What holding a bullet journal can train you about utilizing to-do record apps

On July sixth of this 12 months, I formally ended my three-year-long experiment with attempting to prepare my life utilizing a bodily bullet journal. I do know the precise date as a result of I’m my discontinued pocket book as I write this. Apparently, 5 months in the past, I wanted to take images of the Corsair K70 keyboard for a then-forthcoming evaluate and observe up with a quote I’d obtained to insulate my roof. I took the images. I didn’t find yourself insulating my roof. 

Since then, I’ve used the pocket book for jotting down issues to recollect right here and there, however in terms of holding observe of each day duties and chores, I’ve switched again to the identical hodgepodge of various note-taking and to-do record apps that I used three years in the past. These embrace Notion for longform notes and lists, Apple Notes after I want one thing immediately, and Todoist for to-do lists and reminders. However though I’ve ditched the bodily pocket book for apps, I don’t assume bullet journals are a waste of time. The truth is, I believe my experiment taught me an essential lesson about tips on how to keep organized digitally.

Bullet journals may be both bodily or digital (reminiscent of with this Notion template), however they’re finest generally known as a way to organize a blank notebook into a personal planner. There are web page codecs on your yearly, month-to-month, and each day duties, a technique for weaving your to-do record between them, and a sequence of frequent symbols and notation to make sense of all of it. In the end, it’s all in service of providing you with a format to design your personal planner and versatile guidelines for tips on how to use it.

There’s quite a lot of potential complexity, and folks like to put them out in several methods, however my primary method every day was to put in writing out my record of duties, manually copy over something incomplete from earlier days (aka “migrate” them), and tick every job off because the day progressed. Some individuals like to repeat over duties on a weekly or foundation, however each day was what labored for me.

The bullet journal’s core is sensible, however I used to be additionally drawn in by the aesthetics. YouTube is filled with videos of individuals painstakingly laying them out, filling them with delicate illustrations and little visible components they slowly replenish over the course of the 12 months. I dreamed of getting a small pocket book crammed with neat handwriting and perhaps a sketch or two, like those Naughty Dog has its protagonists carry in its video games. I imagined my bullet journal as being as a lot of a scrapbook of my each day life because it was an organizer.  

The fact of my really horrible handwriting meant this by no means actually got here to move, however that didn’t cease my pocket book from turning into a half-decent planner. Essential emails received jotted down reasonably than being marked as unread, upcoming articles received categorized with deadlines and precedence ranges, and I assigned condominium chores to myself on a daily schedule reasonably than a chaotic advert hoc foundation.

However most essential was that every one of this was being completed manually, reasonably than having an app’s inner logic whisk duties from side to side. Each morning, I’d be compelled to spend a few minutes writing out and prioritizing the day’s duties — and reckoning with what I’d didn’t do yesterday. You’d be amazed at how shortly you get round to doing a nonurgent job after forcing your self to put in writing it out day-after-day for per week. Different occasions, I spotted one thing that appeared tremendous pressing after I first wrote it down wasn’t price going by means of with after I regarded again at it the next day. 

Having to put in writing every job out manually turned a to-do from one thing I may simply file away in an app and neglect about into one thing that I needed to handle each day. I needed to actively prune and prioritize and take into consideration these chores that previous Jon had lumbered current Jon with. Did I actually want to purchase a substitute pair of swimsuit trousers with no formal occasions on the quick horizon? And isn’t it time I let that horrible weblog put up concept go? In every case, forcing myself to only take into consideration what was on my record inevitably stored it extra manageable.

It wasn’t that I grew bored with the writing, however ultimately, I received sick of getting to hold round a bodily pocket book. A good friend would remind me a couple of movie I wished to observe whereas we have been within the pub, and I’d have to notice it down in a notes app earlier than transcribing it into my bodily pocket book later. Or I’d be passing a grocery retailer on the way in which residence and never have my bodily procuring record with me. Ultimately, the attract of holding issues digital on my cellphone and with me always grew too sturdy. 

What I’ve since realized, nonetheless, is that it’s completely doable to maintain numerous the issues I favored about holding a bullet journal with out sacrificing the comfort of apps. In the end, what I favored concerning the pocket book was much less about its physicality and extra about the truth that it compelled me to spend actual time actively excited about and organizing my life each day. And that’s one thing that’s simply as doable to do with an app as it’s with a pocket book. You simply should keep away from pondering the expertise can set up it for you.

Now, as a substitute of spending time writing out duties every day, I as a substitute take a spin by means of Todoist, pruning out outdated duties, altering due dates on others, and customarily attempting to maintain issues neat. I don’t should struggle in opposition to my horrible handwriting, and I all the time have my cellphone on me after I must jot one thing down for later. I can nonetheless profit from the streamlined interface, however reasonably than submitting and forgetting a job, I pressure myself to maintain observe of it. 

And though I don’t assume I’ll ever discover an app as aesthetically pleasing as a YouTuber’s bullet journal, that doesn’t imply I’ve to surrender on good designs totally. I just like the choices Notion has right here, permitting you to customise pages with components like cowl images and emoji. It’s sufficient to encourage me to start out pondering of it as an ever-evolving scrapbook reasonably than a utilitarian assortment of paperwork.

It’s simple to assume that an app or to-do record service will take you by the hand and set up your life for you, however in case you’re not cautious, it might simply turn into an infinite digital locker with a messy assortment of notes filed beneath “forget.”

I’m nonetheless tempted to provide bodily journaling one other go sooner or later, particularly after scanning by means of a few lovely bullet journal illustrations within the means of penning this piece. However for now, I’m pleased sufficient to be again on the apps. They’re removed from the right answer, however I’ve realized that you just get as a lot out of them as you’re ready to place in.