how to invest
Weekly meal plans
Set 5-year goal
Call ’rents
Get a checkup
Retirement plan
Want to be working on
Plan trip to Hawaii
Learn to cook
Learn another language
Read more
Write more
Lose 10 pounds
More time with friends
The Test
This Mental Inventory you just created provides a clear picture of how you’re currently investing your time and energy. It’s a map of your choices. The next step is to figure out which ones are worth making.
We’re so busy with all the things we’re doing (or should be doing) that we forget to ask ourselves why we’re doing these things. We end up burdening ourselves with all sorts of unnecessary responsibilities. The Mental Inventory grants us the opportunity to take a step back and ask why.
Go ahead, ask why for each item on your list. You don’t need to dive down an existential rabbit hole. Simply ask yourself two questions:
1 Does this matter? (To you or to someone you love)
2 Is this vital? (Think rent, taxes, student loans, your job, etc.)
TIP: If you struggle to answer these questions about a given item, ask yourself what would happen if said item just didn’t get done. Ever. Would there be any real repercussions?
Any item that doesn’t pass this test is a distraction. It adds little to no value to your life. Cross it off. Be ruthless. Keep in mind that each task is an experience waiting to be born, offering a glimpse into your potential future. That’s why everything on your list has to fight for its life to stay there. More accurately, each item needs to fight for the opportunity to become part of your life.
When you’re done, you’ll probably be left with two types of tasks: things you need to do (your responsibilites) and things you want to do (that is, your goals). Throughout the course of this book, I will show you ways you can push forward on both fronts. For now, though, you have all the ingredients needed to populate your Bullet Journal. All, that is, except for your notebook.
Now you may be asking, Why didn’t we just do this in our notebook? It’s a fair question. As you read this book, ponder the ideas, and try out the techniques, you might find yourself paring back your Mental Inventory even more. When you christen your Bullet Journal, you should do so with only things that you believe are important or will add value to your life. Being intentional about what you let into your life is a practice that shouldn’t be limited to the pages of your notebook.
Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.
—CHRISTINA BALDWIN
People who are new to BuJo often ask about the notebook. Can’t we just use an app for keeping lists? The short answer is sure. In fact, there are a lot of good productivity apps out there. I worked on some myself! As a digital product designer, I can fully appreciate how powerful and effective digital tools can be. In fact, the Bullet Journal was designed using some methodologies leveraged in software development. That said, there’s a lot more to Bullet Journaling than keeping lists. It’s a comprehensive methodology designed to help us capture, order, and examine our experience. As you move through this book, you’ll see exactly how and why your notebook will serve you well in this regard. Here, we’ll look at the foundational reasons behind the notebook.
Technology removes barriers and distances between people and information. We can learn about almost anything, or communicate with anyone, at any time, from anywhere, just by tapping our phone. It’s a convenience that we avail ourselves of, on average, every 12 minutes!12 All of this convenience, however, comes at a price—and I don’t mean the cost of your data plan, your cable bundle, or the pieces of your soul you sacrifice as you try to reason with your provider’s customer service.
In a world where Wi-Fi boosters are attached to church steeples, no place remains sacred.13 From the boardroom to the bathroom, technology has flooded our lives with more content than we can possibly absorb, washing away our attention spans in the process. Studies suggest that your concentration suffers simply by having your smartphone in the room with you, even if it’s silent or powered off!14
In 2016, the average American spent nearly eleven hours in front of digital screens each day.15 Factoring in six to eight hours of sleep (which is also compromised by our phones16), we’re left with around six hours of non-screen time per day. Now consider the time spent commuting, cooking, and running errands, and you can see where this is headed: We’re steadily decreasing the amount of time we have to stop and think.
Sitting down with your notebook grants you that precious luxury. It provides a personal space, free from distraction, where you can get to know yourself better. This is one of the main reasons we use a notebook to Bullet Journal: It forces us to go offline.
Our notebook serves as a mental sanctuary where we are free to think, reflect, process, and focus.
The blank pages of your notebook offer a safe playground for your mind, where you’re completely free to express yourself without judgment or expectation. As soon as you put pen to paper, you establish a direct link to your mind and often your heart. This experience has yet to be properly replicated in the digital space. It’s why, to this day, so many ideas are born on scraps of paper.
Another reason we use notebooks? Flexibility. Software tends to be either so powerful that its wealth of features is buried to all but the most intrepid explorers (think Excel) or so specific that it sacrifices features for increased usability, essentially doing few things very well (think mobile apps). In both cases, they force you to operate within a framework of their choosing. This is the main challenge with many productivity systems: They struggle to address the limitless variability and evolutionary nature of our individual needs. Notebooks, in contrast, are beholden to their authors. Their function is limited only by the imagination of their owner.
The power of the Bullet Journal is that it becomes whatever you need it to be, no matter what season of life you’re in.
In school, it can serve for your class notes. At work, it can be a tool to organize your projects. At home, it can help you set and track your goals. Robyn C., for example, was able to meditate for 432 consecutive days by designing a meditation tracker in her Bullet
