
Bullet Journaling (2016) - rfreytag
https://www.popsci.com/bullet-journal-guide
======
null000
This article reads like someone stumbled onto something they liked, then
reasoned backwards to why everyone should use it.

Like all productivity things - if it works for you, great. But maybe don't
assume your thing is _the magic thing_ that will fix everyone else's problems
just like it might have your own. Likewise, there's a pretty big difference
between something that feels productive and something that is productive -
something that constantly grates the back of my brain whenever I look at some
of these over-elaborate bullet journal examples.

~~~
cik
The other thing to remember is that these systems change over time. I'm a
productivity nerd - I constantly change what I do and what works for me,
because at different times in my life (say every ~2 years) I stumble across a
system that works better for the next period. There is no magic bullet.

~~~
andrelaszlo
What are you using right now, and what did you use before that? (Main day to
day system)

~~~
jungler
Not parent, but I can chime in with my current system: Simple logs that I can
search and copy.

The key for me is that it's not about the format. The format changes with the
context: I have a different logging strategy for fitness(Fitnotes app, and
since I was just gifted one this past week, a Fitbit) from the logging used
for programming notes(repetitive short block comments with date, time, and
sometimes title). I have a generic diary text file that contains catch-all
musings, but I am increasingly using different logs for different tasks since
I don't currently face a lot of time contention that would necessitate a
detailed calendar.

My logs are not just what happened but also what I wanted to happen on that
date. I'll often copy-paste the same to-do list when I didn't finish it that
day, or "redraft" the same thought an hour after I first logged it, with some
elaborations. Keeping it around, I learn what is or isn't working at a glance
by skimming over these repeats hours to months later.

Having the date and time is essential to this because it makes the log a
progression: my recent activity is my most important, most of the time, and so
in the case of the programming logs, I can gradually edit and eliminate them
as the code changes and the momentary thoughts of "I need to do this next"
grow irrelevant, while if it's something like a log of weight/reps/sets, I
just want to copy, increment the numbers a little higher, and add a note about
anything weird that day that may have made me change plans.

When I really need freeform notes I will turn to paper, and I can see bullet
journaling techniques being worth trying in the future for adding some
structure to those. As long as I have dates I can usually recreate the context
of any particular note, though.

Something I just thought of: is there a browser extension that would automate
logging my history when I want to research something? That's a pretty common
task that I currently address manually with a lot of right clicks and
ctrl+C's.

------
cbhl
Ryder Carroll just released his book _The Bullet Journal Method_ in October
2018. Highly recommend giving it a skim; it's a highly opinionated template
about where to start with Bullet Journaling (kind of like Ruby on Rails or
React for Bullet Journaling).

That said, if you are just getting started, it's way too easy to fall in the
trap of setting up the tool instead of actually being productive. You want to
fail cheaply and quickly: I'd recommend starting with unstructured paper
(loose-leaf paper or a memo pad or whatever is handy) and doing just rapid
logging for two or three days to see if you find it helpful. (The list of
bullets can be found at
[https://bulletjournal.com/pages/learn](https://bulletjournal.com/pages/learn))
If you find that helpful, then you can dig deeper with buying the book and/or
buying a notebook.

~~~
FPGAhacker
Yeah, that's a problem/trap I fall into a lot with any sort of productivity
aid. Omnifocus was a nightmare for me. I never did finish tweaking it to be
just "right" because I really didn't know what "right" was.

~~~
ubermonkey
Oh, holy crap THIS.

I tried with OF for a long time, but I never got it quite right - plus, mobile
capture seemed needlessly slow and fiddly, and then they rev'd the tool to
include WAY more white space and WAY less information density, and that was it
for me.

I ended up in OrgMode, of all places, which is kind of funny since I wasn't
really an emacs person before. Obviously, I am now.

I trust it in a way I don't think I ever really trusted OF, and I find myself
using it much more consistently and religiously. It's been really good for me.

------
mosselman
It seems to me that people have trouble with being bored. So they need to fill
their time being 'productive'. Instead of drawing fancy headers for
'Wednesday' or 'Spanish' you could also just doodle for the heck of it. No,
no, no, you are not allowed to just draw for the sake of drawing, you must be
working on your productivity.

That is all fine of course, but I think you'd be a lot happier just drawing
for fun and being smart and efficient about handling your todos as many have
stated here, through basic lists on any piece of paper.

~~~
egypturnash
Consider: drawing a fancy header as a way to clear other things out of your
mind and start considering things like "just what the hell _do_ I want and/or
need to do today?".

Consider: unique headers and other doodles act as memory aids when you are
flipping through old journals looking for a particular thing. "I'm pretty sure
it was close to a drawing of a blue cat eating pie."

I won't argue that Western civilization doesn't have a huge problem with
wanting to pack every moment full of "useful productivity" though. If one of
these gives someone an excuse to get down to some serious doodling then I
can't see that as bad.

~~~
mosselman
It is easy to find arguments for anything in hindsight as you did and that
doesn't make the 'method' anymore valid or generally useful to everyone and I
didn't say it is a bad thing.

I find it a shame that apparently many of us have problems with doing things
just for fun without feeling guilty about not being productive. You can do
whatever you want with your time though and for any reason. I am not telling
anyone what to do here ;)

------
jaggederest
Frankly, like so many other "productivity" tools, you end up spending more
time "using productivity tools" than you actually receive in benefit.
Especially journals, since they continue to grow indefinitely, becoming an
entire project in themselves.

I prefer a whiteboard, precisely because there is only a certain amount of
space. Divide it about 2/3rds between "older generation" and "younger
generation", garbage collect aggressively, and you're done with learning the
process. Write whatever you like. Stick things to it with magnets, if you have
the better magnetic kind, or blue painter's tape, if you do not.

~~~
hliyan
Agreed. Never could find a tool/technique that didn't wear off after a few
months.

I try to follow this rule of thumb: "Never let an item cross your desk (or
inbox) twice if you can avoid it."

Which means you try to action something the very first time you see it.

~~~
jen729w
Yeah. JFDI is about as simple and effective as it gets.

------
RickS
I eventually moved on to todoist, which I like a lot, but the bullet journal
was really valuable for me in the past. Especially all of the addons the
community has invented.

My favorite by far was this habit tracker, which is self explanatory:
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ca/c1/56/cac1563b454d07db2662...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ca/c1/56/cac1563b454d07db266240fc45854ed1.jpg)

I ended up slightly modifying their bulleting system to better meet my needs -
I wanted more granularity in rebalancing tasks across days/weeks/months since
I have to reschedule the majority of my tasks at least once, but overall it's
a really fantastic system, and probably the most resilient I've ever found for
my flavor of ADHD.

I recommend planning the journal upfront somewhat. I browsed pinterest and
instagram exhaustively for photos of how people structured theirs, and planned
mine once I felt I had a good grasp of what ideas were available.

------
talltimtom
I feel like the act of writing down things on paper is becoming way to
buzzwordified. Personally I just write notes, todos, calendars etc down on a
college notepad, no need for all sorts of supplies or fancy notebook, and no
need to subscribe to any one religion of how to do it.

Find some paper, find a pen, write stuff down. Keep it simple.

~~~
qznc
I have adopted one convention: If I need to act on something later, I put a
box to its left. Once I acted on it, I tick it off with a checkmark.

For example, during I a meeting I realize a problem in our software which is
unrelated to the actual meeting agenda. I jot down a box and a few words in my
college notepad. Later, when I have a few minutes, the "few words" are
expanded into a proper ticket in our issue tracker and the box is ticked off.

I strive to tick off every box in my notepad by the end of the day. Sometimes
that just means writing it down elsewhere (Email, electronic todo list,
OneNote, Jira, etc).

~~~
neverartful
I do something very similar to this. I put a box to left of action items, but
instead of checkmarks I put '/' if it's in progress and then 'X' when it's
complete. This allows for quick visual scans of what things still require
attention.

For anything I run into that's a problem (gotcha, bug, mistake that requires a
task to be re-started), I mark with '*' in left margin. This makes it easy for
me to quickly find it later.

For things that are super important, I draw a box around the whole entry.

I'm also very conscious to keep things very brief and intentionally obscure
(don't write last names and never write customer names), to avoid potential
problems of having any sensitive information leaked. If I'm working with Marty
McFly of Acme Inc. on a joint project Time Travel v2.0, I would only write
things like 'respond to Marty concerns'.

------
chasing
I spend my day at my laptop and on my phone for professional reasons. Any
task-list tool needs to live there.

After years of trying different tools, Things 3 has stuck. For reasons I’m not
even totally clear on. Maybe it’s the nice clean look. Maybe it’s the sync
between laptop and phone. It’s not radically different from any other piece of
task-list software. And yet, it seems to work for me.

Admittedly it’s tough to take Instagram-friendly photos of it to brag to
everyone how cleverly organized I am...

------
xte
I personally observed that write down things with pen and paper help memory, I
also observed that reading thing on paper instead screen help again and
finally mere write down in digital help comprehension like on paper but being
able to modify anything "cost-free" reduce a bit the attention you punt in
writing. Vocal dictation is awful.

But there is a big but: I'm really disorganized. I try to be organized on
regularly basis and it work at first, after start to decline until I reach a
point that I came back and focus again on reorganize.

In this scenario my digital world is essentially organized thanks to
automation and periodic cleanup, my physical world of sparse note on any peace
of paper I may get at hand, left anywhere, forgotten, only the ticket I
regularly collect when I refuel my car and I periodically forget to register
with only casual look at my on-line bank account... Well make me practically
unable of such proper&clean records...

Long story short: a prize, but personally I have to stick with org mode...

------
mynegation
I have been doing journaling long before Bullet Journaling was a thing.
Started with Moleskine and now I use Leuchtturm1917 that was mentioned in the
article. Cycled through many pens, but liked only two: Uni-ball Onyx and Pilot
V5 Hi-tecpoint (that I currently use), both in 0.5mm thickness.

I still do a lot of PIM stuff on the computer and iPhone: Google Calendar,
Informant got TODOs, lists in Paperless app, because portability of a phone
and other niceties like calendar reminders are hard to beat. I use journal
mainly for more free-form things and brainstorming that involves drawing
doodles, mind maps, and also some reflection.

~~~
rzzzt
I like the Signo 0.5 mm pens; its ink dries quickly enough for left-handed
use.

My only annoyance is that when they are near-empty, the lines get spotty and
inconsistent instead of turning brighter/weaker.

------
dvcrn
I used a bulletjournal for one year. It's very nice and has something zen-like
to sit down and write on paper with a nice pen, but in the end I spent too
much time maintaining the system. I tried to come up with cool spreads for
tracking movies I want to watch, money I borrowed to people, credit card
balances over time visualized and and and, but most of these spreads became
annoying to update and drifted into being not complete, or I started dreading
having to update it every month.

I also didn't like creating the monthly spread at the beginning of each month.
Yes the point is that you get an overview of what's actually going on, but the
more often I did it, the more often I didn't want to do it. It also meant that
my bulletjournal monthly spread had to be kept in sync with my digital
calendar which I needed for nagging me about events. Actual future planning
was another restriction that was very difficult to get around. The yearly view
works ok-ish, some other more complex systems were too much for me to try.

After a while, despite me really wanting to use my system, it just wasn't
convenient. I spent too much time adding data into it, couldn't immediately
jot things down when I was on the go, still had to use an app, and had more
weight in my bag. I didn't like the feeling when I knew I forgot to write
things down and my daily spread being incomplete. It was also pretty
restrictive in what I could actually do given that it's just paper and ink.

I am bouncing between different setups these days but have been with Things 3
and a GTD-ish kind of approach now. I am now and then grabbing my BuJo though
and still want to give it another proper go at some point. A completely
digital version with a free-form ish text based editor similar to taskpaper or
agenda would be very appealing!

~~~
bitexploder
Org mode in Emacs... it’s old, but it works. It hyper links. It exports to
almost any format. It lets you have complex notes. It can do agendas. It’s
awesome at searchable notes. It’s plain text.

~~~
balladeer
Is there anything equivalent for Vim or other text editors like TextMate,
Sublime, TextWrangler or so? Asking because I don't use Emacs but do use Viim
and other apps.

~~~
bitexploder
Nothing as complete that I know of. It isn’t crazy to use Emacs just for Org
Mode. At least check under the hood and see what you think some time. I know
some vim users that use Emacs solely for Org :)

------
miccah
Last I checked Leuchtturm1917 is not dead.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002TSIMW4](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002TSIMW4)

~~~
mynegation
Author probably meant that the other notebook is now in vogue.

~~~
mikestew
Ironically, the Amazon link to the other journal _is_ dead. (It’s on Amazon,
you’ll just have to search manually.)

~~~
voltagex_
OT: $37+ AUD, crazy.

~~~
mikestew
What’s crazy is the AUD price, which is higher than current exchange rate
would suggest. Should be about $30AUD. But I don’t have to tell you about
Aussie prices, eh?

------
cortesoft
My issue is that I have dismal handwriting and my hand hurts after writing
more than a word or two. I have always been a typer, hated writing by hand.

It is easy to say now I should have learned to write better as a kid, but it
isn't like I didn't try. I am 35 now, I think that ship has sailed.

I will stick to digital.

~~~
jaggederest
I learned, as part of other neurological investigations, that I may suffer
from "dysgraphia", which is actually neurological difficulty with writing that
doesn't affect other common tasks (e.g. typing). Turns out it's in the sort of
family with dyslexia and dyscalculia, but much less diagnosed since it is less
relevant these days.

So maybe it's not about how hard you tried or a failure of learning, but that
you're just not meant to write longhand and it's not your fault. I certainly
felt better about my abysmal handwriting after learning some of the mechanisms
behind it.

------
kn8
This is easy to dismiss with the wide spread use of digital tools, but
something about doing this seems to be deeply beneficial. And the bullet
journaling technique specifically is surprisingly flexible and effective. I
think some of it’s features could be transferred into our digital tools.

~~~
rfreytag
It should translate directly to a Surface and Surface Pen. So you get the slow
thought of doing something with a pen and the accessibility of a digital
medium.

~~~
jmiserez
Also consider an e-Ink alternative like reMarkable. Less features, but closer
to real paper.

~~~
belenos46
The hype looks good on this, but the reviews are pretty brutal. Losing pages
on export, then updating the original file to the lossy file? Yikes.

~~~
jmiserez
I think the import/export is no longer lossy since the recent updates, they've
been fixing tons of issues.

I've only got it a week, so fingers crossed they fixed that one.

~~~
belenos46
That would be great. I may ping you in a couple weeks to see what your opinion
is. I really like the _idea_ , but I also have a notebook and a camera in my
phone.

------
TarpitCarnivore
I tried using Bullet Journal for a few months this past year and what I loved
most was the modularity in it. It was easy enough to use it month to month and
let it evolve versus diving headfirst into the massive world of it. What
worked out best was the index piece of it by making it easy to flip back
through your notes.

Where it fell apart the most for me was on weekends when I wasn't working, or
with a notebook all the time. So I'd just end up opening my phone and then
forgetting to move the notes over. And vice versa, if I forgot my notebook I
wouldn't have my notes on me.

I've been trying to find a digital solution that lets me keep a notebook at
work and easily put those into digital tracking. The closest I found was
Agenda ([https://agenda.com](https://agenda.com)) but it's kind of over
engineered for my needs. I know Notion is well liked, but again it's overly
complex for my needs.

------
ptman
I left writing notes by hand since digital alternatives are easier to archive
and search. But the remarkable has given me a useful tool that combines both.

Initially the software was lacking, but it seems to be the exception to the
rule that electronic devices don't tend to improve over time without upgrading
to the next model

I have a coupon code somewhere (that also benefits me) in case anyone is
interested

------
Groxx
Personal preference: cut out notches or add post-it "flags" or something to
pages to mark categories, either as a replacement for an index page or to
augment it. You can easily add more than one per page, and it makes it super
duper simple to flip through them quickly.

------
kkwteh
At work, I use elements of bullet journaling but instead of using a paper
journal I use my personal DM channel in Slack. This way I can quickly paste
useful code / data into my journal and run searches efficiently.

------
Kagerjay
I only use my bullet journal for summarizing things I did yesterday, to
capture screenshots/gifs for sysadmin related tasks, to make an ongoing study
about something has changed over time (UX/UI of a few sites), to write about
challenges I currently face. It's there if I really need it. It only captures
past events so it doesn't become a maintenance task

------
cayblood
These kinds of systems tend only to work for people who don't need to
coordinate their schedule with a significant other. Using online synchronized
tools was the only way to prevent our family from constantly being unaware of
upcoming events because only one person recorded it on paper somewhere.

------
shiftpgdn
This page blocks browsers running an adblocker, so here is the content of the
article: ___

One notebook could replace all the productivity apps that have failed you A
nerd’s guide to bullet journaling

By Amy Schellenbaum December 30, 2016

bullet journal Notebook. Pen. That's all you need.

Photo by Estée Janssens via Unsplash

You may have heard of bullet journaling, probably from your sister or your
coworker or some other enviably competent person you have the pleasure of
knowing. It’s a productivity pocketknife—customizable, indispensable,
satisfying to use—that is helping people track and organize anything and
everything in their lives.

Its popularity blossomed in spring 2016 and intensified as back-to-school
season approached. Now that January 1—a heady day for the latent productivity
nerd—is so close, the bullet journaling community is evangelizing in full
force. Myself included, I guess.

Intrigued? Here’s everything you need to know.

What is bullet journaling? First of all, the system is totally analog. By that
I mean it is done with a notebook (any notebook!) and a pen (or pencil, if
you’re one of those people). It’s so simple it’s stupid. It’s so simple it’s
brilliant, too.

The idea first percolated in the brain of a dude named Ryder Carroll, who
explains the concept very succinctly in this video. The basic premise is this:
you have one book that contains every list, note, and plan in your life. It’s
like a planner, except not at all like a planner—because there are no
templates and no rules. Because of this, it’s very flexible and low-pressure.
It’s nothing more than you can handle; it’s exactly as ambitious or exhaustive
as you need at the exact time you are using it.

The concept hinges on just two “requirements” (they’re not really required,
honestly): an index and numbered pages. These elements let you see, at a
glance, where to find the exact list you want to refer to—goals for the month,
plans for your trip to Bermuda, health insurance reminders, etc.

~~~
stevenhuang
Thank you. The page is still trying to load after making over 500 requests in
5 seconds. The amount of garbage that gets loaded is insane.

Look at these generated urls!

c-3sux78kvnkay76x24ijtx2ekshkjrex2eius.g01.popsci.com/g00/3_c-3ccc.vuvyio.ius_/c-3SUXKVNKAY76x24nzzvyx3ax2fx2fijt.kshkjre.iusx2fpyx2fgrr.k5gij614.pyx3fo76i.sgx78qx3dyix78ovz_$/$/$?i10c.ua=1&i10c.dv=18

~~~
wyclif
I hate the way Popular Science loads all this garbage in a failed attempt to
get people to deactivate their ad blockers. Awful UX.

------
matte_black
I tried bullet journaling for a while.

The one thing I took away from it was how useful it was to have your own index
for a book that can be filled with random stuff from all sorts of topics. All
my years of going to school and having different notebooks for each class, and
I never once realized this obvious technique for keeping everything in
organized in one notebook.

~~~
kuu
One question: how do you create the index if you don't have the content yet?
How do you decide the length of that topic? Do you just guess?

~~~
diffeomorphism
You leave blank space for the index or table of contents and add page numbers
as you write the content.

So algebra notes might be on pages 2-10, 20-23,43-47; shopping lists on 11 and
19; Christmas ideas on 17-18. You can of course leave blank pages after a
shopping list for the next one, but with an updated index and page numbers you
can easily find the next shopping list page (you can also write "continued on
page ..." at the bottom).

Another very different system would be to use binders (or digital notebooks)
where you can easily add pages. However, then page numbers become tricky and
you lose the chronological information of what was written in which order.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
> However, then page numbers become tricky

Back when we were programming in BASIC, the 'solution' to the equivalent
problem (line numbering) was to start by incrementing in tens rather than
ones.

------
mirimir
Ummm, all I see is a cookie notice.

Oh, and it wants to load two other URLs (cookiebot.com and nanovisor.io) that
sound pretty iffy.

Why not point to [https://bulletjournal.com/](https://bulletjournal.com/) ???

