WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:31.950 Growing up with ADHD, my life often felt really overwhelming. I always felt like I was behind or falling short. There was always something I should or could be doing better or more efficiently. So I started trying to find a perfect app, spread, or productivity hack to finally feel organized and productive. But the more stuff that I added, the more scattered and disorganized I felt. I was spending more time managing the tools and actually living a productive life. That's when I made a simple but powerful change. I replaced all these complex and disjointed tools with one simple and unified notebook system. 00:00:32.110 --> 00:00:55.375 Today, I feel more organized and present than ever before. Hi. I'm Ryder Carroll, inventor of the Bullet Journal Method, and I've helped over a million people write a better life. In this video, I'm gonna walk you through how exactly the system effectively replaced the productivity tools I thought I needed to live a better life. From task management to habit tracking, we'll explore not only how you can do this in your notebook, but what gets lost when you don't. Let's dive in. 00:00:59.690 --> 00:01:08.650 Let's start with the most fundamental and important productivity tool, the to do list. The power of writing down what you have to do can't be exaggerated. 00:01:08.730 --> 00:01:23.975 That's partly why the market is flooded with different options to do just that. I've tried dozens of to do apps, and they're great. They're beautifully designed. They're incredibly efficient. They sync. They're searchable. They make capturing your to dos effortless. 00:01:24.570 --> 00:01:32.010 To me, though, that ended up proving to be a bug and not a feature. See, the less friction there is to capturing your to dos, 00:01:32.250 --> 00:01:34.330 the more likely you are to add. 00:01:34.570 --> 00:01:35.850 The more you add, 00:01:36.090 --> 00:01:37.290 the less you do. 00:01:37.610 --> 00:01:41.185 For me, I ended up creating and then abandoning 00:01:41.185 --> 00:01:48.705 these never ending list of chores. In bullet journaling, we avoid task hoarding by taking advantage of friction in one of three ways. 00:01:49.185 --> 00:01:50.465 The first is by name. 00:01:50.705 --> 00:01:53.905 We don't call them tasks or to dos. We call them actions. 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:55.200 Why? 00:01:55.440 --> 00:01:59.280 Because a task list usually gets in the way of the life that you want. 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:03.440 An action plan is the way to the life that you want. 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:12.525 We create our future one action at a time. It's a tiny semantic moment of friction that can help us be more discerning, 00:02:12.605 --> 00:02:30.870 which brings us to the second way, writing by hand. No. It's not as fast as having your tasks auto populate or typing them out like you can in other apps. That said, I found that that bit of added daily effort in the short term often results in immense time savings in the long term. How? 00:02:31.030 --> 00:02:39.995 Well, if something isn't worth the moment of effort it takes to rewrite it or to write it down in the first place, it's probably not worth your time in general. 00:02:40.395 --> 00:02:50.795 That's really what sets this system apart. Rather than finding a way to hack our time to get more done, we wanna focus on hacking down what we're doing to have more time for the few things that actually matter, 00:02:51.700 --> 00:02:55.300 which brings us to the third way that we use friction, 00:02:55.780 --> 00:03:01.540 which is to write a daily to do list. This is how it works. Every morning, turn to a blank spread 00:03:01.700 --> 00:03:07.475 and write down the day's date. Scan through the previous days to see if anything has now become urgent. 00:03:07.715 --> 00:03:10.915 Then write down what you need to get done that day 00:03:11.235 --> 00:03:13.795 as clear single sentences. 00:03:14.435 --> 00:03:17.155 Now number the top three in order of importance. 00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:22.740 Really think about what is the one thing that would make today a success. 00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:26.420 That's what gets number one. Everything else is a bonus. 00:03:26.740 --> 00:03:27.300 That's it. 00:03:31.585 --> 00:03:39.505 Digital calendars are another cornerstone of most people's productivity stack. I still use them all the time to block out and schedule things that I need to do. 00:03:39.985 --> 00:03:42.625 They're great because they're flexible and collaborative, 00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:47.640 but there is one core feature they often lack, and that has more to do with behavior. 00:03:48.200 --> 00:03:52.760 When we use our digital calendar, we usually plot out what we think will happen. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:57.640 Very rarely do people update their calendar based on what actually did happen 00:03:57.965 --> 00:03:59.245 after it happened. 00:03:59.485 --> 00:04:04.285 So we're often left with an incomplete or inaccurate record of our life. 00:04:04.765 --> 00:04:08.685 This is why in the bullet journal method, every month we set up a timeline. 00:04:09.085 --> 00:04:14.870 The timeline is part of our monthly log. To set up your monthly log, all you have to do is open to a blank spread. 00:04:15.030 --> 00:04:21.910 On the left hand side, you put the month followed by the dates of the month and then the first letter of all the days. 00:04:22.230 --> 00:04:30.535 That's it. This is your timeline. On the right hand side, you'll create your action plan listing all the things that you wanna get done and act on this month. 00:04:30.935 --> 00:04:50.670 As opposed to a calendar that tracks what you thought would happen, the monthly timeline is a reflection of what actually did happen. Each day offers you just one line to log the most noteworthy thing that happened that day. It can be a good thing, it can be a challenging thing, but by the end of the month, you're left with an accurate record of how your life unfolded. 00:04:50.990 --> 00:05:10.720 Our memories are terrible. It can be really illuminating to see an accurate representation of how your life unfolded over the last thirty days. We can use the timeline to help us spot and break patterns, establish new ones, and make much more informed decisions about what we do and do not commit to, which brings us to the next tool. 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:18.720 Another popular tool in the productivity world is some kind of habit tracker. 00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:31.455 We use habit trackers to help us become who we want to be. Again, this is a place where apps can be really compelling. They have all sorts of wonderful bells and whistles that make tracking habits fun and seamless. 00:05:31.855 --> 00:05:43.190 So seamless, in fact, that before you know it, you're tracking ten, twenty, 30 habits. I see this all the time. I've done it myself. The truth is that real behavior change is really hard. 00:05:43.430 --> 00:05:46.390 It requires consistent practice over time. 00:05:46.550 --> 00:05:53.235 And the more behaviors we try to change at the same time, the less likely we are to change any of them. 00:05:53.555 --> 00:05:56.755 Again, the trick is keeping things really simple. 00:05:56.995 --> 00:05:59.715 In fact, it's setting the bar so low 00:05:59.955 --> 00:06:27.305 that you'll actually do it. The way that I do this is by limiting myself to no more than three small actions that I can commit to for at least thirty days for a month. To make things even easier, I piggyback on that monthly log layout I just showed you before to track these new actions. Below the timeline, I write down the actions I'm tracking so I don't forget them later on. Then I place the first letter of each behavior up on the right here across from the days. 00:06:27.705 --> 00:06:32.420 Next, I assign when I will do what for the first week only. 00:06:32.900 --> 00:06:40.100 Why? Because the first week for me is always a test run to see how much effort this commitment really requires. 00:06:40.260 --> 00:06:43.765 Chances are, I don't know. Then after a week, 00:06:44.085 --> 00:06:49.845 I can start to gauge. Then week after week, I can dial in a sustainable plan of action. 00:06:50.245 --> 00:07:01.180 That's it. Now if you've been watching this and thinking, I wanna try this out, but I don't know where to start, you really don't need much. In fact, any notebook you have lying around will do the trick. However, 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:28.760 I found that having the right notebook, the one that you actually enjoy using, can make a huge difference. That's why I designed the official bullet journal notebook. It comes with everything we've been talking about already built in, an index so you can find anything later, numbered dot grids to organize your pages, three bookmarks so you can easily jump between your daily, weekly, and monthly logs. It's designed so you spend less time setting up and more time actually writing a better life. I'll leave a link below if you wanna check it out. Now let's keep going. 00:07:32.760 --> 00:07:39.445 One space that's been getting a lot of love in the last few years is mood tracking, which I think is absolutely fantastic. 00:07:39.445 --> 00:07:43.845 If you've been following this channel, you know why I think tracking your mood is so important. 00:07:44.165 --> 00:07:48.725 If not, consider subscribing now. In short, the way we feel influences 00:07:48.725 --> 00:07:55.490 everything we do. When you don't pay attention to how you feel, we end up doing a bunch of things we don't understand 00:07:55.890 --> 00:08:00.290 or care about. My challenge with a lot of these trackers is that they lack context. 00:08:00.290 --> 00:08:01.570 You simply tap 00:08:01.890 --> 00:08:10.585 when you felt something. That's super simple. But in this case, think it might be a little bit too simple. For us to understand our mood, we need more context. 00:08:10.745 --> 00:08:37.940 What were you doing or focusing on when you felt this thing? What was happening not just that day, but that week or that month? Though some mood trackers do allow you to add that kind of context, it requires yet more energy we may not have, especially when we're feeling low. With BuJo, we don't have to do any of that. Remember that daily log we were talking about before? In addition to just our actions, we're also jotting down notes, which are our thoughts, events, and moods, which are our feelings, 00:08:38.475 --> 00:08:44.235 as they pop up throughout the day. All of this as single sentence journal entries. Over time, 00:08:44.715 --> 00:08:45.435 is 00:08:45.515 --> 00:08:47.035 created organically 00:08:47.035 --> 00:08:49.115 as part of your practice. 00:08:49.195 --> 00:08:51.675 There's no need to add that context later. 00:08:52.100 --> 00:08:55.300 You can see what you were doing or experiencing 00:08:55.540 --> 00:09:06.180 around the time that you were feeling certain things. What you're left with is not only a mood tracker, but a super lightweight way of organizing your thoughts, actions, moods, and events in a sustainable way. 00:09:06.795 --> 00:09:15.275 This is the foundation of a bullet journal practice. As you can see, this approach streamlines and unifies a lot of tools into one manageable system. 00:09:15.515 --> 00:09:25.620 Best of all, it reduces your screen time. Every minute you spend in your notebook is a minute you're not context switching between apps, not getting pulled into notifications, 00:09:25.780 --> 00:09:29.540 not falling down the next digital rabbit hole or doom scrolling. 00:09:29.780 --> 00:09:35.940 It removes temptation of endless content and rewards you with clarity and presence of thought and action. 00:09:36.635 --> 00:09:46.075 That's something that no app can really give you. If you're ready to try this for yourself, just grab any notebook you have lying around. The tool doesn't matter so much as the practice. 00:09:46.155 --> 00:10:01.220 However, if you'd like to use the notebook that you've been seeing throughout this video, the one that I use, check out the official bullet journal notebook. I designed it from the ground up for exactly what we've covered today. To me, it offers the perfect Goldilocks zone of structure, freedom, and quality. 00:10:01.715 --> 00:10:17.395 Check out the link in the description or scan this QR code here to grab one for yourself. What we just covered here is my core OneNotebook system that I use every day. But if you like using more than OneNotebook, check out this video next. Thanks for taking the time and see you in the next one. Happy bullet journaling.