Ryder Carroll - The Bullet Journal Method

MONTHLY LOG

Provides an overview of time and tasks for the current month. Also functions as your monthly mental inventory.

DAILY LOG

Serves as your catchall for Rapid Logging your thoughts throughout each day

RAPID LOGGING

Using short-form notation paired with symbols to quickly capture, categorize, and prioritize your thoughts into Notes, Events, and Tasks.

Note

Event

Task

Task Complete

Task Migrated

Task Scheduled

Task Irrelevant

COLLECTIONS

The modular building blocks of BuJo, used to store related content. The core collections are the Index, Future Log, Monthly Log, and Daily Log, but you can create one for anything you want to keep track of.

MIGRATION

The monthly process of filtering out meaningless content from your notebook.

Quick—what was the last meaningful thing someone said to you? Okay, let’s try an easier category: What did you eat for lunch two days ago? If you’re drawing a blank, you’re not alone. It goes to show that we can’t rely on memory to accurately capture our experience.

Our experiences—both sweet and sour—are lessons. We honor these lessons by writing them down so we can study them and see what they have to teach us. This is how we learn, this is how we grow. If we forfeit the opportunity to learn from our experiences, as the saying (sort of) goes, we condemn ourselves to repeat our mistakes.

Journaling provides a powerful way of facilitating this path of self-learning. The problem with traditional journaling is that it is loosely structured and time-intensive. Rapid Logging leverages the best aspects of journaling by stripping away everything that’s not essential. It’s the language the Bullet Journal is written in. In short, Rapid Logging helps us capture and organize our thoughts as living lists.

Rapid Logging will help you efficiently capture your life as it happens so that you may begin to study it.

On the following pages you’ll find visual examples illustrating the difference between content captured in a more traditional way and the same information organized with Rapid Logging. We’ll break down the symbols and structure in detail later, but it’s easy to see how succinct and clear the Rapid Log is. This streamlined approach to recording our thoughts saves a lot of time, allowing it to easily fit into our busy lives.

As Bullet Journalist Ray Cheshire describes: “I’m a high school science teacher at a big inner-city school in the UK. Things can get a little hectic at times as we try to cram ever more stuff into our days. This is where Rapid Logging comes in. For example, we were told that an inspection was going to happen at very short notice, but thanks to Bullet Journaling, I quickly knew what I still had to do before the inspectors arrived.”

Be it at home, school, or the workplace, Rapid Logging will help you organize the dizzying array of things you have to contend with on a daily basis.

TRADITIONAL

☑ Call Keith back to figure out where we should eat this weekend.

☐ Email Heather again regarding the Acme Co release forms for project participants. Need to send out the forms to them and have their signatures before we proceed.

The Acme Co UX presentation is due February 12.

☐ Email Leigh about her party that she’s having on April 21.

The office will be closed on the 13th.

I was happily surprised that Margaret seems to have taken her feedback to heart. She volunteered to help manage the assets for the project and has become a more engaged part of the team. Her work is also showing progress.

☐ Call to cancel yoga orientation.

☐ Order Kim a birthday cake for next week on Thursday. It has to be gluten-free because she is celiac.

☐ Add hours for Acme Co project to the time tracker.

Broadway was blocked on my way to work this morning, so I had to take a detour. On the way I spotted a new coffee shop I have to try. It’s also a lot more scenic a route. I put the windows down and just enjoyed the ride. I get so caught up in rushing to work that I totally forgot about this route. By the time I got to work, I was feeling pretty good even though I was a little late.

☐ Plan trip

225 words

RAPID LOGGING

04.01.TH

Keith: Call re: Saturday dinner

Acme Co: Release forms

Heather: Email to get forms

Email forms to participants

Get signatures

Acme Co: UX presentation Feb 12

Leigh: Reply Apr 21 party

Office closed Apr 13

Margaret: Volunteered to help with assets

Showing more incentive and engagement

Increased participation effort

04.02.FR

Cancel yoga

Kim: Get birthday cake

Celiac: Needs to be gluten-free

The party’s on Thursday

Acme Co: Log hours

Broadway blocked, had to take long way

Found new coffee place

Much prettier drive

Felt more relaxed when I arrived