The Lazy Genius Podcast - #30: The Lazy Genius Bullet Journals

Episode Date: September 11, 2017

You've heard lots of talk, seen all the photos on Pinterest, but let's figure out how to Bullet Journal for regular people. Show Notes How to Bullet Journal: The Absolute Ultimate Guide 7 Bonus Bullet Journal Lessons 21 Genius Ways to Track Your Mental Health (Buzzfeed) Have questions? Join me on Instagram this Thursday at 12:30pm ET! I'll be on live to answer any questions you have. See you then! This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't today's episode episode 30 the lazy genius bullet journals i know you're so excited here's the pitch we need to keep up with our life our lists and anything else that's important but we use our phone calendar a paper planner sticky notes dry race boards anything within grabbing distance to write down the things that matter. But then we can't find what we need when we need it. You might have heard about this thing called the bullet journal. It's gotten quite buzzy in the last year or so, but it just might be the system that you need, truly. So in the playbook today, we're going pretty simple. We're going to talk about what it is, why it might be fantastic for you, and how to actually

use one. Okay, before we get started on this podcast episode, I have a couple of posts on the blog, one of which is super long, like super long and detailed. If you have always been overwhelmed by starting a bullet journal, this podcast episode is the best place for you to start and then that super long post is second. That's the second place to go. So I will link to it and another one I wrote in the show notes. So please don't miss it. At that time of this recording, that big long post has over 600 comments.

And it has been viewed half a million times. Like, that's crazy, y'all. It's straight, crazy. But it's because it really resonates with people, I think, who are trying to keep this whole bullet journal thing simple. All right? So it's a really, really good resource if you've been a little on the fence. So you can get links to those in the show notes of this episode,

the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash bullet journal. Okay. So what is this bullet journal thing? You've heard the term and how it's changed. changing your cousin Karen's life, but like what is it actually? And more importantly, will it work for you? My favorite way to describe the bullet journal is that it's like a potato. Potatoes are super boring at first glance.

They're bland. They're not colorful. They're really basic. But oh, to think of all the things you can do with a potato. Fried, baked, roasted, mass. shredded and sauteed made into crispy hash browns like there are a i really like potatoes there are a dozen methods and a million flavors that can make a potato sing you just have to know what you want out of it it's the same way with a bullet journal the bullet journal is at its most basic a blank journal

where you bullet point your schedule your thoughts your life like whatever you cross off tasks as you finish them, you jot down important things you want to remember. It's not very complicated. In fact, its simplicity can be deceptive, even boring, like the potato. But it's not. It's not. So let's look at three reasons why the Bull Journal is awesome. First, it does exactly what you need it to. There are so many amazing, beautiful planners in the world. There are some apps that, like, sync and remind you and a bunch of other things that are super great. But there are a lot of us who haven't found that perfect thing, right? That planner or that app that can take whatever you throw at it. You want to make a grocery list. You need to write down meeting notes. What about a calendar

that needs like a daily task list one month and then a weekly task list the next month. You know, like no planner or app does everything, at least not any that I've found. So the beauty of the bullet journal is that it does exactly what you need it to do. Each month you can basically reformat how you process your life on paper based on what your life looks like at that time. we'll get into some of the specifics of how in just a few minutes but for now the reason is our focus as always we've got to start with our why you guys it does exactly what you needed to second thing it keeps everything in one place no more looking for that random piece of paper with like the next

great idea or the email address for your kids new friends parent or when your sister baby shower is or what you need to do to play in your sister baby shower, like everything can go in your bullet journal. Now, I personally don't put every single thing in mind, simply because some bits of information work better in other places. I list a few of those in the posts that I have written. Again, those links will be in the show notes. The lazygeeniescollective.com slash lazy slash bullet journal.

But one example I can give you now is a grocery list. I know people who keep up with shopping lists in their bullet journal. But that just doesn't work best for our family. We have this little dry erase board in our kitchen, like right next to the back door. And I list out the name of our stores that we always go to, all the Costco, Target or Walmart, and Trader Joe's. Like, those are our go-toes. And we don't have a Trader Joe's like in our town. I have to like go to the next town.

Complaining about that. many of these that bring your Trader Joe's to my town. So if you have one, be grateful. So great. But I have the list of all of our preferred stores on this whiteboard. And then when we run out of something, whether I notice it or my husband or my kids even, if they notice something, we can just write it down on the board. And then whoever is going to the store, it's usually me, but sometimes it's my husband. We just like take a photo of the list on the board for that store or just jot it down on a piece of paper. And my son actually likes to make the list himself sometimes, which is really great, you know, because it like helps him practices, his writing and reading,

blah, blah, blah. But the point is that the whole process, it would be so much more complicated if the lists were in my bullet journal, you know, like it doesn't have to keep everything in one place, but it can if it all makes sense there. Okay. So that's the second reason it's great, is it keeps everything in one place. And then the third reason, it's a really lovely way to look back on your life. It's a life diary, basically. You can see the nuts and bolts of your days, but also the memories you made. You know, like the funny thing that your kid said, the day you finished a book that you loved, and it coincided with like your niece being born, a well-meaning calendar checklist thing of like your attempt at working out 90 minutes every day. And then you

like chuckle at how adorable you were thinking that would even happen. It's a log of your life written in your writing, kept on your shelf, and waiting for you to flip through it, like for nostalgia's sake, or for actual help when you encounter a similar situation as you did like three years before. You know, you can just go back to your bullet journal and see how that went down. So to recap, it does exactly what you needed to. It keeps everything in one place or everything that makes sense there that you want to put there. And it's a lovely way to look back at your life. Now, let's do some nitty gritty basics in how you actually use one of these things. Again, the posts and the show notes will be a fantastic guide to get you going. We'll cover a lot more

detail than we will here, but we'll do a quick overview so you can decide if this whole thing is right for you. Okay. So the first and the most important thing to realize about how to use a bullet journal is that it's a log. It's not just a glorified task list or a written out calendar. It's a log of your life. That might feel like a lot of pressure, but since you get to decide what goes into yours, the pressure's off, right? When I first started my bullet journal several years ago, it had no soul. Like, no soul. I made lists and checked stuff off and created these elaborate calendars, but it just had no soul, no life in it.

Plus, if I didn't really have a detailed task list that day, I had no reason to write in my journal. but then I had a shift that changed everything and I realized it's a log you give equal billing to the project you need to finish the wedding gift you need to buy and the tooth that your kid lost you know like it all goes there everything that matters to you can be written down and logged in fact I sometimes won't even create a task list like all at once to check off I'll just write something down once it's done to log that it happened. Okay. The sooner you see it as a life log and not as a task list, you'll enjoy your bullet journal

so much more, so much more. The second thing to remember is that you can't do it wrong. You just can't. There's no wrong way to do this. That's what makes it so great is you can't mess it up. You won't have random blank pages waiting for that thing you left space for that you'll never do. You can just use a journal and a single black pen and be totally successful. You cannot do this wrong. Don't try and be a genius about this thing because there's way too much to know.

There's so much to know. If you do any sort of image search or look on Pinterest for bullet journal, just like general bullet journal, you'll die. You will literally, it's going to kill all of your logging mojo, okay? Like all the beautiful layouts and calligraphy and these people are like artists is crazy. Now, some of them that brings them life, you know, like more power to them. That's fantastic. But if you are not artistic or you don't have like an architectural degree and can't create all these elaborate calendars, those images are going to make you crazy.

So don't, don't look. Just don't look. And remember, you can't do this wrong. You can't. It's impossible to mess up because it's yours. It's so customizable and yours that you cannot mess this up. Third thing. look at it the same time every day or better yet just leave it open on your kitchen counter or your desk or a place that you pass by often.

Keeping it in mind is honestly the hardest part in getting started, I think. So if you can add it to something that's already part of a routine, awesome. Or just keep it in sight so you won't forget it's there. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us. in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacher Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe,

wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, now the beauty of the Bull Journal is that if you do forget to log something or you just choose to not write anything in it for a week or six months, it won't matter. It's blank. You know, you just write on the next page. It's not a big deal. It lets you leave it without consequences of massive calendar pages that you have to skip and leave empty.

And frankly, you feel guilty about that, right? I do. If I have a real planner and I miss some days, it's like, that's part of my life that wasn't lived. It's just very sad and very shameful for some reason. I don't know what it is. You don't get that with the Bull Journal. You just go to the next page. It's totally fine.

So it's great to weave it into your daily life if you can keep it in sight. But if you forget, it's not going to hurt anything. It's really fine. Okay. So far we've been pretty 10,000 feet at this point. But that's important when you get started with us. I think the biggest reason why people stall out is that they start with the wrong thing. If you are baking, which is something I love to do,

and you start measuring and mixing ingredients without actually knowing that you're making a cake, you know what I mean? Like you don't know what the end game is going to be. It's really frustrating. And I think a lot of people do that with a bullet journal. You need a big picture perspective first. You need to know why you're doing this. Okay, so now that we've done a little bit of that, let's get down to a few basic details.

there are truly you guys only three kinds of pages you need to get started in this thing. First, the index page. The first page in your journal, just go ahead and write index at the top and then fill it in as time goes on. All right. Done. One of the best things about the bullet journal, as I've said, is there are no wasted pages. Right? You just write the next thing you need to write on the next page.

It's totally great. You don't save room for anything. Now, you might have one page of notes about planning your sister's baby shower, and then the next page is your calendar for June, and then the next page is like notes on a book that you loved, and then the next page is more about your sister's baby shower. But isn't that annoying, you know, you think, to have to like flip through the whole journal to find all of these detached pages about your sister's baby shower. Not when you have an index.

The index is just that. it is an index of the pages you have and what page number they're on. Okay. So I guess that means that you need to have page numbers in your book. There's now there are bullet journals like specifically for this purpose that have it labeled index page and page numbers already throughout the journal. Or if you just get like a regular notebook, just write the page numbers on the bottom. It's totally fine.

But the point is when you fill in a page, um, you write what it is and the page number next to it. So in your index, you might list. baby shower notes pages 5, 9, 17. You know, when you create a new page, put it in the index, you can find it more easily, and then you can find all the different pages that you need at once. There's also a little thing that I have in one of the blog posts called threading, where like, like on page five, if you're working with like five, nine, 17 of your baby shower,

on page five, write an arrow and then a nine next to it. So it's taking you to the next page. And then on page nine, you would write a back arrow to five and a forward arrow to 17. So it like shows you even when you're flipping, like these are the ones that are connected. It just makes it so much easier. Don't skip this process. I'm telling you, in the beginning, it's going to feel dumb to fill in your index when you have like three pages. But by the time you get to the end, you're going to be so grateful that you took those four seconds to fill in the index page as it comes.

Okay. So first page you need is an index page. Second thing is a monthly log. This is where you write out your calendar for the month and you see all the things that are coming. Now, you can do this a couple of ways. Some people use a list of days, you know, just like a linear list, like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all the way down to 30 or 31 or however many days. And then you just write out the things next to it. Some people, I've done both ways, like actually draw with a ruler, like boxes, like a real count.

It depends on how you see it, like what's helpful on how you see your month. And some people can't even fit their whole month in one spread, like in one two-page spread. It's just there's too much going on. So you can kind of do it the way that works for you. You can also look at the posts that I wrote that I mentioned for some examples, or you can search specifically like monthly log bullet journal on Pinterest or Google. Like focus in your search so you don't get super overwhelmed if you want some ideas of how people do that. But the point is, with a bullet journal, you move from month to month. You don't make your

year's calendar all start. You live one month at a time. And then at the end of that month, you migrate, you move or migrate what didn't happen, like tasks you didn't complete or anything that's kind of still like floating in the air. You migrate what didn't happen to the next month and then you do it again. There is a lot. Again, I keep talking about these posts, but it's So detail. There's a lot more in those about what all that is and how it works. But ultimately, you journal from month to month. Okay. And then next to your monthly log, you could have a monthly task list as well. So events from your calendar are going to inspire your life, right? So like, there's a wedding on your calendar. A task list would be to buy a wedding gift, right? You've got a big

physical coming, a big doctor's appointment coming. A task might be to update your insurance card, you know, to make sure that you've got the newest one or something. You're taking a trip to Nashville. A task might be to research restaurants of one, restaurants you want to try when you go there. You know, like your monthly log is going to inspire a task list that you can check off like you would any other task list. And then the third page you need, you've got an index, you've got your monthly log. You need a future log. Since we only live one month at a time in the bullet journal, which is weird but works. Where do you put events that happen in the future?

You know, like you get a wedding invitation, but you aren't in that month right now. You write the date in your future log. And then every time you start a new month and you're filling out your calendar, you just flip to your future log and see what dates are happening in that month and you add them to your calendar. And then you cross them out in your future log. It's pretty simple. It's like once you get into the rhythm of it, it's pretty easy to do.

But when a new thing comes in that's not in your month, just write it in your future log. And it's there. You're not going to forget it because it's there. Okay. There are so many more details, again, in those blog posts like signifiers and migration and all of that stuff. So if you're interested in getting started, go to the lazygeenicecollective.com slash lazy slash bullet journal.

But ultimately the purpose of today is to help you discover why a bullet journal might be such a lazy genius move for you. I love it because I get to decide what's important when it's important, right? So not every month is the same. Life changes and we need our planner to change with it. So being able to write what I want in the order it comes to give importance to what matters and to not write down what doesn't matter. I mean, it's super lazy genius and it all is in one place and fits in my purse.

Are you kidding me? It's perfect. So if you're interested in getting started, go to the show notes and read those posts. I've also created a starter guide checklist to kind of help you get the basics of setting one up. And then there are also three idea checklist for different categories. Like there's a domestic tracker one, which is like kind of a fancy way of saying like if you're a mom. So like all the things in terms of taking care of your home and your people, there's a list of ideas if you're a student. There's a list of ideas if you are an entrepreneur.

So you can you can definitely go and get those. You just have to put your email address in there and I'll send them to you. And no doubt you're going to have questions about this. There are two things that you can do to get those questions answered. One is you can read the comments in that first post, especially. There are, I said there were over 600 comments, right? Or yes. And a lot of them are questions with answers, like that I have answered or even more than

that that other bullet journals have come in and answered in lots of different ways. as well, which is great, because you can find what works for you. So you can kind of skim through those comments. Or if you have a specific question, you can leave a question in the comments of this post, of the show notes of this episode post. The lazygeeniouscollective.com slash lazy slash bullet journal. Okay. Today, it's a little bit, a little bit longer than the last couple of episodes, but could have been way longer than it is because you guys, oh my gosh, We could talk about the Bulldog for hours, like literally hours. So we'll stop here for today.

But I do hope this was a good encouragement for you to try this out, especially as fall starts, you know, and we're trying to find our rhythm. You know, we did an episode about that just last week about finding our fall rhythm. And getting a bullet journal going could be a really great help in that. Okay, before we go, let's do our lazy genius tip of the week. I kind of already mentioned it in this episode. but it's about the grocery lists. Okay?

If you struggle keeping up with like what you need to buy, I think most of us have like a master list of things. You know, like I need toilet paper. We need ketchup. We need batteries, whatever it is. And so there might be one long list on a piece of paper on the fridge or something like that. But one thing that has been fantastic is on that little whiteboard, I said I have the stores written out. And you know that there are certain things that you buy at certain stores or they're cheaper.

at certain stores. And so when you run out of something, write it underneath the store that you're going to buy it at so that when it's time for you to go shopping, you can have your list ready for that store. Like, you know, like, oh, I'm going to run by Aldi after I pick the kids up from school. You have your Aldi list ready. You don't have to sift through a whole list and then like cherry pick what you need. It's all there, which is so great. It's like one less decision to do. We've talked about decision fatigue often around here at the lazy genius collective where we have a limited number of decisions that we can make every day. By creating your grocery list or your shopping list, like buy store, that eliminates a decision

because you don't have to decide, like, what do I get at this store? No, it's already written down through you, man. So great. So that is your lazy genius tip of the week. Okay, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. And remember to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I will see you next time.

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