and tricks!