What is Bullet Journal and how to use it - Lifehacker
Productivity / / January 06, 2021
You may have heard of such a thing as the Bullet Journal from your sister, colleague, or some other person who ate a dog on the topic of productivity. It is an incredibly cool and versatile tool, easily adaptable to any need and easy to use. And with it you can organize anything in life.
What is Bullet Journal
Note first: Bullet Journal is designed for analog media only. Simply put, you have to use a pad and pen. Or a pencil - but then real Bullet Journal fans will look askance at you. No electronics.
Bullet Journal (BuJo for short) idea first came upThe Analog Method for the Digital Age into the head of a guy named Ryder Carroll. He briefly describes his day planner concept in this video.
The main message is this: you only need one notebook, which will contain absolutely all to-do lists, notes, plans and other important information for you. It looks like a regular planner, but it is not quite true: the Bullet Journal does not have any rigid templates, pre-marked pages and rules. Therefore, the system is very flexible. There are only two conditions:
- Your Bullet Journal should have a so-called index. This is the table of contents at the beginning of the notebook, with which it is easy to find the notes you want.
- Pages must be numbered - without this, obviously, the index will be useless.
Observing these two conditions, you can always find the desired record, whether it is a list of goals for the month, a plan travel to Bermuda or insurance number.
Since there are no more special rules in Bullet Journal, you can fill in your notebook with any information. You can write something in a journal by hand, draw, stick a photo or sticker. Your Bullet Journal is both a to-do list, calendar, and archive.
Why People Lead Bullet Journal
Recordings have a positive effect on mental and physical health
Research shows a positive correlation between handwriting (especially journaling) and health. Take numerous experiments for exampleWriting to heal psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas. He asked a group of subjects to write in a diary for 20 minutes for three days in a row.
And those who took notes felt much happier than the people in the control group. For several months after the experiment, their blood pressure returned to normal, their immune functions improved, and they visited a doctor less often. In addition, the subjects reportedYou Can Write Your Way Out of an Emotional Funk. Here’s How about stabilizing relationships with others and greater success at work.
Research has also shown that handwriting increasesDisclosure of traumas and immune function: Health implications for psychotherapy activity of immune cells, strengthensOpening Up by Writing It Down memory and reducesEmotional disclosure through writing or speaking modulates latent Epstein ‑ Barr virus antibody titers the amount of antibodies in the blood of people with the Epstein-Barr virus. It also helps solve sleep problemsCounting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life.
Diary allows you to find new ideas through associations
The free association method is often used in psychotherapy. Specialist invites the subject to keep a diary to help understand how different moments of his life are related to each other and how to react to certain thoughts and emotions.
Bullet Journal is a collection of a wide variety of thoughts and challenges. As you reread your notes covering the physical, mental and emotional aspects of your life, you will surely gain inspiration and new ideas.
This method offloads memory
If you've read Harry Potter, then remember that Dumbledore and Snape dumped unnecessary memories into the magic bowl. You can think of the Bullet Journal as a kind of Memory Pool, a place to store your thoughts. By transferring them to paper, you offload the resources of your brain, eliminating the need to remember everything.
Handwriting is satisfying
Nowadays, when there are a lot of smartphones, tablets and computers around, paper media have some special charm of their own. Keeping a to-do list on a simple sheet of paper is very enjoyable, not like typing on a keyboard or handwriting on a touchscreen.
It's just fun
Many people are so creative with the Bullet Journal that a notebook over time becomes a work of art. Moreover, it brings not only aesthetic pleasure, but also practical benefits.
How to run a Bullet Journal
Select tools
The main tools are a notebook and a pen. And if you decide to keep the Bullet Journal in full accordance with the precepts of Ryder Carroll, you will need a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook - here such. Its pages are pre-numbered, with an index at the beginning and dots instead of cells.
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Publication from LEUCHTTURM1917 (@ leuchtturm1917)
You will also need colored gels (best of all - Pilot juice) and ink pens (e.g. Pigma Micron).
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Publication from Jen Aranyi (@jenaranyi)
Markers are also useful for highlighting important points. For example, Mildliner: They have pleasant, discreet colors and do not print on the pages.
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Published by Mari (@ devoted.student)
In addition to all of the above, you can use stickers, stickers, bookmarks - whatever your heart desires. But this, in principle, is optional. You can just as well get by with an ordinary notebook with a cheap pen. The main thing is that it is convenient to carry them with you.
Remember the notation
Most of the Bullet Journal entries are short bullet lists. Unlike traditional paragraphs of text, they have two advantages: they are quick to write and easy to read. A separate item in such lists is called "bullet", hence the name of the method.
"Bullets" are marked with special characters depending on their content. Here are the options.
-
Tasks. Marked with a simple dot (•). It is better than a check mark, checkbox or whatever, because it can be easily converted to any other character. A task can have several states, and each has its own symbol:
- point (•) - task not completed;
- cross (×) - task completed;
- arrow (>) - the task has been moved to another collection;
- back arrow (
Alternatively, you can simply cross out the task that you no longer need.
- Eventsand meetings. Marked with a circle (°). These are records attached to a specific date. They can be done in advance so as not to forget. Also, the event can be entered after it happened - for memory.
- Notes. Marked with a dash (-). These are notes, facts, ideas, thoughts and observations that do not require any action from you - they just need to be taken into account.
Do not try to write down notes and cases on the page separately. Write everything in a solid list, just do not forget to mark each item with the appropriate symbol.
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Published by © Becca Courtice | 🇨🇦 (@thehappyevercrafter)
In addition, each "pool" can be assigned separate characters at the beginning of a line to provide additional context. There are two such characters in the original BuJo. But, in principle, you can come up with your own options.
- High priority task or event. Marked with an asterisk (*). Use this symbol sparingly: if you label each item with it, you will simply get lost.
- A good idea that is important not to lose. Marked with an exclamation mark (!). These can be especially good thoughts, quotes, sudden insights.
In Bullet Journal, there is such a thing as migration, or transfer of notes. Let's say you have something planned for this month, but you haven't done it. Mark the task with> and rewrite it into next month's plan. So you can transfer any items to the pages to which they correspond more. For example, you wrote down the name of some books, and now you want to move it to the "For Reading" list.
Be careful about this duplication of tasks. It will take some effort to move cases from one page to another. Remember: if you don't want to rewrite an item, then it is not so important. And you can just cross it out. And when you're done, don't forget to give the page a theme and index it. By the way, about the index.
Make the markup
1. Index
The Bullet Journal Index is a table of contents. It will help you find the records you need. This is how BuJo compares favorably with traditional diaries: you don't have to flip through your notebook for a long time to find something. The first page is highlighted under the table of contents. If the magazine is large, leave a little more space.
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Publication from Tina Stepanova (@ tina.stepanova)
In the future, the principle of action will be as follows. You write down some information in a notebook. Then open the table of contents and enter the appropriate topic there with the number of the page on which you made the entry. If a note takes more than one page, it should be indexed as follows: "Note subject: 5-10 pages."
Some recurring topics may be scattered around the magazine in no particular order. For example, you keep a list of films you want to watch, and the spread is full, and then there is another entry. In this case, continue the list in any other place, and in the table of contents, write down: "List of films to watch: 5-10, 23, 34-39 pages."
For the index to work, the pages must be numbered. Special notebooks for Bullet Journal have ready-made table of contents and pagination, but you can add numbers yourself.
2. Plan for the future
The future log is used to set goals for the next six months. The most important events are entered into it. The easiest way to do it is to divide the spread with horizontal lines into six sections, three on each page, and label each with the name of the month.
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Publication from Sonia | bujo (@sonijournal)
Don't forget to add this spread to the index. Review your future plan each month to move assignments from it to the monthly goals section.
3. Monthly plan
In a monthly plan, you can record appointments, bill payment days, class schedules, and vacation, holidays, dates and the like that you don't want to forget. Each such section in the Bullet Journal should span an entire spread. On one page is a calendar, on the other is a list of tasks. This is how it looks:
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Publication from Ryder Carroll (@bulletjournal)
- Calendar page used to create a monthly plan. You can add events here that are expected or those that have already passed, but it is important for you to remember them. Keep your entries as short as possible: this is not the place to write down details.
- Page with tasks filled with tasks for a month - here you can enter tasks that cannot be tied to a specific date and recorded in the calendar. Prioritize your list and bring back what you haven't done from last month.
Another popular way to make a monthly plan is the so-called calendex (from the words "calendar" and "index"). In this calendar, you do not write down things, but the numbers of the pages on which the necessary information is located.
For example, on the 13th you attended a meeting and took notes on page 25. You open the calendar at the beginning of the notebook and assign the page number to the appropriate date. Like this:
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When you wonder why you are so tired and then your #Calendex reminds you that you are a very busy girl this week… It’s all starting to make sense now 😂👍🏻 #BulletJournal #plannerbloggers #bulletjournaljunkies #plannergirl
Publication from Kara 🌸 Boho Berry (@ boho.berry)
A couple of numbers takes up less space on the page than a line of text, but the information content is reduced. You won't be able to glance at the calendar and say what awaits you without flipping through the magazine.
But you can compromise and write things down as usual, simply by marking next to them on which page to find the details. Let's say you're working on a big project and should finish it this month. List your actions on a separate spread, and add only the title and page number to the monthly plan.
4. Weekly plan
If you have so many to do that the list with them does not fit on the page with tasks in the monthly plan, you can set aside a separate spread for each week. It looks something like this:
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Publication from M A R I E (@journalspiration)
Strictly speaking, there are no weekly plans in Ryder Carroll's classic concept. So this step is optional. But the good thing about Bullet Journal is that there are no hard and fast rules and you can conduct it as you like.
5. Diary
Daily logs make up the bulk of the Bullet Journal. Tasks that you have to do, the events of the current day, any thoughts, ideas and any notes that come to mind.
To start keeping daily records, open a blank spread and write the date and day of the week at the top of the page. Fill the page with information in a list throughout the day. It looks like this:
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Publication from ROBERTA RANIERI 🌸 (@qualcosadierre)
There is no need to try to determine in advance how much page space will be needed for daily entries. If you still have it, the next day just keep writing without jumping to the next until this one ends.
6. Collections
Bullet Journal is notable for the fact that it can be used for any purpose. A workout schedule, a gardening journal, a nutrition tracker, a diary, even a sketchbook - and all of this can be in one notebook at the same time. Collections are used to organize this data. They collect all information that is not related to planning.
You can have collections where you collect data about your income and expenses, a list of places where you wanted whether to get a job, your sleep schedule, or lists of books, movies, and games that you would like to see. In general, any ideas that need to be kept close at hand are brought in here.
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Publication from ˗ˏˋcelina ˎˊ˗ (@celfstudies)
Collections like this can be scattered in random order throughout the notebook, interspersed with daily lists. The main thing is that they are included in the index, and then they will be easy to find at the right time.
A whole community has formed around Bullet Journal. People on the web share photos of their spectacularly designed diaries, and keeping records is a kind of creativity for them. Do not worry if you do not succeed as beautifully, you should not make an end in itself out of bright colors and straight lines. Just remember, your magazine is a productivity tool, and its effectiveness is more important than being effective.
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- 5 reasons why it's time to end procrastination
- 7 effective planning methods to help you stay on track
- How to organize your day: techniques of productivity geniuses