Overview
The Bullet Journal Method is about much more than organizing your notes and to-do lists. It focuses on "intentional living" - weeding out distractions and focusing your time and energy in pursuit of what's truly meaningful, in both your work and your personal life. It's about spending more time with what you care about, by working on fewer things.
Quote: "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"
In 2016 the US recorded an actual decrease in overall productivity despite technology rapidly evolving. One possible explanation for the slowdown is the paralysis from information overload
"The Bullet Journal will help you declutter your packed mind so you can finally examine your thoughts from an objective distance."
"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."
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.
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
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?
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.” 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
Takeaway: We need to reduce the number of decisions we burden ourselves with so we can focus on what matters
Studies suggest that your concentration suffers simply by having your smartphone in the room with you, even if it’s silent or powered off!
Takeaway: Put your phone in a separate room when doing a large task for concentration
Sitting down with your notebook grants you that precious luxury of detachment to technology. 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.
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
Research Study: 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.
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. 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
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.
Quote: “The long way is the short way.” In a cut-and-paste world that celebrates speed, we often mistake convenience for efficiency.
Rapid Logging in your journal will help you efficiently capture your life as it happens so that you may begin to study it.
Often all it takes to live intentionally is to pause before you proceed
First, having a record of an open tasks makes it easier to remember even when you’re away from your journal, partly due to a phenomenon known as the Zeigarnik effect. Russian psychiatrist and psychologist Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik observed that the staff at her local restaurant was able to remember complex unfilled orders until they were filled, at which point they forgot the details.
Don’t immediately bail when the meeting, class, or lecture is over.
Takeaway: Use this advice after each class to take a moment to think "what did I learn from this lecture" and write it down. Sit for a while and give yourself a moment to process what you heard. Capture whatever surfaces. Often you’ll gain new insight when you can better contextualize the information as a whole.
Keep your future self in mind. Your notes will be useless if they can’t be deciphered in a week, month, or year from now.
Once you get rolling with BuJo, your Daily Log may start to feel less like the stress-inducing to-do lists you may be accustomed to and more like a record and a reminder to live according to your intentions, one day at a time.
Quote: "There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all"
Productivity is about getting more done by working on fewer things.
Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean we’re being productive
For everything we say yes to, we’re saying no to something else. Migration gives you an opportunity to recommit to what matters and let go of what does not.
Notice that there is no happiness store. It’s not because it can’t be bought; it’s because happiness can’t be owned.
When asked what their secret to happiness was, a common answer was ikigai. “Your ikigai is at the intersection of what you are good at and what you love doing,”
If you’re an ambitious person, a list of potential projects can be very distracting. The thought of beginning something new can be alluring, especially if what you’re currently working on is dragging out. Resist! Living intentionally is about focusing on what’s most important now.
We want to be working on the fewest number of things possible. What?! Wouldn’t it be more effective to be multitasking? No, we want to keep multitasking to an absolute minimum. Why? Studies suggest that only around 2 percent of the population is psychologically able to multitask. The rest of us aren’t multitasking; we’re simply juggling. We’re not working on things simultaneously; we’re actually micro-tasking: rapidly switching between tasks—struggling not to drop the balls.
In other words, the more thinly you slice your attention and time, the less focused you become. The less focused you become, the less progress you make. This is why you may feel like you’re not getting a lot done even though you’re “super busy.”
Takeaway: Remove the number of things you are going back and forth on to try and get into flow
Give your goals the opportunity they deserve to reveal their lessons by focusing on the process. It’s arguably the process, rather than the goals themselves, that will prove to be most valuable.
Breaking down long-term goals into smaller, self-contained goals can turn what seems like a marathon into a series of Sprints.
Takeaway: Helps you change goals faster and earlier. Less sunk cost
Quote: “Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them.”
Studies show that we need about five compliments to balance out every negative remark made toward us. That’s because we remember negative events more intensely than positive ones. Introducing a gratitude practice—a simple process of regularly taking stock of what you’re grateful for—is a good way to counteract your negativity bias by fostering an awareness of the positive things in your life.
Quote: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. —REINHOLD NIEBUHR
Worry baits us with the promise of a solution but usually offers none.
As the Dalai Lama once said: “If a problem can be solved, there is no use worrying about it. If it can’t be solved, worrying will do no good.”
Similarly, when you snap at someone, chances are their spouse, friend, or child will be subject to the ripple effects of your action.
We’re apt to lose our objectivity when we’re spinning our wheels. By explaining a problem in detail to someone (or something) else, we’re forced to change our perspective, viewing it from above, so to speak, and not from the depths of whatever mental hole we’ve dug ourselves into.
Studies suggest that looking forward to fun events we planned, like trips, can function as an effective method to elevate our mood and sense of well-being. It’s not the trip so much as the anticipation leading up to the trip that can prove both motivational and uplifting.
Try to avoid tracking six habits simultaneously. This can quickly become overwhelming, burdensome, and demotivating.
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