Focused - 107: The Bullet Journal Method, with Ryder Carroll

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Bullet Journal Method founder Ryder Carroll joins us to talk about taking time offline, asking the right questions, and finding the the balance between style and substance in getting the right things done.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you today? I'm doing well, and I'm excited because we have a special guest here today. Welcome to the podcast, Ryder Carroll. Thanks for having me. and I are big fans of your work. We are big fans of the bullet journal system. For those listeners who aren't familiar with Ryder and his work, he's a New York Times bestselling author, digital product designer, inventor of the bullet journal method. You've got a great TEDx talk, which I watched today, about decluttering your mind, cultivating curiosity, remaining focused over time. And I am excited to have you on the podcast here because we want to dive into this bullet journal method and maybe the place to start here. I know you tell a little bit of your story

in the book, but kind of what got you into this method that you landed on and created a system for and wrote a book about? How did that come to be? Through necessity, mostly. I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder in middle school and before then i had struggled terribly in school especially with focus and productivity and so i turned to the only tool that i had available to me as a kid this was before the internet um was my notebook that's all i had in class my notebooks. So I would try to figure out ways to become more focused and productive just in the way that I organized my thoughts. And I would try a whole bunch of different things. And over the years, once in a while, something would work. And then another thing, and then another thing.

And eventually, I was able to amass a group of different tools and techniques that I then was able to fit together into what is now known as the bullet journal method. It's basically just a tool set of different techniques that can help you be more focused and mindful about the things that you're spending your time with. Yeah. I think I saw you interviewed once where you were talking about how, you know, obviously you didn't start this saying I'm going to turn this into a thing and I'm going to be a New York times bestselling author with my bullet journal.

But at some point it, it jumped, you know, beyond something you do to something that your friends started doing where you started sharing it. what led to that step? Well, as you mentioned before, it was never designed for anyone else. It was very much designed for my needs. So it just never occurred to me that it would be helpful to other people. But I remember this one time I got a job through a friend of mine who worked at an agency.

And at the same time, she worked at this agency. She was planning her wedding. And she was completely overwhelmed by this. And she used a notebook to plan things, a combination, kind of like a productivity Frankenstein, like a little bit of Google calendars, some spreadsheets, notebooks, all this stuff. And it wasn't working. And I just remember she was struggling so much with it. like a little bit of google calendars some spreadsheets notebooks all this stuff and it wasn't working and i just remember she was struggling so much with it and i was like hey i have a way to organize information that kind of you know keeps me focused i'm happy to you know walk you through it if you're interested and i till this day i don't really know

what came over me to volunteer this thing. But to my great chagrin, she accepted the offer. And then I walked her through the way that I organized my mind, my life, pretty much. And it took me about half an hour, 45 minutes, because I'd never really explained it to anyone before. It's very different to do something than it is to explain something. And by the end of this 45 minute session, I couldn't even look at her. So embarrassed, you know,

like trying to explain to somebody how you think also is the first time you hear how you think. Sure. So anyway, when I was finally done with this, I looked at her and her mouth was hanging open. I'm like, Oh no,

she thinks I'm completely crazy. And the first thing she said was, you have to share this with people which never had occurred to me it just that's not what it was for that wasn't the context and she was the first one to shift that context and it wasn't until many years later that i did actually share it publicly but that was the first time i was like, maybe this could be helpful to other people. And after that, once in a while, when I saw that somebody was struggling with something, I would show them a technique or method that I had come across or developed myself that I found to be really helpful. And I always thought it was really interesting that regardless of the background of the person I was helping, whether that be an accountant or a project manager or designer, like these tools seem to apply and be helpful to all of them.

So regardless of discipline, the tools to be more focused and productive seem to be helpful. And then eventually I found myself with two weeks off between two different contracts. I was a freelancer for a long time designing software i wanted to build something that was mine like a lot of times when you're a freelancer you end up working on things where you don't have a lot of say necessarily and i just rolled off a really long contract where i was just basically a cog and I wanted something that was creative and it would be helpful. It would actually serve people. And I wanted it to be something that was my own. So I was thinking like, what do I do that's unique to me? And ironically, even though

I was a digital product designer and all this is like, well, I use a notebook in a pretty, pretty peculiar way. And it seems to be helpful to the people that I've shown. So I spent about two weeks formalizing the methodology that I then published as bullet journal. Like that was the birth of bullet journal.com. Yeah. I really think that that dichotomy between like modern technology and the fact that the bullet journal is a very analog tool is something that always, I think people have to take a second to look at that and think about it. But it also, I think, is one of the reasons for its popularity. I'd like to believe so. I mean, I think we now know that technology won't solve all of our productivity issues. If anything,

there's definitely data to support the idea that now technology is making us less productive. You know, I think that technology isn't a novelty, especially in the productivity space anymore. It's like it has to work. And now it's not necessarily about how high tech something is. It's about how effective something is. And for me and many others, there are certain tasks that seem to be

significantly better suited for pen and paper, especially there are certain tasks that seem to be significantly better suited for pen and paper, especially when it comes to thinking and actually creating a distraction-free space for yourself to think, which I think is becoming much more of a luxury these days. Yeah. One of the nice things about a bullet journal is there's nowhere you can touch your pen to have your Twitter notifications pop up on your piece of paper. Exactly, exactly. And that's a real feature, not a bug. And a lot of people realize that all of a sudden when they're like, oh, wow, I've been writing for like 15 minutes.

That's like the first thing I've done for 15 minutes straight in the last six months. Yeah. Which is why this show exists. You mentioned in the, uh, the Ted talk that focus costs you your two most important resources, your energy and your time. Do you mind explaining a little bit how the bullet journal method and maybe on a larger scale, just analog productivity in general, kind of helps you align those things a little bit better?

Sure. I mean, I think that, again, technology is great. I want to be very clear. Like I was a digital product designer, I very much appreciate the power of technology, especially its ability to help us connect to the world around us. Right. And we can have interviews where I don't even know where you're located, to be honest. And like, you know, we can have meetings with people all around the world,

but I think that technology fails to help us connect to the world within us, which is a really important space. That's like a really important space. And I feel like with analog, you take time offline. And that's really what it's all about. It's taking time for yourself. Like I've found very few mediums other than analog that helps you take time.

Cause I believe you can't make time. Time can't be made. Time can't be made. It can only be taken. It can be taken by us or it can be taken for us. And that's a choice we have to make. And I feel like a lot of times we forget about that choice because we're so wrapped up in the rush of our digital lives. We're constantly bombarded by information, you know, Twitter, email, Facebook, Instagram. We're so distracted by the world around us. So

we keep getting further and further away from understanding ourselves. And at the end of the day, that's a really important thing, because we have to start thinking about what we want more of and what we want less of. And the less time we spend thinking about those things, the more time I think we feel shame or we feel guilt or we feel that on a very basic level, we feel that something is wrong. Like we can be a super productive person. Like we get a lot done. We meet all our goals and it can feel entirely empty, which is what happened to me. Essentially, I built all these tools with bullet journal when it was very much

just about becoming more productive and then once all these tools were in place and i was able to like hit one goal after the next after the next i started realizing that it didn't matter because i was missing a huge part of this equation which is i didn't know why i was doing what i was doing i was operating onilot, like all my goals were just basically things that people told me I should want. And I think a lot of us operate under that assumption, right? It's like, you want more money, or you want a better title, or you want this, or you want that. And I just like never had taken the time to ask myself, what do I want based on my lived experience. And I feel like when you start asking why things change fundamentally right you go from a process-oriented approach to life

to a purpose-oriented approach to life and i think that that's a really critical difference because with a process process-driven approach to life you'll'll be like, how much time will this take? Right? With a purpose-driven approach to life, you start asking, why does this get to take my time at all? And all of a sudden, you start realizing that a lot of things shouldn't get to take your time. And all of a sudden, you have way more time because you stop doing things that don't matter to you. Does that make sense? Yeah. And one of the things I love about the Bullet Journal Method book, I've read it now twice,

and it's a little bit of a Trojan horse, but in a good way, because I guess maybe the first third of the book teaches you the Bullet Journal Method. How do you do a Bullet Journal? And it's a very flexible system. We'll talk a little bit more about mechanics later, but then you just slide right into productivity 101. And how do you make all this work? And how do you tie what you're doing with that little notebook and

your fancy pen to what your life means? And I thought that you just have a great voice for it. And I would recommend this book to people who voice for it. And, um, I would recommend this book to people who really aren't that interested in bullet journaling, because I just think that, you know, the, um, the, the pieces of it, like if you, even if you want to use a digital system or whatever, it works across the board. So, you know, good on you for, for getting to the why. Well, thank you kindly. I appreciate that. I mean, for me, the thing is it's like productivity is really important because it helps us get organized. And I think organization is really critical in order for you to be able to see how you're spending your time and your energy.

And if you're not organized, it's really hard to have some kind of inventory of like, how am I spending my time? But once you know, what do you do with that information? And that's really where the second part of the book comes into. It's like, okay, why am I doing these things? Do I want to be doing these things?

Are these things adding to my life? Are they taking away? Should I allow this? And again, the analog just to kind of circle back to the original part, why is analog important here? It's like, because it's silent. I think that's the easiest way I can put it. It's just quiet. And at first that can be a little bit unnerving to people. You're sitting there like literally with your own thoughts, but you have this external scaffolding on paper to

help you think through things like you're helping yourself think better over time does that make sense it's like with this notebook like you're not you're not gonna have to open another file you're not gonna have to edit it you're not you're just gonna see what's going on in your mind and then you can start making choices about those things well it's like wow i've been putting this thing off for three months now. Maybe I shouldn't be working on this, or maybe it doesn't mean anything to me. Like, I don't believe in this, and that's why I'm procrastinating. I'm not lazy.

I just, I don't get why I should be doing this. You know, it just makes you stop and start asking questions. And for me, that was a really big paradigm shift. Not like, how am I going to get this done? But like, why should this get done? And we're allowed to ask that question. You know, I think it's a scary question to ask. It is a scary question. It does make a lot of sense. And I totally understand why you said it can be a little bit unnerving for people. If you're so used to just plowing through your task list without ever stopping to consider why those things are on your task list

in the first place. And then you start asking yourself those questions and you realize that none of this really matters. There can be a little bit of a panic moment, I would imagine, where, okay, so everything I'm doing is pointless. Where do I go from here? Did you experience anything like that when you were going through this process for the first time? Well, let's put it this way. I got to the end of the process and then realized that it didn't matter, right? Which is way worse. It's because I sunk years into this project. I started a company with a friend of mine, which was successful, and it gave me everything that I quote unquote wanted. And I spent years working on this thing. And then I

launched and it didn't matter. I didn't care. It didn't make me happy. All the things I was supposed to want or all the things that were supposed to make me happy didn't. So basically, I experienced it. And then I started retrofitting, if you will, my own system to start focusing on the world inside as opposed to the one around me. That's the thing I think, which brings us back to the original question is, if you don't know why you're doing something, you end up spending all this time working towards something that at the end of the day won't matter. that at the end of the day won't matter. So I think it's much more important to be asking yourself along the way, what does matter? Because then you save yourself a lot of time and energy

invested in something that you ultimately don't believe in. And just to kind of reel it back a little bit, this is not about trying to create an existential threat every time you make a to-do list that's not the point here the point is to get into the habit of every day kind of taking the temperature on the things that you're committing your time to right so like in the bullet journal our to-do lists aren't just things we have to do in the bullet journal. Every task is an experience that's waiting to be born. So like, that's literally the substance that your future is made out of. So that's how it's weighed.

And a lot of those things are small. It's like, you know, clean out the garage, Right? It's like, obviously, is this going to have a huge effect on your future life? No, but it's like, why does this need to be done? And when you start asking a question, something else really interesting happens, you can actually start to assign meaning to things that do seem meaningless. Like, why are you cleaning out the garage? It's like, I'm cleaning out the garage, because my partner really wants a workspace. Right?

So all of a sudden, like this menial thing or this chore turns into actually like an act of service, maybe. Or like you do the dishes because your partner is just like overworked. Like then burn the midnight oil and it's just a way for you to take the load off a little bit. So this thing that may not seem meaningful all of a sudden does just because you spend a moment to think about it. Like, why am I doing this? Right. Does it work every time? No.

Sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to because that's the tax for being alive. But oftentimes, just because something can be done doesn't mean that it needs to be done. And I think taking a moment to question the things that we allow into our lives is really important practice. And I would add to that, even though you will come across things that don't have a big why attached to them, if you regularly ask yourself the question, most things do. Yes. If you dig deep enough, which is really the thing I love about the system in the first step, it sounds like is this mental decluttering that you talk about where you ask a couple of questions. And I'm curious with that, as you're trying to define the meaning for things, is there, these seem like very open-ended type of questions. Can you assign your own definition to vital and matter? Or is there a more strict application of this that that you use

okay so you're talking about the mental inventory it's like asking yourself of your task is it vital and does it matter so for me the criteria for vital is usually things that i don't want to do but i could get like could have a very big detrimental effect to my life if i do not do it right it's like if i don't pay my rent or i don't pay to my life if i do not do it right it's like if i don't pay my rent or i don't pay my taxes like do i want to do those things absolutely not do i have to kind of you know so it's just a way to very quickly vet things so again to maybe not have an existential meltdown every time you're going through your to-do list so does it is it vital so the criteria for that can be self-assigned because what's vital to me is different from what's vital to you.

And that's a big part of this as well, defining what is vital, like thinking about that in your life. Like, do you need to live in this apartment? You know, if you don't want to pay the rent, why are you paying rent? Oh, you know what? Actually, I don't want to live in this apartment. I'd rather live somewhere else. And all of a sudden, you realize that the thing that's vital to you is the proximity to living to your family, not your apartment right now. So the vital is self-determined, as is the next question. So if something's not vital, does it matter? And that's much more personal and a little bit more gray, because you get to define what matters, not society, right? Like if you want to take those trumpet lessons, if that's the most important thing in your

life, then that matters, right? But that's self-determined. I think it's important to ask yourself, like simply like what matters to me in my life? Like what brings me joy or what brings me a sense of satisfaction or meaning? Because I feel like if we don't ask that question question we can lose track and we won't know and if we don't know what matters to us that's that's dangerous that's dangerous because then you can't orient yourself around anything i understand that that question is subjective people can answer it how they they want but do you have any sort of framework for

personally deciding whether something matters? Or is this just kind of if you feel like it matters in the moment? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to lie. I don't always know the answer to it. But that's why I asked the question. I think if it feels like it matters, then that's enough for now. But in the bullet journal, like a big part is an ongoing cycle of reflection because we won't always have the answers and our minds will change and our circumstances will change. So the things that we feel are meaningful may not feel meaningful and then they feel meaningful again, or things that were meaningful are not anymore. So maybe they don't get to take our time and attention.

Like that's a really important part of the bullet journal method for me is that it consistently encourages me and invites me to question the things that I'm either taking for granted or not thinking about at all. So to answer your question, what I define as meaningful to me or what is vital or what matters changes so my definition changes i'd almost argue that it's not the answer that matters so much as the act of asking the question exactly exactly you know i feel like people are always looking for answers and like for me what's really important in my own life is to be asking better questions because I feel like answers never, that's never the end of anything,

but good questions can keep you thinking in a productive way. And a mindset where you want to keep asking the questions is going to always keep you honest with yourself. I mean, it's also important that the nature of your questions is hopeful, right? Not like, why does this matter? Like, what about this matters to me or what about this does not matter to me? Right? Like if nothing matters, it's like throwing up your hands and like giving up. Like we're not trying to like invite nihilism here.

It's just approaching things with curiosity rather than judgment that's the point of these questions like just to learn where you were at right now not to question the validity of existence right you know it's it's like okay this doesn't matter to me right now anymore that's okay maybe next week it will maybe it won't you're just taking your temperature it can be as gentle as that it's just like a gentle checking in with yourself on an ongoing basis to see if you're headed in the right direction. You know, it's funny because for the longest time, I had a real hard time reading quote unquote productivity books because they always seemed to me so fake, you know, like there was always a convenient friend that had this special problem

or just like, you know, the, when people talk about their goals and they talk about their perfect self. And, and I think it's because we live in this culture that's so steeped in irony and, and lack of genuineness that it's hard to give it to ourselves. Um, and I think one of the things your book does a good job of is actually kind of toning that down to the extent that it's more digestible. And I do think, you know, as a culture, we need to be better and more forgiving with ourselves about letting ourselves think about ideal selves and the things that you're talking about here, because that's how we get there. And that's kind of a half-formed thought, but it's

something that occurs to me and I was thinking about over the weekend. I was reading your book. I mean, for me, I guess maybe the difference is like, I don't believe in perfection in any way, like none of that. I feel like I spent a lot of my time in school being told how imperfect my mind was and how imperfectly I did things over and over again. And I feel like this just was never the full story. Like the story of what you can and cannot do is not that binary, I guess. And the point being here is that I feel like all of it is about learning. Like, how do you do your best to get a little bit better? How do you learn more about yourself, learn about your interests? And I feel like I had to figure out a lot of these things the hard way because I just didn't have resources. And I'm hoping that the whole idea of the bullet journal

method is gives people resources just to learn more about themselves you know and that's not a straight line that's certainly not a straight line that hasn't been for me continues not to be and but i think it's the work that's put into the effort that matters you know just like putting in the time to figure it out that's all that's all that's all that you have to do is try i guess that that being the point not being perfect not making all your goals but just trying over and over and over again in little ways in small little ways i love that and i i also think personally that one of the best ways that you can learn especially when you're applying self-discovery to yourself, is to ask those questions like you were talking about. When you ask the right

questions, a lot of times the answers become clear. I'm curious, this isn't part of the bullet journal method per se, but you've got those couple of questions regarding mental decluttering. Are there any other questions that have kind of been really important for you in that self-discovery or learning process one is if let's just go with the things that i assign myself or you know my tasks one that i use a lot is like what would happen if i didn't do this ever what would would be the ramifications of that? Would I get into trouble? Would I disappoint myself? Just like playing out a future where I take an action or I don't take an action can be really helpful and not only realizing whether it matters or not, but also to give me more context very quickly. Like if this

doesn't matter, why was it here? And if it does matter, why does it matter? So like, what would be the consequences of me not doing this ever, which I think is helpful. And I guess another thing that helps is like, what am I afraid of here? Right? Like if I meet a task with resistance, I try to ask myself why not like, oh, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't want to give this presentation or get up in front of all these people. Like, what about that is frightening to me? What is the worst case scenario here? Like, why am I scared of this? Or why am I meeting this with resistance? scenario here like why am i scared of this or why am i meeting this with resistance i guess on that genre of questioning when i have emotions like a lot a big part of what i've tried to do especially with add you're you're i can only speak for myself but you tend to be really impulsive and reactive

a lot of that's just because a lot of times you're you're in survival mode especially like in an educational setting right you're not doing this right you failed this you're in survival mode, especially like in an educational setting, right? You're not doing this right. You failed this. You're just like coming up with things. And plus you have a hard time focusing and you have too much energy. So one thing that I've tried to do is go from reacting to responding. It's like, so when I feel something, often I try to investigate that feeling and see where it's coming from. And is it the other person that's making me angry? Or are they saying something that's actually true? And I'm meeting it with resistance because that proves me wrong, right? So asking questions, like questioning my emotions in some ways, not their validity by no means, but like their origin.

And I feel like that doesn't necessarily seem like a productivity hack, but like their origin. And I feel like that's, that doesn't necessarily seem like a productivity hack, but I found it to be incredibly valuable, especially in my leadership positions. You know, I've led groups of different teams and sometimes a designer would say something to me and I would be upset by it, but like, why, why exactly was it? Were they right? Or did I not explain it properly the first time? Like, what is it? And like, again, coming from a place of curiosity opens up so many new options that weren't available to me before. And the trick there is finding that space, you know, to give yourself time to ask that, right? Because who's in charge here here if the emotion takes over before you have a chance to

to ask the question now you're no longer driving the boat that's very true and that that takes practice and i'm definitely not perfect at it by any means but the fact that that's available at all you know for me was very significant change none of us are brother None of us are, brother. None of us are. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. Squarespace lets you easily create a website for your next big idea. It gives you a unique domain name, award-winning templates, which make creating your site super easy, and more. Whether you want to create an online store, a portfolio, a blog, even a podcast,

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and the code focus to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for their support of focused and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. You talked earlier about finding space to, you know, in essence, talking about, you know, turning things in. What would happen if I don't do this at all? That gets to kind of a recurring theme here about, you know, focus also means getting out of projects and things that you don't require you or your time. Is that difficult for you? And how do you overcome that? I don't know. I guess I just like, I worked in corporate America

for like a good part of my design career and even as like a creative in that space, there was just so many things that I had to pay attention to that added no value either to me or the company that I was working for. So over time, I just started trying to like

really figure out ways where like we have less meetings. And surprisingly to me, when I would figure out real solutions to like the meeting issue, it was always, always, it was usually met, it was usually very welcomed. You know, people would be like, Oh, wow, Yeah. Maybe we don't need to have these three extra meetings a week. And I don't know. I just feel like if something's not adding a value, I immediately question its existence. And then sometimes I can get out of it and sometimes I can't. But I don't take it for granted that it has to happen. And I feel like that was a shift for me. You know, like back in the day, I'd sit down and look at my calendar and it'd just be front to back all meetings all day long. And I'd just kind of sit through it because that's kind of what you're used to. And I think that's kind of like a holdover from school. You have these classes, you go to the classes, you have these meetings, you go to the meetings.

So for me, I don't know, I guess I just got into the habit of questioning things. Your calendar doesn't have to be something that happens to you. Yes, exactly. You have a say in these things and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you sit to the meeting that makes no sense and that's fine, but it's surprising how much agency you can have when you start questioning things and not in a confrontational way.

Just like, Hey, here are four meetings a week that we constantly keep having that we could combine into one just with like an agenda. And here's the agenda. All we need to do is instill it and try it out and see what happens. And look at that. It worked just fine. You know, does it always work? Absolutely not. But the question thing, I think this is the critical part when I find something that I want to get out of,

I offer a solution that like benefits all parties involved. Hopefully, you know, like it's, it's a group effort, especially when whatever I'm trying to get out of is involves multiple people, which is 90% of the time. Like,

what is the solution here? And if everybody agrees to the solution, then it's everybody's win. But you don't know until you until you ask right like this whole like let me be less vague with this like i was in the company where i was in meetings all day long but i also was required to actually produce work and at some point you know i went to hr i'm like hey like i don't know what's going on here but i literally i have an hour and a half a day of time to actually execute on the things that i'm being asked to do and that's like i can't do that and you know they're like well you got to figure it out so what i did is i actually figured out an agenda for meetings because i realized that

there are always way too many people on the invite. And I literally created, here are the people who need to be on these meetings because they're recurring. Here's an agenda for those meetings. And anybody who wants to create this meeting has to fill out this agenda beforehand, right? Like those were the rules. Like this is the topic, here are the three priorities. Those are the three things we have to talk about. Anything else goes in the parking lot for the next meeting. And all of a sudden, all these meetings just started disappearing because people didn't want to fill out the agenda. So they wouldn't set the meeting. And the people who did fill out the agenda had much more effective meetings.

And this isn't like my idea. You know, having an agenda for a meeting is something that's not uncommon, just we weren't using it. And offering this solution ended up being really effective. Not that every solution I came up with was effective by any means, but here's one example of how I was able to take back time. I like the idea of adding barriers to things that are getting in your way anyway. So, you know, add a couple of hurdles. And if we don't get over them and that means the meeting doesn't happen, I just get to focus a little bit longer that day. Yeah. I mean, I just don't know very much.

Meetings are this thing. Like I think everybody realizes that they're a problem. Like we can agree that not everybody wants to have this many meetings. So, but what we can't agree on is a solution. And oftentimes it's because nobody's volunteering one. So might as well take a stab at it and see what happens. I feel like this is probably a great place to talk about the bullet journal method because the meeting thing seems to me,

you mentioned that people didn't want to fill out the agendas. And that's because they think it's less efficient from their perspective to fill out the agenda ahead of time when they could they think it's less efficient from their perspective to fill out the agenda ahead of time when they could just get people together and talk about things. And I feel like that's kind of a tentpole feature of the bullet journal method is that it forces you to go slow. In fact, one of the things that you mentioned is that the long way is the short way. And so kind of what you did with the meetings is you're forcing it to slow down a little bit, but the result of that is a more effective meeting.

And that's a benefit to however many people were going to be attending that particular meeting. But the bullet journal method, this is maybe that sort of approach, but on an individual level, why is that so important when it's just you? I mean, I think there can be a little bit of an assumption maybe that, well, I know the way I work best, and the fact that I just go into default mode isn't really that big of an issue, but you're kind of saying it is because you need to ask the right questions, you have to go through the process, you have to let yourself think.

What kind of is the benefit of that? How do you do that following the bullet journal method? Kind of what's the TLDR for the system itself and what benefit does it give people? A lot of questions in there. So let's see if I can break this down. I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I think that who you think you are and how you think you operate end up being very different from the reality there. It's like, I think dieting is a great example here. If you've ever been on any kind of restrictive diet you're like i've been on this thing for like three weeks and it turns out it's

like no this is like day eight right your self-awareness is not accurate i think you know by and large we get the gist of how we behave right you know things are going well or things are not going well but i just don't think our minds are really designed to have like a very accurate understanding of what we're doing how we're doing it how we could do it better because we don't really think that way we're just moving forward bullet journaling is very much about like keeping a record of your experience like yes it's a to-do list certainly right because the to-dos the things that we have to do take up our time and energy but it can and it should function as a paper mirror in many ways right where it shows you the reality

of your experience as opposed to your perception of your experience. And those things can, those things can align closely at times in life, but I find often it doesn't. I think most people who keep a diary or a journal can attest to the fact that like, let's say some kind of negative event happened in your life, right? A year ago or something. By today, there's a very good chance that you feel like it actually wasn't such a bad thing. You know, let's say it was a career event, right? You made a deal. And the mechanics of that deal seemed like a good idea at the time, but ended up not being that way. And then like a year later, you're like, oh, wow, this opportunity comes up that seems similar to

the last one. And like, you remember, there was a little bit of a problem, but overall, actually, it worked out okay. If you revisit your actual log of that event, oftentimes, you'll be shocked to realize that your memory of something and the actuality of something are very different. And I think that that can happen on a very small basis. Like I write down the way, like in my bullet journal, you, in the bullet journal in general, you write your tasks, events, and notes. So the things you have to do, the things that you experience and the things you don't want to forget. Those are the three categories of thought that we group everything into in the bullet journal. And those three things alone, just keeping track of what happened and what you don't want to forget about what happened, you know, like your feelings or like day like especially these days we have so much uncertainty and are so distracted like often we have no idea how we're doing right like you can look at your

germ like oh i'm not doing very well or you know i'm grieving or actually things are really good you know so i feel like a big part of bullet journaling is just taking time to get to know yourself better and you do that by keeping track of how things are happening in real time yeah i love that and the daily log piece that's the thing that kind of opened my eyes to the importance of going more slowly because in the moment when i'm attending a meeting whatever i'll take notes in the daily notes section. I'll write down a bunch of things that need to be done.

And then after the meeting, at the end of the day, when I'm migrating things over, I realize, well, those things that I thought were important in the moment, now I look at them again. And because I have to recreate them, I realize that maybe that's not actually that important. So for me, it's kind of a curation process that maybe that's not actually that important. So for me, it's kind of a curation process of identifying the things that are truly important, and then using those to plan the next day. It was an unexpected benefit of the system for me. And I absolutely love that it forces me to do that. Yeah, I mean, I think we live in a time this

happens to me too, where we mistake efficiency, you know, for convenience, essentially, because we can do things, copy and paste, move things, move really fast, but our minds do not keep pace with technology, right? So like a big part of bullet journaling is having to rewrite something that you wrote down. And when people hear that the first time, like, okay, that's a deal breaker, or do you like writing it down by hand that's already slow then having to rewrite the same thing again like why would i want to do that and like the answer i have for that is like if something doesn't take a moment to rewrite chances are it's not adding a lot of value to your life you know and that's a simple way of quickly getting rid of things off your plate. If it's not even worth rewriting, then why are you spending your time on it?

You know, and there's a bunch of little pieces of friction inside the methodology built in to ask yourself those questions, right? Is this worth the moment it takes to rewrite it? Why? Why not? And like slowing down allows you to think more deeply on something. And I feel like that's really one of the critical features of bullet journaling. It like really encourages you to contemplate things. And, you know, you can go as deep or as shallow as you'd like to,

but you're taking that time. You're taking that time. With technology, it will move as fast as you possibly can and then some. That doesn't give you a lot of opportunity to actually think about some things. I love that about the bullet journal. You open it up and you create a space for you just to simply stop and to think. That can be a really powerful thing. That alone, just creating that space. Yep. Intentional friction. I absolutely love it. And so when people first hear about writing things down in a notebook, they're like, well, why would you do that? It's so inefficient. But in my mind, it's an effectiveness force multiplier because it forces you to curate the things that

you're going to be choosing to do. Yeah. And on the flip side you know i've got i have a course i made about using the task manager and it's a great app but the complaint email i get often is people saying this app doesn't work and i have 10 000 tasks tonight i can't get any of them done and the problem isn't the app the problem is that they have 10 000 tasks you know and that you know bullet journal solves that you know you just you're not going to write 10 000 things down whereas you will copy and paste 10 000 things in an afternoon absolutely yeah i mean don't get me wrong it's like i'm the first one to admit that like it takes effort but that effort is a natural filter it It's a natural filter.

It's like, I don't want to write 10,000 things, nor do I want to rewrite all the things that I've written down. So like in the bullet journal, you migrate things once a month, which means that you look through what you've written and you decide whether or not they get to accompany you into the next month. And I'm not going to lie, some months I got plenty of tasks that I haven't completed. I don't want to copy all those things. Not at all. You know, it's not that I enjoy the process of copying things, but I do enjoy the process of making the choice to leave it behind. Hey, Mike, instead of a second ad today, let's talk about St. Jude. All right. Yes, this is a very worthy cause. We did something for St. Jude last year, and the original goal was something like $70,000,

which we blew out of the water, which I was really happy to see. And so the goal this year, again, we're raising money for St. Jude Children's Hospital, which we both know people who have children that are patients there and they get all the care that they need and the families don't have to pay a dime. So this is definitely a worthwhile cause to fight childhood cancer. The goal this year is $315,000. That's what we ended up doing last year. I'm excited to be a part of raising those funds again this year. And we'll have a link in the show notes that people can contribute to this. But if you have any money to contribute to this

project, we would ask that you consider making a donation no matter how big or small. No matter how small is an important point. I mean, everybody that even if you have a little bit of money, you can help. We saw last year how much it really adds up. And St. Jude's mission is they take kids with cancer and they take care of them. I mean, who could argue with that, right? And I know it's a rough year. A lot of people, my wife is losing her job. A lot of people are dealing with this stuff. But if you have something to give this year, we'd really appreciate it. Go to stjude.org slash relay. Once again, stjude.org slash relay. Help move that number across.

They're doing a bunch of funny things as they hit certain milestones. For instance, once they hit 70,000, Steven is going to live stream installing wheels on his Mac Pro. So there you go. But it's a worthy cause, and we'd really appreciate it. StJude.org slash Relay. Now, people listening may be inspired, and they'll say, bullet journaling sounds kind of fun, and I'm going to give it a try. And then they'll go on YouTube or someplace and type in bullet journal.

And what they see is something different than what we've been talking about. There are people who are amazing artists who have turned this process writers talking into something very intentional, where they'll spend a half hour doing the lettering for the month of September. And that's great, but I guess what are your thoughts on that for people getting into this, and what do you tell people? When I first started seeing these really elaborate interpretations of bullet journal, I had a lot of doubts. It's kind of like the whole idea is that you spend less time working on more things that matter, right?

Or the other way around, spending more time with fewer things that are actually important to you. And the idea of sitting down and spending up to three to four hours designing a page in which you will plan to do something seemed kind of exactly the opposite of what I was trying to get across. And then I started talking to my community.

This is one of many times where my community has educated me. And a big part of bullet journaling is about connecting with yourself, about spending time with the things that matter to you. And there are a lot of bullet journalists out there that use the notebook as a place to meditate, essentially through creating artwork. Maybe they have a really busy busy work life or they have a really busy family life. And for this 45 minutes, they're just going to draw in their bullet journal. And like they do that by also having to plan the week for their kids with, you know,

five kids with different kinds of soccer practice and whatever. It's like, yes, they are doing something productive, but they're doing something, they're connecting with themselves at the same time. So the art is very intentional and it gives them something that's really important. And that's motivation. It makes them want to come back to the process over and over again. You know, so if the art encourages you to create a consistent practice then i think it's wonderful right but for me the way that your bullet journal looks is very much about style like and i think that a lot of people when they go to instagram or youtube just see the style aspect and they don't really understand the substance you know so i usually discourage

people from looking at bullet journal on instagram or youtube because you can't really see what's underneath all the decoration right but do i think that the art is wrong no i think if the art serves the purpose then that's wonderful that's just one expression of it. And I have absolutely no right to tell people how to express themselves in their notebook, right? Especially if it's incredibly helpful. But if the purpose of the bullet journal is to impress other people with your art, if it becomes a performance, that's what I caution people away from. It doesn't need to look any way, but it does need to serve you. That's basically it all boils down to understanding how you can make this method serve you best. And for some people that's expressed artistically and for other people like myself, that's very minimally,

but there is no wrong in this context as long as you're doing it for yourself. But you don't have to be an amazing artist in order to bullet journal. Oh, no, not at all. I mean, you don't even really have to be able to draw straight lines. I mean, if you see my tutorial videos, they're not very artistic. Let's say if you look in the comments, people are like, why is your handwriting so messy? It's like, because that's who I am.

That's what it is. And that's one of the selling points, honestly, is when I watch your videos, I'm like, okay, this is something anybody can do. And I don't mean that to belittle you, but I mean, it's like my handwriting is not very good either. So it's fine. It's approachable. Yeah. I think it's really important. I don't take any offense to that at all.

I think the most important thing I try to get across is that anybody can do this. Anybody can do this. It's like if you can write on paper, that's all that it takes. how you can write on paper and think about what you write on paper in different ways and different formats by supplying different templates and different kinds of, I guess, chronologies as to how you can come back to your information, create different kinds of habits. Again, that's why I always like to refer to it as a toolkit. Take what works and leave behind what doesn't. Take what makes sense in your life and leave behind what doesn't. Take what makes sense in your life and leave behind what doesn't. People are like, what's the simplest way to start bullet journaling? What's the simplest way? I'm like, get in the habit of writing down your thoughts

any way you want, but keep it really simple. That's like step number one. Have a piece of paper and write down what you think. That's it. That's's the first step and then you can build on that it's like oh but like i don't know is this a thought that this is something that i have to do or is this something that happened to me or is this like a piece of information that i want to remember it's like okay well then you can start introducing the bullets you can start categorizing the way you think like okay how i'm going to find my thoughts again later it's like oh well you can use this thing called the index right so you can layer all these different tools in the bullet journal method on top of each other depending on your need but you don't need to be an artist i mean basically what you're saying

is that there's pieces of this that you can kind of i'm hearing you right you can kind of plug and play to create the system that works for you based on your individual needs exactly that's very encouraged to do that you know i give you the foundation and once you understand that you understand how the different pieces work together then throw out whatever doesn't make sense and add whatever does you know it's very much about creating something based on your experience and your needs, not mine. Yeah, I would argue that there's not even really, I mean, you have bullet journal suggestions, but not bullet journal canon. Does that make sense?

I mean, and everybody I know that uses it has a different implementation. That's kind of why it's so much fun. Like I've learned things from people all the time. Like, oh yeah, I never thought of that before. That's really smart. that's kind of why it's so much fun like i've learned things from people all the time like oh yeah i never thought of that before that's really smart what are the things you covered in your book because like i said earlier your book really does go beyond the bullet journal method to talk about some really useful practices while you're at it you know while you're making a bullet journal here's some things that can help you and you've got a whole section in there about gratitude

and i guess could you explain a little bit how you implement that and why that helps I mean gratitude has a lot of gratitude practice of any kind has a lot of different has a lot of different benefits but I guess for me like the gratitude practice what sets my gratitude practice apart from other people is that I have a rule right a lot of times with gratitude, people are writing down things that they're grateful for, you know, it's like the weather or I had a really nice dinner or something like that, which is good because it helps you focus on the things, the blessings in life, if you will, right? Like the things that are good in life, like we have a horrible negativity bias is built into us like our mind is trained to find the bad things in life like because that's like the animal part

of us right we're always we were designed to detect threats that's how we survived the saber tooth yeah exactly exactly right but now it's kind of like an email is the saber-toothed tiger or a crooked stare from your colleague. And now all of our fight-or-flight instrumentation is in overdrive all the time. And a gratitude practice, like actually focusing on the things that are good, is a really good countermeasure. countermeasure, right? And it's a good way to relieve stress and to not feel like life is a constant threat and not to live in a constant state of anxiety. So on a general level, you know, gratitude practice is there to help you just like appreciate your life a little bit more on a basic level. But the thing that I found that didn't work for me with a standard gratitude practice is like, how many times can you be grateful for the practice is like, how many times can you be

grateful for the weather? Right? How many times can you be grateful for like that? I'm in good health or whatever. Like all these things are important. I don't want to belittle that, but it can become rote really quickly. You just kind of like, you know, punch in, you're not really grateful for it. So for me, the one trick that I try to teach people is you're not allowed to repeat things, right? You can't be grateful for your parents every day. You can't be grateful for your wife every day or your husband. You can't be grateful for the same thing over and over again. And the reason why is because you run out of like your stockpile of things that you can access really quickly right and that forces you then to start seeing your life with a different lens because you're

actively looking for things to be grateful for every day you know once you have to get specific. And that's really kind of an interesting shift. It was for me when I wasn't allowed to repeat myself. And don't get me wrong. It's like, I will be grateful for a dinner with a friend on a certain day. And I'll be grateful for a dinner with a different friend on a different day. But like, why? Why am I grateful for that specifically? What was good about that? And it just makes you really dig into that experience a little bit more and if you do that oftentimes you actually will feel grateful as opposed to just kind of like phoning it in with like oh i'm really grateful for my dog again you know yeah it's like i'm really grateful that i have a dog that likes to rest their head on my foot because it makes me feel loved.

You know, it's just like this attention focuses and you're actually grateful for that. You're so right. Just bringing that level of intentionality. The first time you find yourself being grateful for the blooms on the tree out your window when you wake up in the morning that's where you go when you get beyond the easy stuff and it it really changes your outlook it does and sometimes it's really really hard and that's that's i think where it's most important because sometimes things are just not good you know you you hit one of those dark patches and just nothing is good so what do you what do you do then you keep working you keep doing that work because even when things are really bad you still are looking for the things that are good and that's i think when

it's most important because that allows you to sustain hope? Even when things are really bad, it's like, you know, a friend called me today, you know, or I got all the green lights today. Like when everything feels bad, here's the evidence that that's not true. It's like, yes, you can feel sad. And that's not about making yourself feel better. It's about reminding yourself that there's another side to this and that you'll get to that side eventually. In short, it's about keeping balance, right? Because like when everything's good, you worry about things not going well. That happens automatically. You don't need to train for that. But when everything's bad, it's not as natural to have the counterbalance there, right? It's like,

yes, it is bad. Things are not good. But at the same time, this is temporary. And here's evidence of actual good things happening right now as well, just to remind you, you know, it's like, it'll get better. It may not feel like it, it may really not feel like it. But if you look for it, you can find the evidence to the contrary. I love that. I think that's probably a perfect spot to end the episode. Anything else you want to cover, David? No, I really appreciate you, Ryder, coming on. We didn't get into the mechanics of bullet journaling that much today, so if you're curious about it, I would recommend going to Ryder's website where he's got some great video tutorials to walk you through it. What's the URL url again writer bullet journal.com okay yeah so bulge that's pretty easy

bullet journal.com constantly update with uh with videos and that's great we're going to put a link in the show notes for your ted talk um anywhere else we should send folks writer no that's pretty much it all our other platforms are linked from there and i would just add for the third time and i would just add for the third time that uh we really just scratched the surface this book is really a nice it's a nice introduction to a lot of things that i think can help you so please go check out the book it's a beautiful visual style and i'll put out the plug get Get the physical book, not the e-book. You'll be glad you did. I read it on Kindle, and I feel a little guilty, I must admit.

But, you know, that's how I read books. So there you go. But I do have a nice collection of highlights. All right. Once again, Ryder Carroll of bulletjournal.com. Thanks again, Ry again writer for coming on and we are the focus podcast you can find us over at relay.fm focused we'll see y'all in a couple weeks