PRAISE FOR THE BULLET JOURNAL METHOD

“Bullet journaling is one of the most elegant and effective productivity systems I’ve ever encountered. It will not only help you get more organized but will also help you become a better person. I highly recommend this book (and the method it details) for anyone looking to get more out of life.”

—Cal Newport, author of Deep Work

“Whether you are an avid journaler or have always wanted to explore the benefits of journaling, The Bullet Journal Method simplifies the power of putting pen to paper and will undoubtedly transform your life, in more ways than you can imagine.”

—Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning

“Ryder has done an extraordinary job in sharing a comprehensive and hands-on methodology to implement the powerful practice of externalizing our thinking—no matter what it’s about! It’s a great treatise and manual for freeing and directing our consciousness, with lots of tips about how to play in that big and wonderful game.”

—David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018

First published in the United States by Portfolio/Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC in 2018

Copyright © 2018 by Ryder Carroll

Ryder Carroll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Original artwork throughout this book courtesy of Dee Martinez, Eddy Hope, and Kim Alvarez, Kara Benz, and Sandy Mendel.

Book design by Meighan Cavanaugh

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 978-0-00-826137-5

Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 978-0-00-826138-2

Version: 2018-10-30

TO MY PARENTS FOR JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING

TO THE BULLET JOURNAL COMMUNITY FOR DARING

THANK YOU,

RYDER

INDEX

Cover

Praise

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

PART I—THE PREPARATION

Introduction

The Promise

The Guide

The Why

Decluttering Your Mind

Notebooks

Handwriting

PART II—THE SYSTEM

Rapid Logging

Topics and Pagination

Bullets

Tasks

Events

Notes

Signifiers and Custom Bullets

Collections

The Daily Log

The Monthly Log

The Future Log

The Index

Migration

The Letter

Set up

PART III—THE PRACTICE

Beginning

Reflection

Meaning

Goals

Small Steps

Time

Gratitude

Control

Radiance

Endurance

Deconstruction

Inertia

Imperfection

PART IV—THE ART

Custom Collections

Design

Planning

Lists

Schedules

Trackers

Customization

Community

PART V—THE END

The Correct Way to Bullet Journal

Parting Words

Frequently Asked Questions

Thank You

Notes

Content

About the Author

About the Publisher

T.O.C. vs. Index: In the Bullet Journal we combine the table of contents and a traditional index to keep the content in your notebook organized and easily accessible. You can read more about this on this page.

Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s account every day. . . . One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time.

—SENECA, Moral Letters to Lucilius

I
THE PREPARATION

INTRODUCTION

The mystery box arrived unannounced. Stranger still, there was my mother’s unmistakable block script adorning the address label. Maybe a surprise gift, for no particular occasion or reason? Unlikely.

Opening the box revealed a mess of old notebooks. Perplexed, I fished out a nuclear orange one covered in graffiti. Its pages brimmed with rough illustrations of robots, monsters, battle scenes, and wildly misspelled words. Different kinds of . . . a chill went down my spine. These were mine!

I took a deep breath and dove in. This was more than a trip down memory lane. It was like reentering the husk of an all-but-forgotten self. As I leafed through another notebook, a folded sheet fell from its pages. Curious, I unfolded it to find a grotesque rendering of a very angry man. He was yelling so hard that his eyes bulged and his tongue flapped out of his mouth. Two words were written on the page. One small word, shyly tucked into a corner, revealed the identity of the apoplectic man: an old teacher of mine. The other large jagged word, the one revealing the target of his rage, was my name.

My problems started early in elementary school with the terrible grades, the red-faced teachers, the resigned tutors. My performance was so alarming that I spent a good amount of my summers in special schools and psychologists’ offices. Eventually I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD). This was back in the 1980s, when mullets were better understood than my condition. The few resources that were available were either too complicated or proscriptive to prove helpful, or didn’t fit my needs. If anything, they salted the wound. Nothing worked the way that my mind worked, so I was left largely to my own dull devices.

The main culprit was my inability to rein in my focus. It wasn’t that I couldn’t focus; I just had a hard time concentrating on the right thing at the right time, on being present. My attention would always dart off to the next bright thing. As I cycled through distractions, my responsibilities steadily piled up until they became overwhelming. I often found myself coming up short or trailing behind. Facing those feelings day in, day out led to deep self-doubt. Few things are more distracting than the cruel stories we tell ourselves.

I admired my successful peers, with their unwavering attention and their notebooks brimming with detailed notes. I became fascinated with order and discipline, qualities that to me seemed as beautiful as they did foreign. To unravel these mysteries, I started devising organizational tricks designed to embrace the way my mind worked.

Through trial and a lot of error, I gradually pieced together a system that worked, all in my good old-fashioned paper notebook. It was a cross between a planner, diary, notebook, to-do list, and sketchbook. It provided me with a practical yet forgiving tool to organize my impatient mind. Gradually, I became less distracted, less overwhelmed, and a lot more productive. I realized that it was up to me to solve my challenges. More importantly, I realized that I could!

By 2007, I was working as a web designer for a big fashion label headquartered in the neon heart of New York City, Times Square. I’d gotten the job through a friend who worked there and was struggling to plan her upcoming wedding. Her desk was littered with notebooks, Post-its, and scraps of paper a couple of inches deep. It looked like one of those manic conspiracy map rooms you see in crime shows.

I’d been looking for a way to repay her for getting me the position. So one day, as I saw her scrounging for yet another wayward note, I awkwardly offered to show her how I used my notebook. She turned to me with raised eyebrows, and to my surprise—and horror—she took me up on the offer. Gulp. What had I gotten myself into? Sharing my notebook was like offering someone an unadulterated look into my mind, which, well . . . yeah.

A few days later we went for coffee. My clumsy tutorial took a while. I felt deeply vulnerable exposing how I organized my thoughts—the symbols, the systems, the templates, the cycles, the lists. To me, these were the many crutches invented to support a faulty brain. I avoided making eye contact until I was finished. Mortified, I looked up. Her gaping mouth instantly validated all my insecurities. After an excruciating pause she said, “You have to share this with people.”

After the awkwardness of that tutorial, it took a lot more prodding for me to share my system. But over the years, I found myself fielding shy questions from designers, developers, project managers, and accountants about my ever-present notebook. Some asked about organizing their day-to-day. So I showed them how to use my system for quickly logging their tasks, events, and notes. Others asked about setting goals. So I demonstrated how they could use my system for structuring action plans to tackle future aims. Others just wanted to be less scattered, so I showed them how to neatly funnel all their notes and projects into one notebook.

It had never occurred to me that these solutions I’d devised could be so widely applicable. If someone had a specific need, it was easy to modify one of my techniques to support it. I started to wonder whether sharing my solutions to common organizational challenges might help others avoid, or at least mitigate, the frustration I had endured earlier in my life.

All well and good, but if I was going to open my mouth again, there would be no more awkward freestyling. I formalized the system and streamlined it, stripping away everything but the most effective techniques I had developed over the years. Nothing exactly like it existed, so I had to invent a new language with its own vocabulary. This made the system significantly easier to explain—and, I hoped, to learn. Now it needed a name, something that spoke to its speed, its efficiency, its heritage, and its purpose. I called it the Bullet Journal.

Next, I launched a website featuring interactive tutorials and videos that walked users through the newly minted Bullet Journal system, aka BuJo. I smiled when the site passed 100 unique visitors. To me, that was mission accomplished! Then the unexpected happened. Bulletjournal.com was featured on Lifehack.org. Then on Lifehacker.com, then in Fast Company, and from there it went viral. The site went from 100 to 100,000 unique visitors in days.

Bullet Journal communities sprouted up across the web. To my astonishment, people were openly sharing their approaches to dealing with deeply personal challenges. Veterans shared their tactics for coping with PTSD by tracking their days in their Bullet Journals. People suffering from OCD shared ways to distance themselves from their overpowering thoughts. I was touched hearing from those like myself suffering from ADD as they shared how their grades improved and their anxiety diminished. In the often toxic world of online communities, these Bullet Journal groups created incredibly positive and supportive spaces, each focusing on different challenges, all using the same tool.

Sandy stumbled upon Bullet Journaling in May 2017, through a video on Facebook. Lack of sleep and caring for a toddler left her extremely disorganized and forgetful, which is not how anyone would normally describe her. Thoughts ran through her mind like squirrels: Had he slept long enough? Were his immunizations on track? When was that preschool application deadline again? As soon as she put one task to rest, another popped up in its place. She felt stressed and demoralized. Did other moms know something she didn’t? So when she heard about an organizational system requiring just a notebook and a pen, she felt she had nothing to lose.

The first step was to create a log of everything she had to do that month. She wrote each family member’s schedule in separate columns. They all worked irregular hours. It felt like she could finally press pause on the roller coaster for long enough to see who would be where for the next four weeks. It was horrifying to think about how easily one of them could forget to pick up their baby from preschool in a few years. It felt like it was just a matter of time before they would forget something important.

Sandy resolutely drew another column. She wrote down events and birthdays so they were easily visible. On her monthly financial log, she listed when bills were due and how much she’d paid. She also added daily boxes to track habits and goals—or just a reminder to stop and breathe!

Writing by hand was strangely soothing. Sandy didn’t want to set her hopes too high, though, when so many other systems had promised to get the organized side of herself back without delivering long-term change.

Sandy moved on to the next part of the instructions. They were intended to help her keep sight of the bigger picture. What were her aspirations for the coming year? On her Yearly Goals page, she dared to write down a passion project that she’d been weakly attempting for years—with no progress to show for it. Was her OCD sabotaging her resolution to spend more time lettering and drawing? Or was she just too busy? All she knew was that she had potential she wasn’t using.

Over the coming weeks, Sandy’s habit of sitting down with her Bullet Journal became as effortless as brushing her teeth. Silly as it seemed, crossing off little boxes kept her motivated by reminding her that there was a finite number of tasks to do every day. She didn’t forget about a single bill. Nor did she have to send any long, apologetic texts for forgetting someone’s birthday. Another surprising thing was that the layout of the Bullet Journal reminded her that mundane tasks were part of the bigger picture. The Monthly Goals and Yearly Goals pages showed her every day that she had a long game, and that she was on her way. Her trick was to add a tiny passion project—say, 15 minutes of lettering by hand—to every Daily Log, and to do it first thing every day. She always had 15 free minutes if she took them before checking her phone. It was like time had expanded.

Soon Sandy noticed that journaling garnered more benefits than just keeping her organized and sane. All her life, she’d suffered from a condition called dermatillomania, also known as compulsive skin-picking disorder, that she’d been ashamed of her whole life. For Sandy, it was mostly concentrated on her fingers. She’d canceled meetings and interviews because she felt her fingers looked horrible. Sometimes she couldn’t sleep because of the pain, and she’d constantly dropped things and was unable to do the simplest of tasks. For example, she’d always asked her husband or her mom to help her squeeze some lemon for her tea to avoid the biting pain of the acidic sting.

After Bullet Journaling for a few months, she found herself in the kitchen, tears welling up in her eyes. She looked down at her hands, finally squeezing a lemon, and realized that her fingers were no longer covered with wounds. With every line, letter, and notation she made, she’d kept her hands busy and let them slowly but surely heal. I’ve included the special page she designed in her journal to commemorate the day.

Not only did Bullet Journaling help her plan, track, and keep memories; it let her be creative, heal and no longer hide, and be a part of an encouraging, supportive community. She is not alone in this. I’ve also been inspired by the inventive, resilient, and spirited Bullet Journalists who have taken my methodology and customized it to fit their circumstances. This is in part why I decided to write this book.

Whether you’re an experienced Bullet Journalist or a newcomer, The Bullet Journal Method is for anyone struggling to find their place in the digital age. It will help you get organized by providing simple tools and techniques that can inject clarity, direction, and focus into your days. As great as getting organized feels, however, it’s just the surface of something significantly deeper and more valuable.

I had always thought my ADD made me different from others. One thing this community helped me realize is that my condition simply forced me to address something early on that has since become a common malady of the digital age: the lack of self-awareness.

In the most connected time in history, we’re quickly losing touch with ourselves. Overwhelmed by a never-ending flood of information, we’re left feeling overstimulated yet restless, overworked yet discontented, tuned in yet burned out. As technology leaked into every nook in my life, with its countless distractions, my methodology provided an analog refuge that proved invaluable in helping me define and focus on what truly mattered. Now countless others have found it key in helping them reclaim agency over their lives.

In 2015, Anthony Gorrity, a shy designer, quit an unsatisfying agency job and started freelancing. He’d been dreaming of going out on his own for years. What he didn’t anticipate was the added pressure to perform and the need to structure his own time. He tried a few apps to keep himself organized, but none were as flexible as he needed. He took to keeping notebooks of to-do lists, but they were a mess. Clients would call him without warning, and he’d rifle through six different notebooks trying to find the notes he needed. He knew he’d written this down . . . somewhere. . . . All of these frantic moments undercut his confidence. As someone who wasn’t a natural self-promoter, he had a hard enough time pitching himself to get work—and now it seemed as if once the work came in, a whole new set of stressful challenges awaited. He wondered if he’d made a mistake by going freelance. Then he had a distant memory of seeing a video of some guy demoing some super-complex journal system that he swore by. He started Googling all kinds of weird keywords until he eventually found BulletJournal.com. The system wasn’t nearly as complex as he’d remembered. He grabbed a fresh notebook and started consolidating everything he needed to do.

A few things changed. He became a lot more introspective. He realized that he loved making to-do lists, and he loved knocking out tasks even more. Best of all, self-confidence had room to take root in the clean, clear space of his notebook: Having things written down gave him the guts he needed when on the phone with a client. Being prepared, and knowing his material, made him feel less like a salesman and more like a craftsman. The Bullet Journal provided a framework that allowed Anthony to explore his potential.

This is a critical aspect of the methodology; it helps us cultivate a better sense of ourselves both in and out of the professional theater. The simple act of pausing to write down the important minutia of one’s life goes far beyond simple organization. It has helped people reconnect with themselves and the things they care about.

I spend much of my time nowadays connecting with fellow Bullet Journalists like Sandy and Anthony and fielding questions from the community. Many seek to expand the functionality of their Bullet Journals. Others delve deeper, tackling universal challenges that have become amplified in today’s frenetic world. In this book, I seek to address those questions and demonstrate how a simple notebook can prove invaluable in uncovering the answers.

The Bullet Journal method consists of two parts: the system and the practice. First we’ll learn about the system, to teach you how to transform your notebook into a powerful organizational tool. Then we’ll examine the practice. It’s a fusion of philosophies from a variety of traditions that define how to live an intentional life—a life both productive and purposeful. The result of my endeavor to translate this timeless knowledge into focused action resulted in the Bullet Journal method, the analog system for the digital age. It will help you track the past and order the present so that you can design your future. I originally developed it as a way to overcome my organizational challenges. Over the years, though, it’s matured into a personal operating system that has profoundly changed my life for the better. My hope is that it can do the same for you.

THE PROMISE

Life had gotten too busy. It seemed as if my existence had become just one long to-do list. I had forgotten about my dreams, my goals, my what-ifs, my “what if I could’s.”

—AMY HAINES

The Bullet Journal method’s mission is to help us become mindful about how we spend our two most valuable resources in life: our time and our energy. If you’re going to invest both reading this book, it’s only fair to start by highlighting what’s in it for you. To sum it up:

The Bullet Journal method will help you accomplish more by working on less. It helps you identify and focus on what is meaningful by stripping away what is meaningless.

How does it do this? By weaving together productivity, mindfulness, and intentionality into a framework that is flexible, forgiving, and, most importantly, practical. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Productivity

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all your responsibilities? Sometimes life feels like a hellish game of whack-a-mole, condemned to stomping out never-ending chores, meetings, emails, and texts. Your multitasking madness has you squeezing in workouts by pacing across your apartment while FaceTiming your sister—who is asking if you could breathe less heavily. Nothing is getting the attention it deserves, and it doesn’t feel good. You hate disappointing other people as much as you hate disappointing yourself. To get more done, you’ve even hacked your sleep, whittling it down to the bare minimum—except now you’re a zombie because . . . you’ve hacked your sleep down to the bare minimum.

Let’s step back. Every year between 1950 and 2000, Americans increased their productivity about 1 to 4 percent.¹ Since 2005, however, this growth has slowed in advanced economies, with a productivity decrease recorded in the United States in 2016.² Maybe our rapidly evolving technology that promises us near-limitless options to keep us busy is not, in fact, making us more productive?

One possible explanation for our productivity slowdown is that we’re paralyzed by information overload. As Daniel Levitin writes in The Organized Mind, information overload is worse for our focus than exhaustion or smoking marijuana.³

It stands to reason, then, that to be more productive we need a way to stem the tide of digital distractions. Enter the Bullet Journal, an analog solution that provides the offline space needed to process, to think, and to focus. When you open your notebook, you automatically unplug. It momentarily pauses the influx of information so your mind can catch up. Things become less of a blur, and you can finally examine your life with greater clarity.

The Bullet Journal will help you declutter your packed mind so you can finally examine your thoughts from an objective distance.

We often cobble together ways to organize ourselves on the fly. A little of this app; a little of that calendar. Over time, this results in an unwieldy productivity Frankenstein of Post-its, various apps, and email. It kinda works, but it also feels like it’s coming apart at the seams. You waste time deliberating where information should go and trying to locate it later: Did you write something down in your notes app or on a Post-it? And where did that Post-it go, anyway?

Many a great idea, “keeper” thought, or important “note to self” has fallen victim to a misplaced scrap of paper or an outdated app. It’s a compounding inefficiency that drains your bandwidth, but it’s completely avoidable. The Bullet Journal is designed to be your “source of truth.” No, this is not some dubious invitation to worship this methodology. It means that you no longer have to wonder where your thoughts live.

Once you’ve learned how to keep your thoughts in one place, we’ll examine how to prioritize them effectively. Everyone calling, emailing, or texting you wants your answer right away. Rather than being proactive about setting priorities, a lot of us simply let the flood of external demands set them for us. Distracted and overextended, our opportunities go under. There goes your chance to increase your GPA, to get that promotion, to run that marathon, to read a book every two weeks.

BuJo puts you at the helm. You’ll learn how to stop reacting and start responding.

You’ll learn how to tackle difficult challenges and turn your vague curiosities into meaningful goals, how to break your goals into smaller, more manageable Sprints, and then finally how to effectively take action. What’s the next step to improving your GPA this semester? Acing all your classes? No. Get more granular. In which class are you falling behind? What’s the next assignment in that class? Writing a paper. Okay, what book do you need to read before writing that paper? Getting that book from the library—that’s the most important thing you have to do now. What about doing the extra-credit assignment for the class you’re already acing? Waste of time.

In this book, we will introduce scientifically proven techniques that turn any notebook into a powerful tool for surfacing opportunities and weeding out distractions so that you can focus your time and energy on what actually matters.

Mindfulness

Uh-oh, the “M” word. Don’t worry, no sitars required. When we talk about mindfulness, we’re typically talking about a heightened awareness of the present. Productivity is all fine and good, but BuJo isn’t designed to help you spin faster on the hamster wheel.

We live in an age where technology promises us near-limitless options to occupy ourselves, yet we’re left feeling more distracted and disconnected than ever before. Like when flying, we watch the world speed by at 600 miles an hour with no idea where we truly are. If we’re lucky, we may glimpse some ocean glinting below or lightning ripping through dark distant clouds. For the most part, though, we’re semiconscious passengers, killing time before the unnerving descent.

If the journey is the destination, then we must learn how to become better travelers. To become better travelers, we must first learn to orient ourselves. Where are you now? Do you want to be here? If not, why do you want to move on?

Knowing where you are begins with knowing who you are.

Mindfulness is the process of waking up to see what’s right in front of us. It helps you become more aware of where you are, who you are, and what you want. This is where BuJo comes into play. The act of writing by hand draws our mind into the present moment on a neurological level unlike any other capturing mechanism.⁴ It is in the present moment that we begin to know ourselves. Joan Didion, a famous proponent of writing things down, began doing so at age five. She believed that notebooks were one of the best antidotes for a distracted world: “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. . . . It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.”⁵

For you digital natives out there, fear not. Banish the image of some hunched, squint-eyed Dickensian figure endlessly scrawling away in a garret by failing candlelight. No, here you’ll learn how to capture thoughts quickly and effectively. You’ll learn how to journal at the speed of life.

This is where BuJo comes into play. We’ll explore various techniques that help us form the habit of asking these kinds of questions, so we stop getting lost in the daily grind. In other words, the Bullet Journal method keeps us mindful of why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Intentionality

Think back to a book, a speech, or a quotation that deeply touched you or changed the way you thought about life. It was wisdom that inspired you, that held so much promise. All you had to do was act on this newfound knowledge and things would get easier, better, clearer, more empowering.

Now, how much of this knowledge is still in play—not just intellectually, but practically? Did you become a better person, friend, or mate? Did you keep the weight off? Are you happier? Chances are what you learned has withered, if it survived at all. It’s not that it wasn’t helpful. It just didn’t stick. Why is that?

The rush of our busy lives can quietly carve out a gulf separating our actions from our beliefs. We tend to follow the path of least resistance, even when it leads away from the things we care about. It can require a lot of ongoing effort to effect the change we seek. As any athlete will tell you, you need to tear muscle to build it, over and over again. Like building muscle, we need to train our intentions to make them resilient and strong.

Whereas it’s easy to “forget” to meditate or summon excuses to skip yoga, there are serious and immediate repercussions when we ignore our day-to-day obligations. To successfully introduce a new sustainable routine, it needs to fit into your packed schedule. What if you had a way that championed your intentions and kept you more organized throughout your day?

The Bullet Journal method acts as a bridge between your beliefs and your actions by integrating into the nitty-gritty of your life.

In addition to organizing her obligations, Amy Haines used her Bullet Journal to keep track of ideas for her business, people she wanted to learn from, apps to check out, even new teas to try. She customized her Collections—which you’ll read about later—to cut through the sinking feeling of endless to-do lists and to stay in touch with what she really wanted to do. She was able to reclaim the things that mattered and had gotten away.

Through Bullet Journaling, you’ll automatically form a regular habit of introspection where you’ll begin to define what’s important, why it’s important, and then figure out how to best pursue those things. You’re gently reminded of these insights every day, which makes it easier to put them into action wherever you happen to be, be it a boardroom, classroom, or even emergency room.

Bullet Journalists have been hired for dream jobs, started businesses, ended toxic relationships, relocated, or, in some cases, simply become more content with who they are by making BuJo part of their routine. This methodology is powered by wisdom from traditions around the world. Like a reverse prism, Bullet Journal absorbs these traditions and focuses them into one bright beam that will help you clearly see where you are and illuminate the way forward. It will empower you to go from passenger to pilot through the art of intentional living.

THE GUIDE

Bullet Journaling is not a fair-weather friend. It has dutifully suffered and celebrated alongside me through all the different seasons of my life. It has served the many masters of my former selves: the student, the intern, the heartbroken, the designer, and more. It always welcomes me without judgment or expectation. When setting out to write this book, I wanted to create something that could serve you the same way. This book is designed as your Bullet Journal base camp. It’s here to prepare you for your first ascent and to welcome you back when you need to rest, restock, and recalibrate.

GEAR

For Those Just Getting Started

If this is your first experience with the Bullet Journal, welcome! Thank you kindly for spending your time here. To get the most from this book, I encourage you to follow the linear path, beginning to end. This path is designed to be participatory. We’ll leverage the power of transcription (this page) to help you imprint the system faster into your mind. All you’ll need is a blank sheet of paper, an empty notebook, and something to write with.

The Bullet Journal method is comprised of two main components: the system and the practice. Part II of this book will focus on the system. You’ll learn the names of the ingredients and how they’re used. Like in a kitchen, Parts I and II will help you become a skilled line cook. Parts III and IV are where we delve into the practice. There you’ll learn how to become a chef. We’ll explore the sources and science behind these ingredients so that you can customize the Bullet Journal to suit your needs.

For Seasoned Bullet Journalists—and Anyone in Between

The chapters are designed as independent Collections (this page), mimicking the structure of the Bullet Journal system. As long as you’re comfortable with the BuJo vocabulary, you should be able to open the book to any chapter that grabs your attention. If you’re not, then check out Part II!

Part II delves into the system that you know and love in great detail. We take a closer look at each core Collection and technique, revealing both the reasoning and history behind their design. Then, in Part IV, we apply all of these concepts to a mock project. Here you’ll learn how to extend and further customize the system.

The system, however, is only one part of what makes up the Bullet Journal method.

The first parts of this book are about how to Bullet Journal. The latter parts are about why to Bullet Journal.

If you’ve been Bullet Journaling for a while, you may have felt there’s more to it than just keeping your lists organized. You may feel that it’s made you more grounded, confident, focused, calmer, even inspired. That’s because the Bullet Journal is powered by various sciences and philosophies to help us live with more intention. In this book, I’ll pull back the curtain to reveal why the Bullet Journal has the effect that it does. This deeper context will not only validate what you’re already doing, but can take your BuJo practice to a whole new level.

Whatever level you’re at, from BuJo newbie to pro, this book is a look into the heart of Bullet Journaling, where mindfulness meets productivity to help you design a life you want to live.

THE WHY

Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make us.

—RICHIE NORTON

My first start-up, Paintapic, was born in a closet filled with thousands of thimble-size pots of paint. The service allowed you to turn your photos into a custom paint-by-number kit, complete with a canvas, paints, and brushes. At the time, I also had a demanding full-time day job, so Paintapic was built entirely on nights and weekends.

Leadership had changed at my nine-to-five, and the new direction had pulled the plug on the creative projects that allowed me to enjoy my job. Over time, this new vision became so limiting that I no longer felt I was adding real value to the company. My potential impact on Paintapic, however, was limited only by the amount of time I was willing to invest. So I Old Yellered my social life for Paintapic’s sake and got to work.

My cofounder had convinced his employer to rent us an unused storage closet . . . as our office. That dark room with its one small frosted window devoured our nights and weekends for nearly two years. Thousands of decisions were made in that cramped Cyclopean skull of a room. We poured ourselves into every single detail—down to the number of bristles on our brushes.

Finally, the moment we had been waiting for arrived: launch day. Orders went out. Money came in. We were in the black. We were doing pretty well right out of the gate without any outside investment. That’s rare for a start-up. We were by all accounts a (humble) success.

As soon as our site launched, I placed an order through our site. I remember how excited I was to receive my kit in the mail. Here it was, real and working! But by the time I had walked up the single flight of stairs to my flat, I was already preoccupied with something else. To this day, that kit remains unopened somewhere, a goofy portrait of a pug (our unofficial mascot) forever waiting to be painted.

My indifference quickly stained every aspect of running the company. Deep confusion and frustration set in. On paper, I had accomplished everything I was told would make me happy. I sacrificed a lot getting to this point, but now that I was here, it just didn’t seem to matter. I wasn’t alone. My partner seemed to share these feelings. The process of creating the company, the pleasure we got out of building, had blinded us to a simple truth: We were just not paint-by-number guys. Though the product added value to the lives of our customers, it added little to ours. We weren’t passionate about the product—we’d just fallen in love with the entrepreneurial challenge.

How often do we find ourselves in this position? You’ve worked incredibly hard on something, only to discover that it leaves you feeling empty. You compensate by working even harder. You reason that maybe if you put in more hours, you’ll finally be able to appreciate the fruits of your labor. Why does this happen?

What is your true motivation for lifting that weight, being on that diet, working so late? Are you trying to lose ten pounds for health reasons, or are you in a toxic relationship that’s stripping you of your confidence? Maybe you don’t realize that you’re killing yourself at work just to put off having a hard conversation with your spouse. If that’s the case, no matter how much time you clock at the office, it won’t offer lasting relief, because you’re climbing the wrong mountain. We need to understand what’s actually driving our motivation before we ascend.

Our motivations are heavily informed by the media. Our social feeds are populated by endless images of wealth, travel, power, relaxation, beauty, pleasure, and Hollywood love. This virtual runoff perpetually seeps into our consciousness, polluting our sense of reality and self-worth every time we go online. We compare our lives to these largely artificial constructs and structure our plans accordingly, hoping to eventually afford a golden ticket to these misleading fantasies. Conveniently tucked out of sight are the months of planning, the “talent” lined up in audition studios toting their head shots, the production crews, the double-parked trucks filled with camera gear, the long spells of unemployment, the weeks of rain that stopped shooting, the food poisoning on location, the empty sets after they leave. Distracted by the never-ending stream of aspirational media, we forfeit our opportunity to define what is meaningful on our own terms.

Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse and author who spent several years working in palliative care with patients in the last weeks of their lives, recorded her patients’ top five regrets. The number one regret was that people wished they had stayed true to themselves.

When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.⁶

Choices come in all flavors: the good, the bad, the big, the small, the happy, and the hard choices to name but a few. We can make these choices carelessly, or we can make them with intention. But what does that mean? What does it mean to live an intentional life? The philosopher David Bentley Hart defines intentionality as “the fundamental power of the mind to direct itself toward something . . . a specific object, purpose, or end.”⁷ The term hails from medieval scholastic philosophy, so I’d like to adapt and update it a bit for our purposes: Intentionality is the power of the mind to direct itself toward that which it finds meaningful and take action toward that end.

If intentionality means acting according to your beliefs, then the opposite would be operating on autopilot. In other words, do you know why you’re doing what you’re doing?

We can’t be true to ourselves if we don’t know what we want, and more importantly why, so that’s where we must begin. It’s a process that requires the steady cultivation of our self-awareness. This may seem very woo-woo, but it can be as simple as paying attention to what resonates with us, what sparks our interest—and, just as importantly, what does not. As we begin to identify the things we’re drawn to, we can start properly defining our dreams, based on what we actually believe in.

When we believe in what we’re doing, we stop mindlessly clocking in. We become more innovative, creative, and present. We’re not only working harder, but smarter because both our hearts and minds are genuinely engaged by the endeavor.

Cultivating this self-awareness is a lifelong process, but it starts by simply checking in with yourself. That’s where the Bullet Journal method comes in. You can view your Bullet Journal as a living autobiography. It allows you to clearly see what the rush of life tends to obscure. You can track the decisions you’ve made, and the actions you’ve taken that led you to where you are. It encourages you to learn from your experiences. What worked, what did not, how did it make you feel, what’s the next move? Day by day, you’re deepening your self-awareness by becoming a steady witness to your story. With each page, you improve your ability to discern the meaningful from the meaningless. If you don’t like how life is unfolding, you’ll have developed the skill and determination required to change the narrative, as Rachael M. and her husband did:

I work full time as a graphic designer, run my own freelance business, and serve several days a week as a youth leader, all while helping my husband with his ministry. My husband and I met two years ago. We love being married, but almost from day one, there were so many needs and things to remember and events to schedule—we were both going crazy.

My husband and I were struggling to communicate and keep up-to-date with each other’s schedule. I went to work, bought groceries on the way home, made food, cleaned house, and tried to remember everything else I had to get done. By then it was time for bed, and the next day we started all over again. In addition to all this, we learned that I had a thyroid condition, as well as gluten and lactose sensitivities. Now food prep was even harder. I was completely overwhelmed.

We also struggled to spend quality time together. That’s obviously something that everyone knows is crucial to a happy, healthy marriage. However, since my husband is a pastor, a big part of his workweek happens on evenings and weekends and he takes time off during the typical workweek. I work a traditional nine-to-five Monday through Friday. It was extremely difficult to figure out how to carve out time together. I’m the extrovert of the relationship and I ended up feeling lonely a lot of the time because of how much his work needed him during my weekends.

We knew we had to do something, so we started scheduling everything in our Bullet Journals. We used the Weekly and Monthly Logs to get ahead of our schedule and figure out what was coming. This gave us a visual cue for how busy we were going to be and helped us know ahead of time when we probably needed to block off some time for just the two of us. It also helped me figure out that the key to feeling like I had enough time with him was having Saturdays together so we actually adjusted our schedules to ensure that both of us are protecting as many Saturdays as possible to spend time together.

Bullet Journaling helped us refocus on our personal goals as well. My husband and I were both single and established in careers we loved for some time before we got together. Both of us loving what we did meant we were used to giving our jobs a huge chunk of our attention, and that was important to us. We had to learn how to prioritize our marriage instead of just our work. We could have used digital calendars to sync up, but the discipline of analog and the experience of sitting down with our Bullet Journals to physically mark in events helped us have the conversations we needed to have and to look further ahead so we weren’t always blindsided by the next thing. It also helped us express concerns if we were starting to schedule too many things outside the home and made us feel like a unit, planning our life together, instead of trying to slam two busy calendars together. Now, we love our marriage and our jobs and want to help one another succeed professionally.

Now, almost eight months later, we are accomplishing more than ever in every area of our lives, all before 8:00 p.m. each night! Thanks to Bullet Journaling, I have a handle on my life. I know what’s coming. I have built in moments to reflect and make sure I’m actually focusing on the right things. And I have new confidence in my marriage and ministry because I know my husband and I are on the same page and are working toward defined goals that we share—we’ve written them right in the front of our journals.

—Rachael M.

This is what it means to live an intentional life. It’s not about living a perfect life, an easy life, or getting things right all the time. It’s not even about being happy, though joy often greets you along this path. Leading an intentional life is about keeping your actions aligned with your beliefs. It’s about penning a story that you believe in and that you can be proud of.

DECLUTTERING YOUR MIND

Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

—WILLIAM MORRIS

Studies have suggested that we have 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day.⁸ For context, if each thought were a word, that means our minds are generating enough content to produce a book Every. Single. Day. Unlike a book, our thoughts are not neatly composed. On a good day they’re vaguely coherent. This leaves our minds perpetually struggling to sort this gray matter gallimaufry. Where do you even begin? What comes first? Inevitably we find ourselves tackling too many things at the same time, spreading our focus so thin that nothing gets the attention it deserves. This is commonly referred to as “being busy.” Being busy, however, is not the same thing as being productive.

For most of us, “being busy” is code for being functionally overwhelmed.

What do I mean by that? We don’t have time because we’re working on a lot of things, yet things aren’t working out a lot of the time. This phenomenon isn’t just a twenty-first-century problem, but it has been exponentially exacerbated by the countless number of choices technology has put at our fingertips. Should we type, text, call, email, swipe, pin, tweet, Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, Message, or yell at our digital assistant to get it done, whatever it is? And in what order should all of that happen? (Oh, and before we can get started, we’ll have to upgrade, update, reboot, log in, authenticate, reset our password, clear cookies, empty our cache, and sacrifice our firstborn before we can get where we’re going . . . where was that again?)

This freedom of choice is a double-edged privilege. Every decision requires you to focus, and focus is an investment of your time and energy. Both are limited—and therefore exceptionally valuable—resources.

Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors of all time, gave the following advice to his trusty pilot Mike Flint. They had been discussing Flint’s long-term plans. Buffett asked Flint to draft a list of his top 25 career goals. When he was done, Buffett asked Flint to circle his top five. When asked about the ones he circled, Flint replied, “Well, the top five are my primary focus, but the other twenty come in a close second. They are still important, so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”

To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top five.”⁹

In an interview published in Vanity Fair, President Barack Obama said, “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”¹⁰ The same is true of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with his gray hoodies, or Apple founder Steve Jobs and his famous black-turtleneck-and-jeans uniform. Acutely aware of how taxing deliberating over options can be, they sought every opportunity to limit choice in their lives.

As psychologist Roy F. Baumeister wrote in his book Willpower: “No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue—you’re not consciously aware of being tired—but you’re low on mental energy.”¹¹ This state is known as decision fatigue. In other words, the more decisions you have to make, the harder it becomes to make them well. This is why you’re more likely to eat an unhealthy dinner at the end of the day than an unhealthy breakfast at the beginning of the day, when you have a full tank of willpower.

Left unchecked, decision fatigue can lead to decision avoidance. This is especially true for big life choices, which we tend to put off till the last minute. Daunting choices don’t simply vanish; they wait in the wings, steadily becoming more menacing. Where do I want to go to college? Do I want to marry this person? Should I take that new job? By the time you’re finally forced to make a decision, at the tail end of all the other decisions you’ve been making to avoid having to make this big one, chances are you don’t have a lot of focus left to spare. No wonder we often feel stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed.

We try to treat these symptoms with even more distractions. Drinking, eating, traveling, binge-watching, etc. Even though your Netflix queue is four years long, somehow nothing looks good! You can’t decide, and now you’re even more stressed. In order to make a lasting difference, we need to address not the symptoms but the cause.

We need to reduce the number of decisions we burden ourselves with so we can focus on what matters.

The Mental Inventory

The first step to recovering from decision fatigue, to get out from under the pile of choices weighing on you, is to get some distance from them. You need some perspective to both clearly identify and corral your choices. We do this by writing them down. Why write them down? Each decision, until it’s been made and acted on, is simply a thought. Holding on to thoughts is like trying to catch fish with your bare hands: They easily slip from your grasp and disappear back into the muddy depths of your mind. Writing things down allows us to capture our thoughts and examine them in the light of day. By externalizing our thoughts, we begin to declutter our minds. Entry by entry, we’re creating a mental inventory of all the choices consuming our attention. It’s the first step to taking back control over our lives. Here is where you can begin to filter out the signal from the noise. Here is where your Bullet Journal journey will begin.

Just like when organizing a closet, we need to take everything out before we can decide what stays and what goes. Creating a mental inventory is a simple technique that will help you quickly take stock of what you’ve been jamming into your mental closet. Chances are there are a lot of useless responsibilities hogging valuable mental and emotional real estate up there.

To begin, sit down with that sheet of paper I mentioned you’d be needing. Orient it horizontally and divide it into three columns (you can either fold it twice or draw the lines like in the Mental Inventory on this page).

1 In the first column, list all the things you are presently working on.

2 In the second, list all the things you should be working on.

3 In the last column, list the things you want to be working on.

Keep your entries short and in list form. If one task sparks a stream of others, go with it. Give yourself some time with this exercise, and dig deep. Be honest. Get it out of your head (and your heart) and lay it out on the page. Take a deep breath and begin.

MENTAL INVENTORY

Working on

Taxes

Presentation for Acme Co

Cleaning up photo library

Emmy dinner party planning

Should be working on

Workout plan

Learn how to invest

Weekly meal plans

Set 5-year goal

Call ’rents

Get a checkup

Retirement plan

Want to be working on

Plan trip to Hawaii

Learn to cook

Learn another language

Read more

Write more

Lose 10 pounds

More time with friends

The Test

This Mental Inventory you just created provides a clear picture of how you’re currently investing your time and energy. It’s a map of your choices. The next step is to figure out which ones are worth making.

We’re so busy with all the things we’re doing (or should be doing) that we forget to ask ourselves why we’re doing these things. We end up burdening ourselves with all sorts of unnecessary responsibilities. The Mental Inventory grants us the opportunity to take a step back and ask why.

Go ahead, ask why for each item on your list. You don’t need to dive down an existential rabbit hole. Simply ask yourself two questions:

1 Does this matter? (To you or to someone you love)

2 Is this vital? (Think rent, taxes, student loans, your job, etc.)

TIP: If you struggle to answer these questions about a given item, ask yourself what would happen if said item just didn’t get done. Ever. Would there be any real repercussions?

Any item that doesn’t pass this test is a distraction. It adds little to no value to your life. Cross it off. Be ruthless. Keep in mind that each task is an experience waiting to be born, offering a glimpse into your potential future. That’s why everything on your list has to fight for its life to stay there. More accurately, each item needs to fight for the opportunity to become part of your life.

When you’re done, you’ll probably be left with two types of tasks: things you need to do (your responsibilites) and things you want to do (that is, your goals). Throughout the course of this book, I will show you ways you can push forward on both fronts. For now, though, you have all the ingredients needed to populate your Bullet Journal. All, that is, except for your notebook.

Now you may be asking, Why didn’t we just do this in our notebook? It’s a fair question. As you read this book, ponder the ideas, and try out the techniques, you might find yourself paring back your Mental Inventory even more. When you christen your Bullet Journal, you should do so with only things that you believe are important or will add value to your life. Being intentional about what you let into your life is a practice that shouldn’t be limited to the pages of your notebook.

NOTEBOOKS

Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.

—CHRISTINA BALDWIN

People who are new to BuJo often ask about the notebook. Can’t we just use an app for keeping lists? The short answer is sure. In fact, there are a lot of good productivity apps out there. I worked on some myself! As a digital product designer, I can fully appreciate how powerful and effective digital tools can be. In fact, the Bullet Journal was designed using some methodologies leveraged in software development. That said, there’s a lot more to Bullet Journaling than keeping lists. It’s a comprehensive methodology designed to help us capture, order, and examine our experience. As you move through this book, you’ll see exactly how and why your notebook will serve you well in this regard. Here, we’ll look at the foundational reasons behind the notebook.

Technology removes barriers and distances between people and information. We can learn about almost anything, or communicate with anyone, at any time, from anywhere, just by tapping our phone. It’s a convenience that we avail ourselves of, on average, every 12 minutes!¹² All of this convenience, however, comes at a price—and I don’t mean the cost of your data plan, your cable bundle, or the pieces of your soul you sacrifice as you try to reason with your provider’s customer service.

In a world where Wi-Fi boosters are attached to church steeples, no place remains sacred.¹³ From the boardroom to the bathroom, technology has flooded our lives with more content than we can possibly absorb, washing away our attention spans in the process. Studies suggest that your concentration suffers simply by having your smartphone in the room with you, even if it’s silent or powered off!¹⁴

In 2016, the average American spent nearly eleven hours in front of digital screens each day.¹⁵ Factoring in six to eight hours of sleep (which is also compromised by our phones¹⁶), we’re left with around six hours of non-screen time per day. Now consider the time spent commuting, cooking, and running errands, and you can see where this is headed: We’re steadily decreasing the amount of time we have to stop and think.

Sitting down with your notebook grants you that precious luxury. It provides a personal space, free from distraction, where you can get to know yourself better. This is one of the main reasons we use a notebook to Bullet Journal: It forces us to go offline.

Our notebook serves as a mental sanctuary where we are free to think, reflect, process, and focus.

The blank pages of your notebook offer a safe playground for your mind, where you’re completely free to express yourself without judgment or expectation. As soon as you put pen to paper, you establish a direct link to your mind and often your heart. This experience has yet to be properly replicated in the digital space. It’s why, to this day, so many ideas are born on scraps of paper.

Another reason we use notebooks? Flexibility. Software tends to be either so powerful that its wealth of features is buried to all but the most intrepid explorers (think Excel) or so specific that it sacrifices features for increased usability, essentially doing few things very well (think mobile apps). In both cases, they force you to operate within a framework of their choosing. This is the main challenge with many productivity systems: They struggle to address the limitless variability and evolutionary nature of our individual needs. Notebooks, in contrast, are beholden to their authors. Their function is limited only by the imagination of their owner.

The power of the Bullet Journal is that it becomes whatever you need it to be, no matter what season of life you’re in.

In school, it can serve for your class notes. At work, it can be a tool to organize your projects. At home, it can help you set and track your goals. Robyn C., for example, was able to meditate for 432 consecutive days by designing a meditation tracker in her Bullet Journal. She did the same when trying to figure out what triggered her sleeping disorder. I didn’t invent her tools; she did.

Because of the way the Bullet Journal is structured, it can be multiple things at the same time. Rather than a tool, think of it as a tool kit. It allows you to funnel a lot of your productivity needs into one place. You’ll enjoy a more comprehensive perspective on your life, one that can allow you to spot unconventional connections. As Bullet Journalist Bert Webb put it: “As I do daily, weekly, and monthly reviews, leafing forward and backward in my Bullet Journal, my brain inevitably makes more links between ideas that I was not able to do when using my various separate digital tools.”

The other great thing is that you start fresh each day. With digital trackers, you step onto their track—somewhere in the middle of the endless race that started when you set up the tracker and ends . . . ? Your notebook greets you each morning with the pure, blank slate of an empty page. It serves as a small reminder that the day is as yet unwritten. It will become what you make of it. As Bullet Journalist Kevin D. notes: “I used to feel bad about items undone at the end of the day, but with the Bullet Journal I feel empowered to move yesterday’s open bullets forward to a new page, because I see each day as a fresh start.”

Finally, your notebook evolves as you do. You might say that you co-iterate. It will conform to your ever-changing needs. The lovely side effect is that as the years pass, you’re creating a record of your choices, and the ensuing experiences. As Bullet Journalist Kim Alvarez once put it, “Each Bullet Journal contributes another volume to a library of your life.” In the pursuit of meaning, this library becomes a powerful resource to have at your disposal.

By recording our lives, we’re simultaneously creating a rich archive of our choices and our actions for future reference. We can study our mistakes and learn from them. It’s equally instructive to note our successes, our breakthroughs. When something works professionally or personally, it helps to know what our circumstances were at the time and what choices we made. Studying our failures and our victories can provide tremendous insight, guidance, and motivation as we plot our way forward.

So are the Bullet Journal method and apps mutually exclusive? Of course not. There are many apps that make my life easier in ways that a notebook never could. All tools, whether digital or analog, are only as valuable as their ability to help you accomplish the task at hand. The goal of this book is to introduce you to a new tool kit for your workshop—one that has proven effective at helping countless others tackle the often ungainly project called life.

HANDWRITING

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

—CHINESE PROVERB

We breathe life into our thoughts by committing them to paper. Be they words, images, or notes, few tools facilitate the transition between the inner and outer worlds as seamlessly as the tip of a pen. In a world moving toward untextured interfaces, it may seem like an awkward step backward to implement a methodology that requires you to write things out the old-fashioned way. But a growing body of research points to the continued practicality of the handwritten word in our digital age.

A University of Washington study demonstrated that elementary school students who wrote essays by hand were far more likely to write in fully formed sentences and learn how to read faster. Much of this is due to how handwriting accelerates and deepens our ability to form—and therefore recognize—characters.¹⁷

The complex tactile movement of writing by hand stimulates our mind more effectively than typing. It activates multiple regions of the brain simultaneously, thereby imprinting what we learn on a deeper level. As a result, we retain information longer than we would by tapping it into an app.¹⁸ In one study, college students who were asked to take lecture notes by hand tested better on average than those who had typed out their notes. They were also able to better retain this information long after the exam.¹⁹

When we put pen to paper, we’re not just turning on the lights; we’re also turning up the heat. Writing by hand helps us think and feel simultaneously.

These studies and many like them indicate that the benefits of writing by hand stem from the very complaint consistently leveraged against it: inefficiency. That’s right: The fact that it takes longer to write things out by hand gives handwriting its cognitive edge.

It’s pretty much impossible to hand-transcribe lectures or meeting conversations verbatim. When we write by hand, we’re forced to be more economical and strategic with our use of language, crafting notes in our own words. To do that, we have to listen more closely, think about the information, and essentially distill others’ words and thoughts through our own neurological filtration system and onto the page. Typing notes, in contrast, can quickly become rote: a frictionless highway where information freely passes in one ear and right out the other.

Why is it so important to craft notes in your own words? The science suggests that writing by hand enhances the way we engage with information, strengthening our associative thinking. It allows us to form new connections that can yield unconventional solutions and insights. We’re simultaneously expanding our awareness and deepening our understanding.

How we synthesize our experiences shapes the way we perceive and interact with the world. This is why journaling has proven to be a powerful therapeutic tool in treating people who suffer from trauma or mental illness. Expressive writing, for example, helps us process painful experiences by externalizing them through long-form journaling. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) uses scripts to treat people obsessing over intrusive thoughts. A distressing thought is detailed in a short paragraph. This script is then written over and over again until the thought begins to lose its death grip on the person’s mind, granting some much-needed perspective and distance—something we all struggle to find when dealing with challenging situations.

Toward our latter days, writing can help preserve our most cherished memories. Studies suggest that the act of writing keeps our minds sharper for longer. I’ve received many emails over the years praising Bullet Journal for helping those with poor memories stay organized, regardless of age. For instance, Bridget Bradley, a fifty-one-year-old Bullet Journalist, now remembers “what the weather was like three months ago, how many times I went to the gym last month, that I have made a reservation (by email) for that restaurant table, that I am going on holiday in July, and that I have already worked out what I need to take with me (six months in advance!) so that I have time to buy and prepare for it.” Similarly, I’ve heard from numerous people who found that Bullet Journaling helped their memory improve after being compromised by trauma or medical procedures.

A dear friend of mine once told me, “The long way is the short way.” In a cut-and-paste world that celebrates speed, we often mistake convenience for efficiency. When we take shortcuts, we forfeit opportunities to slow down and think. Writing by hand, as nostalgic and antiquated as it may seem, allows us to reclaim that opportunity. As we craft our letters, we automatically start filtering the signal from the noise. True efficiency is not about speed; it’s about spending more time with what truly matters. In the end, that’s what the Bullet Journal method is all about.

II
THE SYSTEM

THE SYSTEM

Your Bullet Journal can be your to-do list, journal, planner, sketchbook, or all of the above, all in one place. This flexibility stems from its modular structure. An easy way to conceptualize the system is to imagine the pieces of a Lego set. Each piece of the Bullet Journal’s system serves a specific function, be it ordering your day, planning your month, or tackling a goal. You’re free to mix and match the pieces to customize the system to meet your needs. As those needs inevitably change over time, this flexibility allows the system to adapt and remain relevant through the different seasons of your life. As you evolve, so will the function and structure of your Bullet Journal.

In this part of the book, we’ll examine the core building blocks that lay the foundation of the system. You’ll learn how they work, why they work, and how they snap into the larger framework. If you’re following along in sequence, here’s where you’ll learn how to set up your own Bullet Journal and migrate the content from your Mental Inventory.

If you’re an old hand at this, Part II aims to take your BuJoJitsu to the next level. We’ll delve into the tools and techniques you’ve been using and explore the reasoning behind their design. This section functions both as a reference and a guide to help answer any questions that may have bubbled up during your time Bullet Journaling.

If you’re new to the Bullet Journal, I suggest reading through all the chapters in this part before setting pen to paper. Each method and technique is effective on its own, but the true power of the Bullet Journal is found in the sum of its parts. To get the most out of your BuJo experience, it’s important to understand how these parts interact and influence each other. This part will walk you through each step, how it works, and how to set up your own Bullet Journal step by step.

Before We Dive In . . .

Most of the organizational methods people tried to shove down my throat didn’t make sense, felt impractical, and left me feeling frustrated and/or demoralized. Those are the last things I want you to feel!

I’ve done my best to avoid making this part read like stereo instructions, but it’s unavoidably technical. At first glance, it may look like there are a lot of moving parts. As you read through the following chapters, I invite you to consider each component individually. Hold it up to the light; examine it. Ask yourself: Would this help me?

If at some point you feel overwhelmed, take a step back and start by implementing only the pieces that make sense. Most components are self-contained by design, so you can effectively use them even if you don’t use the rest. Start with what speaks to you—even if it’s just one piece—and build from there. This is also the way the Bullet Journal was born: one workable piece at a time.

KEY CONCEPTS

INDEX

Used to locate your content in your Bullet Journal using Topics and page numbers.

FUTURE LOG

Used to store Future Tasks and Events that fall outside the current month.

MONTHLY LOG

Provides an overview of time and tasks for the current month. Also functions as your monthly mental inventory.

DAILY LOG

Serves as your catchall for Rapid Logging your thoughts throughout each day

RAPID LOGGING

Using short-form notation paired with symbols to quickly capture, categorize, and prioritize your thoughts into Notes, Events, and Tasks.

Note

Event

Task

Task Complete

Task Migrated

Task Scheduled

Task Irrelevant

COLLECTIONS

The modular building blocks of BuJo, used to store related content. The core collections are the Index, Future Log, Monthly Log, and Daily Log, but you can create one for anything you want to keep track of.

MIGRATION

The monthly process of filtering out meaningless content from your notebook.

RAPID LOGGING

Quick—what was the last meaningful thing someone said to you? Okay, let’s try an easier category: What did you eat for lunch two days ago? If you’re drawing a blank, you’re not alone. It goes to show that we can’t rely on memory to accurately capture our experience.

Our experiences—both sweet and sour—are lessons. We honor these lessons by writing them down so we can study them and see what they have to teach us. This is how we learn, this is how we grow. If we forfeit the opportunity to learn from our experiences, as the saying (sort of) goes, we condemn ourselves to repeat our mistakes.

Journaling provides a powerful way of facilitating this path of self-learning. The problem with traditional journaling is that it is loosely structured and time-intensive. Rapid Logging leverages the best aspects of journaling by stripping away everything that’s not essential. It’s the language the Bullet Journal is written in. In short, Rapid Logging helps us capture and organize our thoughts as living lists.

Rapid Logging will help you efficiently capture your life as it happens so that you may begin to study it.

On the following pages you’ll find visual examples illustrating the difference between content captured in a more traditional way and the same information organized with Rapid Logging. We’ll break down the symbols and structure in detail later, but it’s easy to see how succinct and clear the Rapid Log is. This streamlined approach to recording our thoughts saves a lot of time, allowing it to easily fit into our busy lives.

As Bullet Journalist Ray Cheshire describes: “I’m a high school science teacher at a big inner-city school in the UK. Things can get a little hectic at times as we try to cram ever more stuff into our days. This is where Rapid Logging comes in. For example, we were told that an inspection was going to happen at very short notice, but thanks to Bullet Journaling, I quickly knew what I still had to do before the inspectors arrived.”

Be it at home, school, or the workplace, Rapid Logging will help you organize the dizzying array of things you have to contend with on a daily basis.

TRADITIONAL

☑ Call Keith back to figure out where we should eat this weekend.

☐ Email Heather again regarding the Acme Co release forms for project participants. Need to send out the forms to them and have their signatures before we proceed.

The Acme Co UX presentation is due February 12.

☐ Email Leigh about her party that she’s having on April 21.

The office will be closed on the 13th.

I was happily surprised that Margaret seems to have taken her feedback to heart. She volunteered to help manage the assets for the project and has become a more engaged part of the team. Her work is also showing progress.

☐ Call to cancel yoga orientation.

☐ Order Kim a birthday cake for next week on Thursday. It has to be gluten-free because she is celiac.

☐ Add hours for Acme Co project to the time tracker.

Broadway was blocked on my way to work this morning, so I had to take a detour. On the way I spotted a new coffee shop I have to try. It’s also a lot more scenic a route. I put the windows down and just enjoyed the ride. I get so caught up in rushing to work that I totally forgot about this route. By the time I got to work, I was feeling pretty good even though I was a little late.

☐ Plan trip

225 words

RAPID LOGGING

04.01.TH

Keith: Call re: Saturday dinner

Acme Co: Release forms

Heather: Email to get forms

Email forms to participants

Get signatures

Acme Co: UX presentation Feb 12

Leigh: Reply Apr 21 party

Office closed Apr 13

Margaret: Volunteered to help with assets

Showing more incentive and engagement

Increased participation effort

04.02.FR

Cancel yoga

Kim: Get birthday cake

Celiac: Needs to be gluten-free

The party’s on Thursday

Acme Co: Log hours

Broadway blocked, had to take long way

Found new coffee place

Much prettier drive

Felt more relaxed when I arrived

Plan trip

89 words

(About 60% less!)

TOPICS AND PAGINATION

The first step in Rapid Logging is to frame the content you’re about to log. You do this by giving your page a Topic name. It can be as simple as “Shopping List.” Even here—as with most things BuJo—there is more than meets the eye. Topics actually serve three functions:

1 They identify and describe content.

2 They serve as an opportunity for you to clarify your intention.

3 They set the agenda for the content.

How many meetings have you sat through that have little to no agenda? Generally, they’re not very productive. Pausing to define the agenda before you start allows you to focus, prioritize, and use your time far more effectively.

Giving your page its Topic provides that opportunity to pause. What will you capture in this space? What’s its purpose? What value will it add to your life? These may seem like superfluous considerations, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to make yet another list, only to realize that it simply wouldn’t add anything meaningful to my life. Does tracking the TV shows I’ve watched this year add any real value? No. I can reinvest that time I saved into something that does. Other times, that pause has helped me refine my aims, keeping the content of my Bullet Journal focused and relevant. Topic by Topic, pause by pause, we’re honing our ability to focus on what matters.

Often all it takes to live intentionally is to pause before you proceed.

Lastly, a good Topic turns your Bullet Journal into a more useful reference. Who knows when you may need to look back through your journal to find a specific Topic? “Oct 13, Meeting 4 notes” says little, whereas “10.13.TH (month/date/day) / Acme Co. (client name) / Website Relaunch (project name) / User Feedback (meeting priority)” provides you with a useful description.

Once you’ve defined your Topic, write it at the top of the page. Now you’ve laid the foundation for what you want to build, but you can’t locate a building without its address. That address in your Bullet Journal is the page number, so be sure to add them as you go. Page numbers will be critical when we get to Indexing (this page). Spoiler alert: Your Index helps you quickly locate your content.

The only time we don’t use a descriptive Topic is for our Daily Log (this page). It’s a catchall for our thoughts, so the daily Topic is simply the date, formatted as month/date/day. This will help you quickly orient yourself when flipping through your pages.

All this is more complicated to explain than it is to do. In practice, you’re just taking a few seconds to think before putting pen to paper. Now, with the Topic and page number in place, your page is prepared to handle anything you throw at it.

04.01.TH

Keith: Call re: Saturday dinner

Acme Co: Release forms

Heather: Email to get forms

Email forms to participants

Get signatures

Acme Co: UX presentation — Feb 12

Leigh: Reply Apr 21 party

Office closed Apr 13

Margaret: Volunteered to help with assets

Showing more incentive and engagement

Increased participation effort

04.02.FR

Cancel yoga

Kim: Get birthday cake

Celiac: Needs to be gluten-free

The party’s on Thursday

Acme Co: Log hours

Broadway blocked, had to take long way

Found new coffee place

Much prettier drive

Felt more relaxed when I arrived

Plan trip

Don’t forget to number your pages!

BULLETS

If Rapid Logging is the language the Bullet Journal is written in, Bullets are the syntax. Once you’ve set up your Topic and page number, you capture your thoughts as short, objective sentences known as Bullets. Each Bullet is paired with a specific symbol to categorize your entry. We use Bullets not only because it takes less time, but also because wrestling information into short sentences forces us to distill what’s most valuable.

Crafting effective Bullets requires striking a balance between brevity and clarity. If an entry is too short, we may not be able to decipher it later. If it’s too long, then writing down your thoughts becomes a chore. For example, “Return call ASAP!” is too short. Who are you calling back? What are you calling them back about? It’s easy to forget all that in the rush of the day. Conversely, “Call John M. back as soon as you can because he needs to know when you will have the sales figures for June ready for him” is an overly informative word salad. Let’s try again: “Call John M, re: June sales figures.” You’re saying exactly the same thing using only a quarter of the words. In a bit, I’ll also show you how to turn that Task into a priority using Signifiers (this page).

Keeping your entries short without losing meaning takes practice, but over time it hones our ability to identify what’s worth writing down. That’s important because our lives are infinitely complex, and there is potentially a lot to keep track of. If you’ve kept lists in the past, you’re familiar with how quickly they can spiral out of control. They often lack context and priority. Rapid Logging solves this issue in a few ways, first by categorizing entries into:

1 Things that you need to do (Tasks)

2 Your experiences (Events)

3 Information you don’t want to forget (Notes)

Each category is assigned a symbol to upgrade a basic list with much-needed additional layers of context and function. During the day, these symbols allow you to quickly capture and contextualize your thoughts in real time. Later on, they make locating specific content much easier as you scan through your pages. Let’s take a look at each category and see how this syntax can keep your entries organized, lean, and effective.

TASKS

The Task bullet does a lot of heavy lifting. Think of it as a checkbox. (Older versions of the Bullet Journal used an actual checkbox, but eventually it became clear that checkboxes weren’t as efficient as the dot Bullet: They take more time to draw and can look sloppy, decreasing legibility.) The Task “ ” bullet is fast, clean, and flexible. It can easily be transformed into other shapes, which is important, because Tasks can have five different states:

Tasks:

Entries that require you to take action.

Completed Tasks:

Action has been completed.

Migrated Tasks:

Tasks that have been moved forward (hence the right arrow) into your next Monthly Log (this page) or into a specific Collection (this page).

Scheduled Tasks:

A Task tied to a date that falls outside of the current month and is therefore moved backward (hence the left arrow) into the Future Log (this page) at the front of your book.

Irrelevant Tasks:

Sometimes the things we task ourselves with end up not mattering anymore. Their meaning simply expires or circumstances change. If it no longer matters, then it’s a distraction. Strike it off your list. One less thing to worry about.

Subtasks and Master Tasks

Some Tasks require multiple steps to complete. These dependencies—or Subtasks—can be listed by simply indenting them directly below their Master Task. Master Tasks can only be marked as complete once all of the Subtasks have also been completed or marked as irrelevant.

TIP: When you notice a Master Task spawning a lot of Subtasks, it can indicate that this Task is growing into a project. If that’s the case, you may want to turn this nested list into its own Collection (this page). Planning a trip, for example, can be complex, with Tasks ranging from researching locations to arranging transportation—each of which might have Subtasks (check out X, Y, and Z hotels online; price flights and rent a car). If you notice that a Task is turning into a project, but you don’t have time at that moment to set up a new Collection, just log a Task to remind you to set one up later: “ Create Hawaii Vacation Collection.” This is a perfect example of how Bullets can serve as mental anchors.

04.01.TH

Keith: Call re: Saturday Dinner

Acme Co: Release forms

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