The Bullet Journal Method: Track Your Past, Order Your Present, Plan Your Future. Ryder Carroll
Читать онлайн книгу.
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.
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