The Daily Stoic - Ryder Carroll - The Power of Journaling

Episode Date: October 3, 2020

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with Ryder Carroll, the designer and creator of the Bullet Journal system, about how it feels to release a product into the world, the power of keeping a journal, and the best way to get started with your own.Ryder Carroll is a product designer who created the popular Bullet Journal method of journaling. Carroll originally devised the Bullet Journal method to help him cope with his learning disabilities, and began sharing it online in 2013. It has since become a worldwide phenomenon, being covered in outlets like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company and more.This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199.This episode is also brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will give you a full exercise regimen that works for your specific fitness goals, using the equipment you have at home. It works with your Apple Watch, and if you don’t already have one, Future will give you one for free. Sign up at tryfuture.com/stoic and get your first two weeks with your personal trainer for just $1***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Ryder Carroll:  Homepage: http://www.rydercarroll.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/rydercarrollInstagram: http://instagram.com/rydercarrollSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here, on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more

possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground

up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early, and add free, on the Amazon, or Wondery. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder's Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole.

Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes in Vanity Fair. Some involved in crypto saw him as a breath of fresh air, from the usual Wall Street buffs with his casual dress and ability to play League of Legends during boardroom meetings. But in less than a year, his exchange would collapse. An SPF would find himself in a jail cell, with tens of thousands of investors blaming him for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondery comes Spellcaster,

a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. I hope everyone is doing good. It was actually two days ago now.

I thought that maybe the timing would hit perfectly, but two days ago, I finished what will be now my fourth go-around on the Daily Stoke Journal. Obviously, I got it. I think it came out in October of 2017. I don't remember. Anyways, this is my fourth one, but I'm starting my fourth one. I think it came out in October of 2017. I don't remember. Anyways, this is my fourth one, but I'm starting my fourth one.

Who knows? The point is, every day I get the book and I start in the morning and I sort of reflect on the intention for the day, gives you a question to ask. And then the evening I reflect on how I did or some mornings I just do the day before, before I do today. But the point is journaling is a huge part of my life.

And way before the daily stoke journal, I started journaling, I started with just a more skinny than I bought this one line a day journal. And so now I use a blank journal, the one line a day, and then I use the daily stoke journal. That's my sort of 15 or so minutes of journaling every day. And a little over a year ago, I got introduced to today's guest,

writer Carol, the inventor, creator, evangelist of the bullet journal. He sent me a bullet journal, which I often use as my sort of, my blank journal where I just write sort of freeform stuff. And he ended up publishing a book with Portfolio, which is where my books are published. He published the Bullet Journal Method,

Track the Past, Order the Present, and Design the Future. It's a great book, Debute New York Times Best Seller. You can also go to bulletjournal.com. But the point is, journaling is an essential practice in my life. It's an essential practice in writer's life. It's an essential practice in countless people's lives

and has been throughout history. If you read the start of journal chapter in Stillness is the Key, you'll see some names there. But journaling and stoicism are almost inseparable. Like, meditations is journaling, right? Marcus Aurelius' meditations, which translates as to himself, was not intended for publication. This was him writing to himself, for himself, and he's writing philosophical exercises. He's

writing down quotes. He's doing the philosophy on the page. And so I think too many people sort of confuse diaries in journals. I think journaling is sort of a big umbrella term for a lot of different things from logging your workouts, which you talk about in today's interview, to taking notes during a meeting towards to a commonplace book, which is a collection of quotes and ideas, to reflecting and recording thoughts and feelings and all of that.

So to me, journaling is this inclusive practice, but at its core, a deeply philosophical one, a deeply fulfilling one, and then also a deeply soothing and relieving and restorative practice. I tend to find that what I'm angry about, dissipates as I put it on the page, what I'm worried about dissipates as I put it on the page, what I'm worried about dissipates as I put it on the page, what I'm excited or, or you get statistical about dissipates as I put it on the page in a good way, right? Taking the time to put this stuff down, we talk about,

in the interview, we talk about having some literal distance between you and your thoughts. All this stuff is really, really important. And so I wanted to talk to writer, not just a great thinker and a great writer, but sort of a philosopher of journaling. Like, sales of journaling have skyrocketed so much in the last years that a lot of people credit, and a lot of people credit him with that huge resurgence of interest. So he's thought about this. A lot, he's talked to thousands and thousands of people all over the world through the bullet journal community, which he references a few times.

So I thought there was really no one better to talk to about journaling than writer Carol. And of course, you can check out his book, The Bullet Journal Method, Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future, or just check out one of his bullet journals. It's a great piece of technology. And it really is a piece of technology, a simple straightforward piece of technology, but technology.

Nevertheless, so here's my interview with Prider Carroll. So I was curious, what does it feel like to be like single-handedly reviving the stationary and journaling industry? That must be a strange stashionary and journaling industry that must be a strange trend to find yourself at the head of? Yeah, it certainly is. It's strange because I don't perceive myself that way, but yeah, it comes up quite a bit It's also just strange because It was never really my interest or focus the the idea of stationary and journaling and anything. It's always just a tool. It never really seemed like an occupation. So, yeah, it's definitely unexpected. How does that even work? So obviously, I understand what the bullet journal looks like.

You're nice enough to send me one. I now use them. But like, when I see one out there, are people ripping you off? is is this like your concept? The bullet journal method is my concept. So everything that you see out there that is bullet journal related in some way ties back to that. Of course, a big part of bullet journaling is that you make it your own and you make it work for you. And some of those interpretations look like mine and some of them don't. But yeah, bullet journaling was my invention. It must be weird. And now I know you put out a book, but it is this weird thing where you take an idea and then obviously your idea is an amalgamation of all other ideas, you

know, the sort of Newtonian concept of standing on the shoulders of giants. And then then it's out in the world. Then you don't control it. Sometimes you're credited. Sometimes you're not, but you see it just kind of take off. And it's just out there. That must be surreal. It is surreal. It is surreal.

And it's, it's, I think any creative has to at some point come to this realization that when you make something it has potentially two different lives, right? There's the life that you give it. That's the life of the creation process, the consideration, the toil and the blood sweat and tears that you put into this thing. That's the life that you give it. And that's a worthy life and and that's a powerful life, just to create for creation's sake,

but if you're creating for other people, then there's this second life that has very little to do with you, and it's the life that the audience gives the peace. And sometimes that life doesn't look anything like what you intended it to, or resembles parts of it and not other parts. And at first, that can be challenging, right? Because you feel like you're not being heard or being misrepresented or people didn't get it. But I mean, over time, at least with goal journaling,

I realized that I could learn so much from that second life that actually that benefited me in so many different ways. And then secondly, also that second life only exists if what you created resonates with other people, right? If what you make doesn't resonate with other people, there is no second life. So that's kind of the tax you pay in it first of his heart as a creative to see people doing this thing in a way where I thought like,

that doesn't make sense or that's wrong or that's not what I intended. Only to realize that some of what they're saying is actually better and helpful to me as the creator. They've taken it and made it larger. So yeah, it's been an ongoing and really interesting experience. I remember Casey Neistat once did this video he's showing me where he was sort of saying there's like different stages of art, right? There's like, you make something that's creatively fulfilling, you know, that's one level. You make something and you know, some people see it, that's another level. You make something millions of people see it, that's another level.

You make something that has impact on people, that's a level, you make something, millions of people see it, that's another level, you make something that has impact on people, that's the higher level. But the highest level is when you make something that helps other people make things, and that's what I think is so interesting about the bullet journal method is like, you made this thing, you were scratching your own itch, but what you made, it wasn't just like,

hey, I wrote a beautiful novel. Like you made a thing in the way that, I mean, obviously it's not at this level, but like Steve Jobs makes the iPhone and the iPhone helps people through the camera make their own art. And that strikes me as a pretty powerful achievement. Yes, and it's humbling, because I, because as you said, the reason I created

Bulla Journal or what you see now as Bulla Journal started as just a series of attempts of me trying to solve my own problems and mine originated with learning disabilities. So all these tools were literally designed to treat what I perceived as disabilities. And over time, like I figured out things that worked, but I never assumed that other people would find them useful because these were my problems, right? These were my disabilities. And then what's become so interesting to me specifically

is that I was dead wrong about that. These disabilities are shared by many people and a lot of these disabilities, I think, are actually starting to quote unquote disabilities, are starting to surface in the digital age because a lot of these things dealt with being distracted about being caught up in the daily rush so much. So a lot of these tools that I was designing

to help my ADD brain actually have gone on to help a lot of people who are just struggling to stay focused. And that's really exciting work and it's a really exciting space to be in. I don't know more than other people. I've just dealt with these things longer than most people. And I'm sharing what I learned. And I feel like most of the things that I found to be really useful in life have come to be in the same way, right? Like my favorite books, my favorite movies, like they address the challenge from the creator. And they share their experience.

And I don't know, I've just found it really engaging. If we think about the bullet journal, but then journaling as a whole, as sort of solving a problem, and I don't know, I'm just not really engaging. If we think about, you know, the bullet journal, but then journaling as a whole as sort of solving a problem, and I think it is, and obviously this is a sort of core concept that the still cs are thinking about, what is the problem that one solves by sitting down with a notebook? Like, I'm curious what your answer to that would be. Well, I think the beautiful thing is that it can be any problem. I think that writing is a way to think. So it depends on what you're thinking about.

So is it a financial problem? Is it a personal problem? Is it a health-related problem? You know, it gives you a platform to really start to explore that issue. And I think that why journaling is so powerful is that it forces you to slow down and it forces you to really pick your words wisely because especially these days writing takes effort. It's definitely not as convenient to write by hand as it does typing things out. And that's why I like the analog thing because it forces me to pick my words. It forces my brain to slow down. And in so doing, I think it also helps me identify all the components of our problem.

Like generally speaking, when there's a challenge, we usually see it as a whole. It is a mass. But as soon as you start to write about it, you have to start describing it in detail. And in doing so, you're also deconstructing it, which helps you quickly tackle individual pieces of the problem and not feel as overwhelmed, or at least that's been my experience, and that replies to most challenges that I face. A lot of times challenges are much scarier than they appear scarier than they actually are. When you sit with it for a while and start to figure out how you can actually tackle it, and I feel like journaling is one of the most powerful ways to go about

doing that. Yeah, to me, the core problem that's solving across, as you're right, it helps you solve lots of different problems. But what all those problems tend to have in common, I think journaling is the way to declutter the mind, which to me is the sort of most pressing problem that people had in the ancient world and have today. There's just a lot going on in there and how do you figure out how to process it, organize it, discard what's irrelevant and focus on what's essential? Yes, I couldn't agree more. And like part of that is like decluttering the mind is like one part of

the problem-solving process and it is a problem itself, but I think it also helps you shift your perspective fundamentally, which is something that I think it's very hard to will yourself to do. I mean, we always hear about like, oh, you know, see it from this perspective, or maybe you should try, you know, trying to take it from this angle or align yourself here, this mental model or that mental model, I don't know about you, but like personally, I can't will myself

to see something differently by forcing myself to do that. But when I write, I can start to explore different perspectives that are unnatural in my own mind, if that makes sense. It's, it's like I can, like if I try to write for something from somebody else's perspective, but I try to tell their story, like I can do that when I write, but I can't will myself to think from their perspective, if that makes sense, or at least not as clearly. And that can help fund them mentally. Yeah, look at things differently.

Well, I think at a bare minimum, right, it gives you a foot or so of distance from your own thoughts, right? Like you're putting it on the page in front of you. So even if, even if you were just sitting there and thinking about your own thoughts, right, you're like, hey, I'm going to go sit out on this porch swing and just think about what's happening. You don't have any literal distance between you and those thoughts, right? It's like you're unfortunately using your own thoughts to analyze your thoughts. And like, I think there's something,

it's a way to put your own mind or your fears or whatever it is on the page, and then you can look at them. And I think in looking at them and feeling them come out of your body, you often realize how wrong some of them were or you realize how strongly you feel about this or that or you realize that actually up until this moment, you've never really even thought about this and it was just sort of, you know, implicit or unconscious up there and now it's good that you've articulated it.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It seems so obvious, right? It's like, take the thought and put it into the world, like externalize the thought so you can look at it. And that's, I can't exaggerate how powerful that can be. And there's another part to that, like this thought is static for the first time in some ways, right? Because like when we try to hold on to a thought, that doesn't work so well, at least not for me. So actually having it written down and being able to look at it, that can also change

the nature of the thought very quickly. It's, it's, okay, I'm not actually feeling anger, I'm not feeling grief, I'm not feeling rage. Like that was the first take, that was my first reaction to it. But once I start seeing this idea trapped in space. It's all of a sudden that can unfold. And I can increase the fidelity of an idea or of an emotion very quickly if I have something to work off of. It creates the foundation. Well, now there's a record of it, right? Like now it exists.

And even if you don't review it, you put it down, and now it's there. And I think, I think having the archive also, in a way, it's like letting it, it's almost like letting, letting it go. Like by writing it down, you're like, okay, I felt that. And it puts it, it almost allows you to put it in the past tense, you know, whereas if, if it's just, you don't want it to keep bouncing around in there because that's what's causing you the angst or the anguish. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's very much like labeling things, you know, different forms of meditation. You label what you feel and like that's the first step in giving yourself

distance from it. And I feel the same thing is true when you write something down on paper, you have to define it. And that's a really important exercise, because a lot of times you don't really know what you're feeling. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you angry? Or are you, you know, all of a sudden you have to use your words. And in that process, you quickly start to better understand what's going on.

And as you said, then you also have that record from which you can work from. And that record is something you can come back to as well. So you can see if you've made progress over time, which is I think is also really important these days. Like, how do you feel about this days later? I feel like people have this trouble. I talk to them, you know, like I'll get emails about it. They'll be like, so where do I start?

Like people seem to have this sense that it's a difficult thing to do. Like no one's like, hey, how do I start eating, you know, or like, you know, how do I start waking up in the morning? Like, it happens, right? So it's a weird, it's sort of a weird problem that I don't quite get. Like, I usually just go, like, just start and then fine tune from there.

But I'm curious, like, when you talk to people about starting to have it other than like, you know, pick up a bullet journal, like, where do you, where do you find the best entry point into a habit that seems to be, for whatever reason, harder to get going than you would think? I think there's two points here that I usually tend to advise people. I mean, with bullet journaling, a lot of people come to me and they have a preconception of what bullet journaling needs to be and oftentimes people come to it from like Instagram

or Pinterest where they see like very elaborate, artistic interpretations of the system, which aren't wrong, but are very intimidating. So my first piece of advice that I give people is like, just start writing down your thoughts. That's it, and keep it short. Write down your thoughts in short form. And that usually helps.

And they're like, what thoughts? And they're like, okay, well, think about something that you're worried about. I think that everybody has something and they're worried about at any given point in life. Just start writing those things down. Maybe it's something you're anticipating or something that is happening currently.

Just focus on that for a while to take it out of your head to decolid your mind. So that's one. Keep it short. And here's the second part, especially with journaling. I feel like a lot of people are intimidated by the blank page. And so they feel like the only way they can start is by writing down that something that's smart or profound, right? They want to write something that matters. And I feel like that's also something you have to let go of as soon as possible. It's not for anyone else. And if you want it to be something that it's not, it becomes a performance. And I feel like the performance aspect gives people stage fright. They don't want to do that or they don't know where to begin. They're like, whatever I put down is going to be dumb or like, I'm going to realize how uninteresting I am.

My thoughts are boring. My life is unacceptable. My feelings are standard. Like, this is, I think, something that people worry about that they will realize that things about themselves, they don't want to. And I try to encourage them, like, that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter at all, because you begin there, and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper over time. Like most of the things you write down don't matter. It's about the things that do occasionally, the things that help you see something that you wouldn't have otherwise.

That's what matters. One of the things I like about your model that I think is also an easy way to get started for people is the idea of logging. So like if someone's job was to write down the minutes in a meeting, they wouldn't be like, where do I start? This is so hard. Like it'd be so obvious what you're supposed to do, right? And so like, I think if you can pick something that you do or that you want to be doing, and you can just track progress. So like, if you're trying to build the muscle

of like taking the time to journal, like to me, like workouts or, you know, your diet or finances, like you can use the journal to note what you're doing and then pretty soon you notice you're able to regularly do the habit. Yeah, it can be that for sure. I mean I guess the way that I like to look at it is like write things down that give you, that motivate you, right? I think that like whatever tool that you're using, like that tool should immediately prove to be effective.

And for some people tracking their workouts can be very motivating, but it can also be demotivating to others, especially if they're not consistent, so then they blame the tool. So it really just hands on the person. So I encourage that, but that's a very big part of bullet journaling is to check back in. The whole methodology is designed to be cyclical. So like you try something, you evaluatevaluated see if it worked see if it didn't what worked what didn't and then come back to it So I always try to encourage people to find what it is that's bringing them back and Cultivate that part and I feel like it's like building a muscle So when they figure out something that they love that really engages them

Then they can start adding things that engage them a little bit less, but are also important. So for some people, that starts with like, okay, I'm making a lot of progress at the gym. I should probably also be tracking my mood, which is not great a lot of the time or whatever it is, people, but because they know it works in this one thing, all of a sudden it's easier to maintain both of those records. So it's always just finding the thing that makes you wanna come back to it. No, that makes sense.

And yeah, like it doesn't have to be working out if you don't work out. It could be, hey, what time did I wake up this morning? And it doesn't, it's not like, hey, was it early and if it's not earlier a failure? It's just, I think keeping something consistent that you do, like friends, it's like, I use a couple different turtles, but I love, I just one called the One Line a Day Journal that I love. And I just write one sentence every day about something that I did the previous day. And what I love about it is,

it allows me to see, like, so I'm working on a book now but I can see where I was on because a lot of times I'm writing what you know hey I finished this chapter I was working on this or hey today was the day I submitted the manuscript or whatever I really get a reinforcement and an excitement about seeing what was going on in this day in my life 12 months ago, 24 months ago, 36 months ago, and I think I'm almost at the four year mark. So I can be able to see that progress, and it's actually not even progress. It's just, hey, I'm two and a half years,

or two years ago I went on vacation on this date, and I was seeing yesterday as like, oh, this is when I got food poisoning. Like, it's not progress, but it is, I'm able to check in with my own life. Yeah. And I think that that is an incredibly valuable thing, because we have a really poor ability to really have a realistic sense of our own life, I think, often. Our memories are not great. And what we think happened didn't really happen.

And that's one of the reasons that I like logging events as well. So in the bulldozer method, this thing called the monthly log. And on one page, you have a timeline where you write down basically what happened that day in one sentence. And I found consistently how my memory of how things unfolded and what actually unfolded are very different. And often better than I remember, which is helpful, you know, having like a record of like,

or like wow, actually two years ago, I was hoping to achieve the thing that I now have and don't even care about anymore right because in those two years, my, whatever my priorities have shifted. But like, you know what, I have something to be grateful for today. And I didn't two minutes ago. But now I'm like, wow, okay, pat myself on the back and get on with business. But that's fun.

And that's important. You know, it like reminds you of what used to be important and how you've grown and how you've changed and maybe your younger self would be happy with you. I don't know about you, but what the pandemic has done, I think for me and a lot of people has obliterated our sense of time. And obviously for the Stoics, the passage of time is the most essential thing. The passage of time is that you're moving towards death for the Stoics, the passage of time is the most essential thing. Like, the passage of time is the, it's that that you're moving towards death for the Stoics. It's that you are literally dying, right? And, and so one of the things that having a journal

that's rooted in the date, so I, you know, I'm seeing it in the one line a day and then the daily Stoic journal, which I have is like, you know, here's today's prompt reflect in the morning review in the evening. It's also like when I don't think like, Hey, where did the last six months go? It's like, no, I've been every single day. I'm like, Holy shit, it's September already. You know, like I'm, I'm, I give it, it roots me in the present moment, but also make sure that I don't just let time slip through my fingers, which I think is so easy to do.

Oh, yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I found now more than ever, bullet journaling has become very much like a mental anchor for me in some ways. It's like every day, this practice happens, which I use to define my days, and bulletin for me is, you have multiple cycles inside a day, right? In the morning you wake up and you review your content, and you write things all day,

and in the evening you review your content again. And the thing that I feel like a lot of us are missing these days are like natural boundaries, right? And boundaries don't just feel like a lot of us are missing these days are like natural boundaries, right? And boundaries, and just mean like office and work, but like, boundaries created by time, boundaries created by relationships, boundaries created by all your different lives, your work life, your personal life, your social life, like those aren't there anymore. So the only boundaries are important for you to think and to transition between different

states in your life. And for me, journaling has now become one of my most prominent boundaries. Like when I'm writing, that's what I'm doing. And it allows me to kind of create better boundaries in a time and space where natural boundaries of kind of disappear. It's totally what am I trying to do in all these different parts of my life? Well, I think of Seneca being exile. I mean, he spends eight years in exile and then he gets exiled sort of less officially,

but nevertheless later in life. And I imagine there's a similar sort of obliteration of time. And certainly, as you said, an obliteration of routine and structure and normalcy. And so when he talks about this habit that's become his in the evenings, says, after my wife has gone to bed, I sit down and I review the day and I look at what I've done.

And his other thing he writes this in his letters to Lucilius, he's talking about how he's like, look, it's just one thing every day. He's like, if you make one bit of progress, if you acquire one little thing, that's what you need to be better to improve. And he's like, so his letters with Lucilius are the exchange of that one item.

And to me, that's, it's like, I think the journal is also humbling in that sense, which is like, all right, put up or shut up. What did you do? Was it like, you don't have to have, it doesn't every day, it doesn't have to be a cured cancer, or you know, I turned in the manuscript for whatever. It's like, hey, I learned this, or you know, today I did this, or today I accomplished this, you know, and I think that's what roots you in the moment, and it's, it's, it doesn't seem like much, but it adds up.

Well, I think, like, most things, the obvious thing is the very powerful tool, and a lot of times we try to over-complicate things, but the idea of just writing something down seems too obvious to be effective, right? But it is. It is more as somebody like most of my career was spent designing software. That's what I did. And I think technology is fantastic. But writing something down on paper is sometimes the most powerful tool that I need that I can hope for. And one thing that I find also really interesting with this record is that it also

corrects your thinking sometimes. Like, there are days, especially in a time where there is no time, especially, you can feel like you're not getting anything done. And one thing that I really love is at the end of the day, I have a list of all the things that I wanted to get done. And I might feel like I was unproductive, but when I sit down with that list and I start crossing things off, I'm like, oh, how I feel and how I behaved do not align.

I actually did get things done. And if I didn't have this list, the feeling would become my reality as opposed to the actual data becoming my reality. And that the actual data of becoming my reality. And that's really, that's really important. And that's the power of a list. It stays there. It waits for you. You don't have to remember anything. It's just there. Do you feel like, because you mentioned it a couple of times, do you feel like people do over complicate this? I see the same beautiful pictures on Pinterest or Instagram or all people will describe. This is more, I see this on the research side of books. They have this super complicated system that's ever known in this and they're exporting and it's like this whole complicated thing. And like on the one hand it seems like a lot of work but then I'm always I'm I'm my and maybe this is the wrong

way to think about it but I always go like and what have you done? Like I I never see I never see like John Grisham show this complicated system you're like oh you're one of the most productive successful authors of all time I can I can see the cause and effect there. There's a weird sort of overlap, I think, with amateurs and really complicated, beautiful systems. I guess it just depends on your definition of success. Right, so I'll speak for the bullet journaling community

specifically. Like, if you've ever seen my bullet journal It's black and white. It's chicken scratch. There's nothing there you Google bullet journal You see like these illuminated manuscripts and you know, it's kind of hard to reconcile the two and when I first started seeing these like really beautiful like hyper complicated Interpretations of what I was doing. I was like, they're missing the point. Right? The point is that like, check in with yourself to make sure that, you know, you're being very intentional about how you're spending your time and your energy and just, you know, spending more time with less things that matter. That's really,

that's really the point of it all to me. And when I start talking to the community, I realize that in decorating their notebook, and this isn't applied to everyone, obviously, some people just draw because they draw, but these people are in decorating their notebook, they are doing exactly those things. It's their time to reconnect with themselves. It's their time to be creative. And it is also the process that motivates them to keep coming back to this practice, which ultimately helps them be more focused and productive and, you know, more fulfilling life. So I was dead wrong. It's like, their definition of success is to get ABC done. And because they have this complicated system, they are.

And for some people, definition of success, at least in bullet journaling, it's like, I want to have this notebook that, this is my safe haven. This is where I feel like I can be myself and express myself. And this is how I do it. And this is what I use it for so That to me is success, but they get back to your

to your question There is also the flip side of that people who see these beautiful things and they're like, okay That's what it has to be so I'm gonna start there. I'm gonna start there and most of the time it doesn't work because there's no, it's because people usually approach systems from like a process driven point of view, right? They focus on the process like what's the best process? What's the best process? And I used to be like that myself, but it all changes when you start thinking about purpose, right?

What is the purpose? Why are you doing what you're doing? And I feel like that's at the core of like the work that I'm trying to create is like, yes, I Help you organize what you're doing, but I do that so you can have a better understanding of why you're doing it and I think that once you have the purpose, then you figure out the process. And the process can be as complicated as it needs to be to support the purpose. And for some people it's simple, and some people it's complicated, but at the end of the day, is it helping you move closer to your purpose? And I feel like when you don't have a purpose, the process

continues to become more and more and more complicated because it's making up for the vacuum of meaning. Right. Yeah, it's almost a form of pornography. And it's not just journals like I see, you know, people, what are the famous routines of this person and that person and, and, you know, how did, how did, how did the Hemingway do it and how did this person do it and, and there, there's almost a form of sort of play acting or, or imitation in it that's missing the point. There's this famous story about the generals who succeed Alexander the Great. I think Plutarchs talking about it, it's sort of like all of the generals trying to sort of become Alexander's heir, you know, they cut their hair the right way,

just as he did, and they walked the same way, and they developed the same affects of speech, and so on and so forth. And he's just like, you know, but none of them actually imitated his boldness and vision and acumen and competency. I think that's a lot of people, you're right, they look at the most beautiful photogenic version and they go, that's what I have to emulate. What they're really missing is the function beneath the form. Right. Yeah, I mean, like, one of the questions I get a lot is like, what pen do you use or what notebook do you use? And like, it reminds me of the questions I use to ask.

Like, when I, you know, back in another life, I shot little movies and music videos and stuff and it constantly be like, oh, what lens were they using, what camera were they using, and then you buy all these tools and all these things, expecting that that's the magic sauce, right? Like I buy this stuff and now I'm gonna be productive. And I was guilty of this constantly. And then all of a sudden it's like, no, you get the tools that support the purpose.

Like, and what are you trying to say? That's what matters. No. Exactly where they're trying to say, where they're trying to say? That's what map is. Exactly. Where are they trying to say? Where are they trying to accomplish? And it's the same thing. Like with software, it's like I used to be an early doctor.

My phone was like absolutely jam packed with different apps for all this stuff. For what end? All these things are tools. What are the tools? What are they for? What are you trying to build? And I think starting from that point

can be very helpful in the tools that you end up using and becoming less complicated. You can become efficient after you know what you're trying to build. No, there's a great quote I forget who said and I'm probably paraphrasing it, but it's something like genius in the end tends towards simplicity. And so I think that's the other funny thing is like, yeah, you have your phone and it's full of apps or whatever and then you'd pull up like a billionaire's

phone or someone who's actually sort of profoundly elite in whatever their field is and they're like, here's my flip phone or you know, they're like what here's my flip phone or they're like, what's, you realize they haven't even heard of most of these things because they're sort of mostly busy doing. And so I think that's, to me, the main rule you wanted to do is that the best routines and practices are ultimately pretty simple or their few. So if it is complicated, the flip side is, that's like one of the only complicated things

they're doing. There's not every hour or minute of the days is consumed by all this stuff. Yeah, and I think another thing to point out is that all these systems for successful people are also really hard one. It's not like they just created this thing. It's like probably the years it took them to become who they are today was also the years

in which they figured out how to do that thing. So that system maps onto their specific set of needs and their specific experience. So of course, it's not going to work for you. Like, it cheeses up at will. And like, when it doesn't work for you, people are like, oh, no, like, what's the problem there? It's like, it worked for them because that's the life that they led. So like, I think it's really important. Also, it's like like when people are trying out these systems and everything, it's also remember that you're wearing somebody else's shoes,

you're wearing somebody else's clothes, you're driving somebody else's machine, you need to build your own, take what works, and that's the work, that's part of the work. And I think what sometimes we confuse strategy and tactics, right? So like journaling is a strategy. It's like a way to do a lot of things. It's got this, you know, it's important.

It's a big, big ticket item. The pen used in the journaling is a tactical thing. So you often find people are paralyzed by these little things, like, hey, what time do you do it at? Or, what pen do you use? How many pages a day? How much time do you a lot for it? Do you like to change colors of pens?

Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or what software do you use when you're writing and all this stuff? And it's like, those are only going to give you marginal improvements. You want to, I think, look for these big things and journaling to me. And the method you're talking about is a big thing. You want to make sure that you're not optimizing at the margins before you've even gotten the major benefits of the

of the thrust of the change that we're talking about making. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it comes back to the whole idea of purpose. Like, is this moving you closer to your purpose or not? Is it going closer to what you want? And I feel like staying true or staying focused on that and being mindful of that will help you pick your tools almost organically because tools are there to help extend your reach. That's basically what's happening. We're like open up doors, but you need to run into that door first. And I think that's really important. People don't like hearing that.

It's like you have to find the doors before you open them or else it's just like a frame standing in a field, you don't know which way is in and out. It's, um, yeah, I think that that's, people get too detailed oriented because that's clear, if that makes sense. Like a pen is clear, but your purpose is not. That's a big question, and that takes a long time to answer. But that's the much more important question. Like, why do I want to write? Not what do I write with?

Well, and maybe there's a good place to wrap up, because I think you make a really good point, and I'm curious what you think. So to me, I think the instinct is what pen to use. That's a question someone can answer for you, right? And this question you've been kicking around, you brought it up now several times. So I can see how important it is,

it's like what's your purpose? That's something that no external person can tell you or really maybe even help you with. That's ironically one of the things that you kind of have to figure out on the page over a long period of time. So I'm just how did finding what that was become clear to you and how do you how do you follow it as it evolves? You create a record of your experience and you study it. That's what helped me. I think a lot of people come to the question of what is my why or what is my purpose in

a time of crisis when you lose the job or you lose a loved one when you're in the worst possible place to think rationally. For me, journaling is about asking that question like every day, what do I want, what adds value to my life, what do I want more of, what do I want less of, and day by day, week by week, month by month, and so on, that answer becomes clear, right? You move a little bit closer towards things. You get closer to understanding it if you start from zero. That's already so important. The progress to understanding is work worth doing. If you don't know what you want, you'll never have it. Putting the effort and understanding that, while also remaining aware that it's going to change over and over and over and over again, right?

It's really an infinite game. Like you're just trying to understand what adds value to your life based on your lived experience. And then you try to cultivate that. And that just happens one entry at a time. That's really what journal I need is for me. It's about understanding what adds value to my life and what doesn't and trying to find opportunities to spend more time doing the things that matter and less time doing the things that don't.

That sounds so obvious and that work is so important but that's how it's done, day by day, and that's really what journaling's all about for me. If you beautifully said, I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. So if you like that, if you're interested in journaling and starting and interested in stochism and you are, you wouldn't be listening to this, I do want to recommend the Daily Stoic Journal. It's more than a journal,

there's all sorts of writing and quotes from the Stoics and there it's almost got a book length worth of content in it. So it gives you sort of weekly themes and quotes and ideas that will help you. And then each day there's a prompt and it's based on Marcus Aurelius's idea of I think sort of preparing for the day ahead and then Senica's approach of reviewing the day just passed. So we're sort of preparing for the day ahead and then Sena's approach of reviewing the day just passed. So we're sort of Marcus and the morning Sena in the evening and then, you know, Epictetus's idea of, you know, he says, keep these thoughts around you, write them, say them, read them, keep them around you, that's what the philosophy is, that's how you help internalize

and absorb all the ideas. It seems weird maybe that I do my own journal but having the question each day, I'm not telling you to buy anything that I don't personally use. Again every single day I use the daily stoke journal, I really mean that and it's been a huge part of my journey over the last few years. I remember a couple of years ago that I was really mad about someone that sort of screwed me over really bad. It just happened that like three days in the journal in a row were about controlling your temper, it was a set of questions that really stopped me cold, forced me to think, and then channel that energy much more productively. So I think you'll like the journal you can get at anywhere, books are sold, Daily Stoic Journal. And anyways, even if you don't do it, even if you don't pick up the

bullet journal, just start journaling. It will help. I promise. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.