Hardcover, 310 pages
English language
Published Oct. 22, 2018 by Portfolio.
For years Ryder Carroll tried countless organizing systems, Online and off, but none of them fit the way his mind worked. Out of sheer necessity, he developed a method called the Bullet Journal that helped him become consistently focused and effective. When he started sharing his system with friends who faced similar challenges, it went viral. Just a few years later, to his astonishment, Bullet Journaling is a global movement.
The Bullet Journal Method is about much more than organizing your notes and to-do lists. It's about what Carroll calls "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. His new book shows you how to...
Track the past: Using nothing more than a pen and paper, create a …
For years Ryder Carroll tried countless organizing systems, Online and off, but none of them fit the way his mind worked. Out of sheer necessity, he developed a method called the Bullet Journal that helped him become consistently focused and effective. When he started sharing his system with friends who faced similar challenges, it went viral. Just a few years later, to his astonishment, Bullet Journaling is a global movement.
The Bullet Journal Method is about much more than organizing your notes and to-do lists. It's about what Carroll calls "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. His new book shows you how to...
Track the past: Using nothing more than a pen and paper, create a clear and comprehensive record of your thoughts.
Order the present: Find daily calm by tackling your to-do list in a more mindful, systematic, and productive way.
Design the future: Transform your vague curiosities into meaningful goals, and then break those goals into manageable action steps that lead to big change.
Carroll wrote this book for frustrated list-makers, overwhelmed multitaskers, and creatives who need some structure. Whether you've used a Bullet Journal for years or have never seen one before, The Bullet Journal Method will help you go from passenger to pilot of your own life.
The book covers both bullet journaling basics but also a variety of task management strategies. It helps reading this book multiple times as you progress through the technique. I mostly bullet journal through an app but the practice of daily journals and reflections help immensly regardless of the medium.
The book presents a simple, but flexible, system, which is actually a mindfulness practice. Have all the important data in one place. Don't forget important events. Write things down before you do them to mitigate impulsive decisions (I'm a master of those). Set goals for the day/month, and define priorities (goals, not obligations!).
Reflect on the past to notice patterns. Only once you notice something you don't like, you can take action on it. This is the most important part of the system, in my opinion. In addition, it also makes you notice things you did well, a very important practice.
In the old days, you used to depend on interruptions. Now interruptions depend on you. 💪
Don't read this book. It's the original 2485 words Bullet Journal system soaked in more than 60000 words of snake oil.
I have used the recommendations in my notes since 2014, so I remember the original single page explanation. If you want to learn it in 3 minutes continue reading.
The original page: web.archive.org/web/20130818223813/http://www.bulletjournal.com/
The only difference with the current "method" is using dots [ · ] instead of boxes for the tasks and dashes [ - ] instead of dots for the notes. And that the content changed from CC-BY-NC-SA to full copyright, fancy that.
Some useful things mentioned on the book that weren't mentioned in 2014 but that appeared in the community are:
- Yearly Journal migration. Nothing special, just change your journal at least once a year. Keep the previous one
- Threading. When two pages are related not just note them in the index …
Don't read this book. It's the original 2485 words Bullet Journal system soaked in more than 60000 words of snake oil.
I have used the recommendations in my notes since 2014, so I remember the original single page explanation. If you want to learn it in 3 minutes continue reading.
The original page: web.archive.org/web/20130818223813/http://www.bulletjournal.com/
The only difference with the current "method" is using dots [ · ] instead of boxes for the tasks and dashes [ - ] instead of dots for the notes. And that the content changed from CC-BY-NC-SA to full copyright, fancy that.
Some useful things mentioned on the book that weren't mentioned in 2014 but that appeared in the community are:
- Yearly Journal migration. Nothing special, just change your journal at least once a year. Keep the previous one
- Threading. When two pages are related not just note them in the index but add the page number of the previous block to the page number on the left spread and when you add a next block go back to this spread and add the new block page number on the right side.
- Note linking: you can use page references in notes.
- Interjournal linking: Journal name + number. Examples: 2022p45, 2021Q3p6, whatever you name your journals.
- Prefer Leuchtturm1917 notebooks as they already have page numbers and an index on top of being of excellent quality.
And that's it. The rest of the book and the current website are a hodgepodge of new-ageisms and pseudoscience around basic practices of meditation, reflection and gratitude that try to grab you commercially.
If you want to complement your writing by adding meditation, reflection, prioritization and gratitude to your daily routines there are better books than this one.
