Book: The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carrol
Genre: Self-help
Publisher: Portfolio/Penguin
Publication date: 2018

Source: Hardback borrowed from the library

Summary: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll covers the basics of a simple but powerful, analog system for keeping track of thoughts, ideas, tasks, goals, habits, and just about anything else you could want to get out of your brain and onto paper.

The system is simple enough that you don’t really need the book. It’s all explained on Ryder Carroll’s website–this Learning Library page links to articles that are plenty to get started.

I like learning from books, though, so I went for that. Ryder Carroll explained the ‘how’ in the book, but also added the ‘why.’ Or many ‘whys,’ borrowing from philosophies from all over the world and across history. Here at the New Year, I found that material inspiring, even though I’m not at all tempted to incorporate it all into my life, today.

Thoughts: I have a multi-layered system for planning and organizing tasks that works for me. Some parts of my system are inspired by the many Bullet Journal (affectionately known as BuJo) and DIY planner blog posts and YouTube videos available.

Do I want to add a BuJo to my system? Or replace parts of my system with a BuJo? The jury’s still out on both of those questions.

I requested this book from the library when I realized that there were two problems that I had that I thought might be helped with a Bullet Journal.

The first is that I rarely capture thoughts about by novel-writing after I finish my morning writing sessions. When I don’t capture those thoughts, my brain gets the message that I don’t value them, and I stop getting random writing thoughts through the day. But I do value them, I just need a way to get them down that doesn’t involve re-opening the files that I worked on earlier in the day — especially if I’m not in front of my computer.

The second is that I have no way to keep track of exercise workouts that I want to try again at particular times — like this yoga routine really helps when I have pain in my upper back and this other one is a terrific mood-booster.

As I read The Bullet Journal Method, I felt like I would be doing myself and the method a disservice if I attempted to carve off only those two pieces to explore in my BuJo, so I’m playing with a more comprehensive approach. For the moment, I’m adding BuJo to everything I have that works already. I’ll give it two or three months to see what can go, if the BuJo works well for me.

It’s probably not sustainable for me to keep all of it, plus the BuJo — I ended up writing my to-do list today in different forms in four different places. I definitely need a lot of structure to get myself to do the things that I claim I want to do, but that’s too much, even for me.

Appeal: Like Atomic Habits, this is a great book to start the New Year. In fact, I think it could be inspiring over successive New Years until I internalize all the great ideas in The Practice section.

I suggest starting with the book or the Learning Library — if you start with a search of YouTube or the internet, you’re likely to find beautifully rendered pages that are more intimidating than inspiring for those of us who just want a better way of handling our bouncing thoughts.

Do you Bullet Journal? How does it work for you?