The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll – Book Notes

December 18, 2020

Reading Time: 11 mins

Each time I re-read The Bullet Journal Method, I come away with something new that resonates with me.

This book has inspired a pen and paper revolution among those of us that were previously slaves to our digital devices.

I now have a bullet journal that accompanies me everywhere and is part of my productivity/task management/mental health toolkits.

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The Book In 3 Ideas

Self-reflection and introspection are important so that you can learn from your experiences and improve. Regular reflection of your life and work is important to ensure a healthy productive life.
Writing things down and getting them out of your mind allows you to think more clearly.
Writing by hand allows you to slow down and carefully consider what you’re writing. This allows you to write in your own words and makes remembering what you write down more effective.

What Is Bullet Journaling?

It’s a system of note taking that allows you to define what’s important, why it’s important, and how you can work on those things.
It’s a modular system you can pick and choose from (like Lego blocks) to create a toolkit that works for you.
It’s not about how the system looks, it’s about how it makes you feel and how effective it is.
Your bullet journal will evolve over time as you continue to use it and learn new things.

“All tools, whether digital or analog, are only as valuable as their ability to help you accomplish the task at hand.”

Benefits Of Bullet Journaling

It helps you become more aware of what you enjoy vs what you don’t enjoy.
- By doing this, you can remove the stuff in your life that doesn’t provide any value.
- This allows you to focus on the stuff you find meaningful.
  
  “The significance of what we’re doing, or how we’re doing it, pales in comparison to why we’re doing it in the first place.” (143)
Similarly, bullet journaling also helps you to find the motivation behind why you’re doing the task.
- This reduces the willpower required to do the task in the first place.

How To Think About Note Taking

Your mind is for having ideas not for holding them - David Allen

If each thought were a word, your mind generates enough content to produce a book every single day.
- Over the course of a day you become inundated by all the decisions you need to make.
- What clothes should I wear today? What should I work on first? What should I have for dinner?
- This becomes overwhelming and can lead to Decision Fatigue.
Note taking helps to overcome decision fatigue by allowing you to get all your thoughts and ideas out of your head and into a trusted system.
- This frees up your brain space to work on other things.

Practice Doing A Mental Inventory Dump When You’re Overwhelmed With Thoughts + Ideas

Divide up a page into the following sections:
- What you are currently working on
- What you should be working on
- What you want to be working on
Dump everything from your brain into each of these sections.
For each item ask yourself:
- Does this matter?
- Is this vital?
- What would happen if I didn’t do this task?
Any item that does not pass this test is a distraction and should be crossed off of your list.
This leaves you with the things you need to and want to do.

Why Pen And Paper Is More Effective Than Digital Note Taking

It allows you to slow down and to think carefully about what you write.
It also activates multiple regions of your brain which allows you to learn more effectively.
Writing notes in your own words, i.e. the Generation Effect, is also a key way to understand something better.
CBT Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy uses scripts to treat people that obsess over intrusive thoughts.
- A distressing thought is written down in a short paragraph.
- It is then written over and over again until the thoughts begin to lessen their effect on the person’s mind.
- This grants them perspective and distance from their thoughts.

The Bullet Journal System

Rapid Logging

This is the language the bullet journal is written in.
Frame the content you’re about to write by giving it a clear page title. This sets the agenda before you start writing and primes your mind for the topic you’ll be working on.

Bullets

These are the syntax of the bullet journal

Task Bullets

These allow for concise idea or thought capture. Each bullet is paired with a symbol that categorizes it.
Tasks: Something you need to take action on
Completed Tasks: When you’ve completed a task
Migrated Tasks: Tasks that have been moved to a collection or the next monthly log
Scheduled Tasks: A task that is tied to a date outside of the current month. This task moves back to the Future Log
Irrelevant Tasks: Tasks that are no longer relevant.
Writing down your tasks allows you to remember them more effectively - this also allows you to overcome the Zeigarnik Effect.

Event Bullets

These represent experiences that can be scheduled ahead of time or logged after they occur
Event bullets allow you to put a pin in an experience which can temporarily offload it from your mind. You can revisit and unpack the event further when you want.

Notes

These are facts, ideas, thoughts, and observations
They allow you to log information that isn’t necessarily actionable

“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.” (37)

Collections

A collection is a template that is used to collect related information.
Your stack of collections should provide you with some value and you should be able to get something from the data contained within them.

Daily Log

This collection allows you to capture your thoughts in real-time to unburden your mind
create a new daily log each morning or the night before to set you up for the next day

Monthly Log

On the left page is a calendar that contains the dates of the month down the page with the first letter of the day of the week next to each date.
Here you can log important events after they happen. That way your monthly log can act like a timeline you can refer back to.
On the right page is a monthly tasks list. The list of things to do this month.

Future Log

This is for entries that fall outside of the current month.
It should be set up right after your index for easy retrieval
I have this set up as my “year at a glance” which I copied from a YouTube video I watched. Each page has 3 months outlined on it.

Index

The index acts like a map that allows you to find content easily
Use the page number and the name of the collection to identify it in your index
There’s no need to add daily logs to the index as there are so many

Threading

Threading is a concept that was taken from the world of coding & programming.
It allows you to point to the next or previous piece of related content.

Migration

The process of migration involves moving content from one place to another by rewriting it.
It allows you to pause and consider if a task is actually worth doing simply because of the effort it takes to write it out.
If you’re constantly re-writing the same task each time, consider if it’s actually worth your time doing or if it’s something you need to do.

The Bullet Journal Practice

Reflection

Regular reflection of your life and work is important to ensure a healthy productive life.
Constant reflection is an important step in becoming a better person.
It allows us to be intentional with how we are spending our time by helping us to clarify the things that are important to us.

“If we forfeit the opportunity to learn from our experiences, as the saying (sort of) goes, we condemn ourselves to repeat our mistakes.” (59)

AM Reflection

Before starting your day, sit down and offload any thoughts into your journal & begin to plan your day.
This allows you to focus on your most important tasks for the day.

PM Reflection

Before you shut down from work, review the tasks you’ve completed and the tasks you haven’t.
Move forward any tasks you didn’t complete or if it’s no longer important cross it out.
Remember to focus on the good things from the day. Identify something you are grateful for and what you’ve achieved.

Goals

Having goals is important to move you in the direction you want to be going.
Try the 5,4,3,2,1 exercise to contextualize your goals:
- Divide a 2 page spread into 5 rows. The left page is for personal goals and the right page is for professional goals.
  - The top cell is for goals you want to accomplish in 5 years.
  - The next cell is for goals you want to accomplish in 4 months.
  - Then 3 weeks.
  - Then 2 Days.
  - Then 1 Hour
- List your goals out accordingly and try to have just one goal per cell
- Add the short term goals (1 hour & 2 days) to your Daily Log and prioritize them. This will help you to build momentum to keep going.
- The remaining goals get their own collection
Breaking long-term goals into shorter sprints helps to prevent you from becoming overwhelmed
More advice on sprints can be found in the book {b} Sprint - How To Solve Big Problems And Test New Ideas In Just Five Days

Kaizen

Kaizen: This concept means continual improvement.
It is a Japanese word that means “improvement” or “change for better”.
The framework for improvement is:
- Plan - plan a change
- Do - put the plan into action
- Check - analyze the results
- Act - act on what you’ve learned
At the end of a sprint for instance ask yourself:
- what didn’t work,
- why didn’t it work,
- what can I improve on next time.

Time

We can’t make time, we can only take time.
Work on the things that bring you joy and that you like doing.
Memento Mori - remember death. Death reminds you of the value of time. Make the most of the time you have.

Gratitude

Appreciate your accomplishments and celebrate small wins

Control

Knowing what you can change begins with defining what you can control.
You can control how you respond what happens to you.
Worry has a way of holding our attention, especially on things we can’t control.
- Knowing what you can control is the first step in overcoming worry or anxiety.
- You can control how you respond to what happens to you.
- By identifying what’s out of your control, you can reclaim your attention and focus on things that are worth your attention.

Radiance

Be mindful of the people you surround yourself with - they will shape you.

Endurance

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, but they make the most of everything.
A powerful way to take advantage of this mindset is to re-frame the mundane in our minds.
Buying groceries will put a tasty meal on your table and allow you to spend quality time with your family.
Analyze your efforts and define their purpose.
Connecting your tasks to the people that you love will give them more meaning.

Deconstruction

Use the Five Whys Technique to uncover the root issue of something.
This breaks down a large problem into its individual components
This is the same or similar to the concept of First Principles Thinking.