Bullet Journaling for Assisted Living Success: Daily Matrix Plan
Jan 13, 2025
Managing a busy life can feel like juggling too many balls at once. Between running an assisted living facility, focusing on personal life, and building a side hustle, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. That’s where Matrix Planning comes in—a simple, visual system that helps you organize your day, stay focused, and get more done.
With just a notebook or index card, you can turn chaos into clarity. Let’s dive into how this method works and how it can transform your planning game!
Check out the video, too:
What Is Matrix Planning?
Matrix Planning breaks your day into small, manageable sections using a grid. It has rows for different times of the day (like morning, afternoon, and evening) and columns for key life areas (like family, work, and your side hustle).
By filling in each section, you can see exactly what needs to be done and when, giving you control over your time.
How to Set Up Your Matrix Plan
Step 1: Draw Your Grid
On an index card or in a notebook, draw a grid with three rows and three columns.
- Rows = Times of Day: Morning, Afternoon, Evening
- Columns = Life Areas: Family/Personal, Primary Job, Side Hustle
You now have a simple template to organize your day!
Step 2: Add Routines
Fill in tasks or habits you do every day. These are your “anchors.”
- Morning (Family/Personal): Morning walk or journaling.
- Evening (Family/Personal): Relaxing with family or reading.
Adding routines keeps your day grounded and consistent.
Step 3: Fill in Daily Tasks
Look at your to-do list and future log (if you use one). Add tasks to the grid by time and category. For example:
- Morning (Primary Job): Staff meeting at 9:00 AM.
- Afternoon (Side Hustle): Call the state for Medicaid updates.
- Evening (Family/Personal): Dinner with family at 6:30 PM.
The Benefits of Matrix Planning
Matrix Planning is simple but powerful. Here’s why it works:
- Visual Clarity: See your day at a glance. No more hunting through long to-do lists.
- Flexibility: Didn’t finish something? Move it to another time or day.
- Focus: Break your day into small, focused chunks to avoid overwhelm.
Ways to Enhance Your Matrix
Use Colors
Add a splash of color for different categories or priority levels. For example:
- Blue = Family/Personal
- Green = Work
- Yellow = Side Hustle
Flip the Card
Use the back for notes, ideas, or quick reminders related to your tasks.
Track Progress
Mark tasks as done with a checkmark or a smiley face. It’s satisfying and keeps you motivated!
Why Matrix Planning Is Perfect for Assisted Living Owners
Running an assisted living facility is no small feat. You’re balancing:
- Resident care
- Staff management
- Business growth
Matrix Planning keeps you focused on what matters most. By organizing your time, you’ll handle work, family, and your side hustle without dropping the ball.
Final Thoughts
Matrix Planning isn’t just a scheduling tool—it’s a game-changer for anyone managing a busy life. With just a few minutes of setup each day, you’ll feel more in control, less stressed, and ready to tackle whatever comes your way.
Start your Matrix Plan today and see how it transforms your productivity!
Ready to Plan Your Way to Success?
If you need help building a solid business plan to launch your assisted living business, download our Business Plan Checklist for a comprehensive guide to developing a successful business plan for your assisted living facility. This resource will help you outline your goals, strategies, and necessary steps to build a thriving business.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00
So, if you watched my last video and didn't understand how matrix planning works, you're in luck. Today, we're going to get into a plan with me video on how to do matrix planning. Hi everybody. I'm Brandon Gustafson. I own and operate two assisted living facilities, and I created this channel to help people just like you learn the ins and outs of investing in assisted living. Welcome to Assisted Living in [Music] In my last video, I talked about a new bullet journaling method, matrix
00:00:37
planning. Something that I've created and I'm super passionate about. I'm happy I'm so excited to share it with you today and get into how I do it. Um, and how it works. Now, before I get into the tutorial, uh, I'm just going to give you an overview. Um, I'm going to tell you how to set up the card, um, how to fill in your to-do list, and then, um, how to just like wrap it all up into one nice big package, uh, and make it work. So, excited to do that. Let's get into the tutorial. All right, so we're going
00:01:06
to get into the tutorial for how to do matrix planning. So, the first thing that you're going to do is create four horizontal lines. Um, that is going to create uh, three different rows rows. So, this is a card. Um, and I'll link this down below in the the bio so that you can go in and and find something like this. Um, I really like these cards because they give you kind of the dot grid. Um, which I really like that you can find in bullet journals. U, but you could use any index card, anything that
00:01:34
you want. Um, you could also use a a ruler to help keep your lines straight if that's something that's important to you. Um, I know for some people it is, and so you might want to to have that in there and keep your line straight. Um, so that's something that you might be interested in doing. I'm just going to freehand it. So if it doesn't look great, that's fine. All right. So the first one, again, we want to do four horizontal lines. Um, so we're going to I'm just going to try to keep it kind of
00:02:02
on those dots right there. We'll do one um this one I'm going to do in between some dots because I want these um rows to be kind of even. And um we'll do the same thing right here. And then down at the bottom. So, I've got these four horizontal lines in there. So, you've got these three rows. One, two, three. Um, and these are going to be your times a day. Um, the next thing you're going to do is you're going to put in um four um uh vertical lines. Okay. So, the first one we're going to throw right
00:02:33
here. We'll just put one right there on that line. Um the next one we'll put right here. And then we'll put one right here in between those. So, it keeps these kind of even. and we'll throw them there at the end. So now this is your matrix. You've got now one, two, three rows and you've got one, two, three columns um in your matrix. That's that's the matrix. That's how you make the matrix right there. Um and now I'm going to just kind of label these. So these are your times
00:03:02
a day. So I've got A.M. and I've got PM and then I have the evening. And I just put even. Um, for me it's just a little bit easier to do there, but it stands for the the evening. And then in this one, we're going to call this column the family and personal items. Then, um, over here, this will be my job cuz I have a normal W2 job. That looks horrible. Um, and then, um, over here will be my side hustle. Um so for me this is assisted living or it could be the um YouTube channel or any other
00:03:40
thing that you are working on. Um but those are um some good buckets for you as you're working on this. Now the what I like to do is I have routines that I do in the morning um and in the evening. So I fill those in first off. Um that's the first thing that I do. It's very easy to kind of put those in there and fill in the AM routine and the the the evening routine. And so I will put those in and they are to-dos. So they're going to be that dot that we talked about that I'll link up above in um the different
00:04:11
symbols that you use for bullet journaling. But this will be the A.M. routine. Then down here I have a nighttime routine. So I'm just going to put night routine right there. So I know those things are happening. I don't even have to look at my to-do list or my backlog or or anything like that. My future log. I don't have to look at any of that because I know those are the things that I'm going to do. Now, what I would do in this next situation is I'm going to look at um my future log and I'm going to
00:04:42
say, okay, what are the things that I need to do? What are the things that I want to get done today? Because that's what I'm doing on here. Um I'll even put like, you know, the date on here. So, let's just say that it's January 1st, um 2022, even though that's not the the date. I know that. Um but it's just a quick and easy date. We know exactly what that is. Um but I'll put that date up there. Um, you could even put the day of the week. So, let's say it's a
00:05:03
Monday. I don't think it's a Monday, but let's just say it is. So, you could track um those things by labeling it up here. Um, or you could throw it on the the back of the card, um, if you wanted to. And the other nice thing about this is, um, you could flip that over and you could do your notes here on the back of the card as well. Um, okay. So, now we've got the matrix, we've got AM, PM, we've got our our different, um, areas of of life. Got my routines on there. I'm going to now put in I'm going to
00:05:30
have lunch with my um daughters on at 12 o'clock. Um so I'm going to put lunch uh with girls right here. And again, because um it's a meeting, I'm going to use that circle icon um to to get that on here and and make it work. Um next is my job. And so my full-time job, I am a data analyst. I work a lot with data, healthcare data. Uh, it's what I do as a a full-time job. So, I'm going to put in here um data analysis project as a to-do item for me. Data analysis project project.
00:06:10
And in this part of it, I'm going to be looking at my um backlog, my future log to see what are the tasks that I have on my on my list that I need to get done. Um, you might even consider putting in the meetings first and then filling in um other other to-do items um as as you move along with that. So, um I've got a team meeting at 9:00 in the morning. So, I'm going to put that on here. And then I also have a webinar that I've got to watch for work at 1:30 webinar. And then I'm also gonna, this
00:06:49
is a pretty big project, so I'm gonna actually mark it down here for two to-do items for me, but I'm going to do part of it in the morning. I'm going to work on it again in the afternoon, and I want to kind of keep that separate for me. This helps me feel like I'm being more productive by having it in there twice. So, data analysis, um, project right here. Then, I don't like to work in the evenings for my full-time job. I try to get everything that that I can in the AM and the PM. Um, that's not to say that I
00:07:17
don't work in the evenings. I do sometimes. Um, but I'm going to leave it blank because I don't have any to-dos um for the evening for my job um this time. Then over here at the side hustle, um I'm going to put in here I have a call at 11:30. Um but this is not like a scheduled call. So I'm actually not going to put it as a a dot. I'm going to cross that out because I accidentally put that in the wrong way. I need to call the state. And this is a to-do. I do want to do it at at 11:30. I could
00:07:44
put a time in there if I want, but I'm not going to. I'm going to say call state. Um I I need to ask them a question about the way that Medicaid is is running um for us. And and so I'm going to give them a call. And then at 4:30 um I have our um administrator meeting. Um so I'm going to put that in here. Admin meeting. And then in the evening um I I need to do review our books. I need to look at the financials and make sure that they're good. So, this is going to be um financial
00:08:14
and I'm going to just call it research because I'm I'm trying to find out information on different programs that we can take advantage of as an assisted living facility. So, you can see right there now I've got this nice um matrix um view of my to-do list. I have these are the things that are going on in the morning. I'm going to do my AM routine. Um I've got a meeting at 9 and then I need to work on this project and call a state. That's very manageable. I can do that. Um, in the afternoon I'm
00:08:41
prioritizing. I'm putting lunch with my daughters um on there. I've got a webinar at 1:30 and at 4:30. So, I've got probably a good two-hour chunk that I'm going to work on this data analysis project now. And I can keep um that in place. And then in the evening, I'm going to do my nighttime routine and then um I'm going to do my financial research as well in the evening. I personally am a night person. Um I I function a lot better in the evening and so that's what I I like to do. I I spend
00:09:08
a lot of time um in the evening. This is a very basic and um version of of a matrix plan. Mine actually has quite a bit more on there, but this gives you a really good idea on how you can build this out. Um and then you use the same icons that we did um that we talked about in the tutorial of what bullet journaling is. So, I did my AM routine. Um I I went to and had lunch with the girls. I did my nighttime routine. This team meeting got cancelled. Um so, we didn't have it. And um I actually didn't
00:09:39
get a chance to do the data analysis project. Something came up. Um so I'm going to forward that. But I did get it done in the the morning. So that was good. Um the webinar was great. Um and I took notes on the back of my my card here and it's all good. I was able to call the state which was great. I had a good conversation with them which helped me get my financial research done um effectively in the afternoon. and we had a really good meeting with our administrator and I've got notes on that
00:10:05
um in my agenda online um which I've also shared um I'll make sure that that is linked and if you go to assisted livinginvesting.net you'll be able to get that free resource there as well. So that's kind of how I do it and now I can look at this and be like oh what did I do? What do I need to do? If you love colors you could even color code a lot of this stuff um and get it how you need it to be. Um but there you go. There's the overview of matrix planning tutorial. How to plan with me as you are
00:10:32
getting your information ready to go um using matrix planning. I really hope that that uh daily planning session was was helpful to you that you learned a lot from it. I I love this method. I'm super excited to see how it works for you. Make sure you like the video. Uh comment down below. Was this helpful for you to kind of go through that type of a process? I would love to kind of go through some of these planning sessions with you so that you can better learn how to plan um your life and how to be a
00:11:00
little bit more effective as a business owner and just in your personal life as well. It's something that I am super passionate about and I think has allowed me to be successful. I know this channel is about assisted living um and how to how to get up and and run a business and how to run an assisted living facility, but I really think that these types of skills are key in helping you be successful and be productive in getting things done. And so that's why I'm spending quite a bit of time here
00:11:25
talking about bullet journaling and matrix planning. And I'm going to get into some other tools here in the next little bit so that you can learn um how to use these tools to your advantage to be a better business owner and get things done. In my next video, uh we're going to talk about what is notion. So, I talked about this in a previous video as well that I'll link up above. Um but what is notion and and how I kind of use it to uh work and organize my life a little bit more in addition to what I do
00:11:52
with bullet journaling. I'm excited to kind of share that information with you as well. And to learn more about uh investing in assisted living, make sure you visit me on assistedlivinginvesting.net. I have some free resources up there, a blog, you can set up a consulting call with me and we can have a conversation and help you through the process of getting uh things set up for you to be a successful business owner and a successful owner of a of an assisted living facility and a successful
00:12:18
operator. And remember, it doesn't take a lot. Just just a little bit. Keep going. Keep making progress step by step by step. If you do it and you're consistent, I promise you, you're going to be successful and everything's going to work out for you. Thanks for watching and have a great day. [Music]
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