I already do this and have been using this method for 2+ years. What works for me: 1 - Don't pre-set your bullets. It feels better actually doing the tasks and crossing/ticking off an empty box. 2 - It doesn't always have to be a "tick". I tracked depression by drawing a small arrow like a dashboard speedometer: pointing left meaning that I'm good, pointing up meaning that things aren't right, and pointing right meaning that I'm in a slump. It was AWESOME because I could identify patterns I never knew existed. It also made me aware I had to take steps when I arrow was pointing up. Plus a lot more that I won't bore you with :-)
Good tips. I suggest alternating the up and left arrows however. UP because it's light, uplifting, transcending anything "heavy" Left because it just ain't right, just like your mood at the moment.
@@cultivatelife Also good, depending what imagery works for you. I'm seeing more of a gauge, with the needle in the green, in the red, or somewhere in the middle
I started off watching those pretty bujo videos and tried to do that it put me off because having to keep things pretty and perfect stressed me out which is doing the opposite so I gave up. I mean they're impressive kudos to those who manage, but I started bullet journaling again this time using Ryder's original method and by the time I set my journal up I feel good. In the past I've beaten myself up for unfulfilled goals and uncompleted tasks but reading (goal=lighthouse)/watching this video what he has to say changed my perspective. I'm glad I gave bujo a second chance and anytime I need ref on it I'll refer here. Thank you.
You make an important point. If at first, you find yourself thinking about making it pretty, realize that you are going in the wrong direction. The BuJo is a tool. I see so many people posting videos using pens that have to be just the correct line thickness, color, etc. I see highlighters, decorative tapes, fancy boxes and various kind of calligraphy. In my view, and YMMV to be sure, simplest is best. If you use a SYSTEM, and you keep it SIMPLE, and CONSISTENT, then you'll have a very useful tool. To give one example. I decided to standardize my use of signifiers. I did a search and found a number of things on Pinterest and started to make my own personal list of signifiers. I soon found that people were using so damn many signifiers that it would take an entire page to make the key to reference them and I'd probably never remember most of them. I soon cut my own list down to only about six of them. Beyond that, I can just use words. I also ditched the calligraphy and carefully drawn tables and( highlighters, etc. I now use a simple ballpoint pen (a Zebra F-301 in black ink, in case anyone cares). If something needs to be highlighted, I'll grab some random red ballpoint and underline it. Some months I'll have all kinds of scratch outs and write overs. Who cares? It is not for posterity, it is for productivity. And that is my last point. I disagree with Ryder on the point of it. He is not wrong, he just has a different purpose. His is meditation. Mine is productivity. I think it is wise to start out defining your purpose. That will govern your other choices.
I have been keeping a glorified assignment notebook since I was 10 years old. Call it a bujo if you like. Of course it has evolved since I was ten, but I never had a bujo worth more than $3. Never did anything fancy at all other than put a few stickers on the cover if I was lucky enough to have had such a thing. No one was interested in my wreck of a notebook, but I do the same things most ladies do. I just never cared what it looks like. It's a list of todos with some funny expressions thrown in. Like mikethemlma said, a bujo is a tool. The most useful tools I have are not at all pretty.
Your comment explained my current situation exactly. I stopped my bujo with decorations and everything last Aug31 because it's affecting my mental health and it stresses me out. Then I decided to watch videos here starting from the oldest one. I started a new bujo using Ryder's method with a bit of changes that I found working for me in the past. I'm just using a notebook, a pen and a highlighter now and it feels satisfying
Wow. This is so minimalistic. You know this is first year I have started BUJO and my first question was what is the point of making a habit tracker for the entire month if I’m not able to follow them effectively. And how can I reflect and improve? This is a great method. Thank you. Also read your article on goals. Well written and amazing analogy with lighthouses.
Yeah this was the issue of bullet journals for me. So much ongoing work and it doesn't provide any solid information or analysis without tallying every single page. I switched to using the website Cerefine since it handles habit tracking, guided meditation, task/goal setting, Pomodoro sessions, all with 0 maintenance, oh and the graphs are just beautiful. Somehow still 100% free
It's awesome how the journal eats all the notes scattered every where. I had 12 notebooks scattered at work, office, truck, home. I love how Ryder's mind works. I have adult ADHD, my brain & my family thank you. If you haven't yet, please pick up his book, it's epic!
👏👏👏👏 Here here! Also it's overwhelming seeing so many beautifully written, artistic spreads. For some reason my writings worse than a 5yr olds, it's put me off actually starting a Bujo. Only way to start if you're anything like me at least is to let go of the idea that it's gotta be complicated and prestine.
I only watch "official" bullet journal videos now. They really focus on the productivity and even have one or two videos kind of nicely "calling out" the bullet journal vloggers for scaring away and intimidating newbies out of bullet journaling. They really care about creating a system that helps you, rather than a system that you can show off to others.
What's the harm in that? I mean, yes, if you're not an artistic person, it might be intimidating to see, but I think its clear that a calendar does not need to be like that. For me, bullet journaling is not only for productivity and mindfulness but also a way to let my creative side run free and I really enjoy having that possibility to connect something so useful with another passion.
@@elanorgamdschie8694 well, it's whatever you like best but it's pretty obvious that almost every bullet journal vlogger gives the impression that you have to make it fancy when you really don't
This is wonderful! I made the mistake of googling bullet journal spreads in an effort to get my life back in order. Back in my schooldays, I couldn’t survive without my weekly planner. Now I’m trying to get back to a normal life and schedule after chemo. My brain doesn’t feel the same, but I’ve been following your techniques for a week now, and I can feel myself making progress. I was so intimidated by the incredibly artistic journals some people are keeping, I’m not an artist! But your method is perfect. Thank-you so much!
Omg this is so much more simpler! I like this better than the fancy ones. With a new baby around, there’s just not enough time to do any fancy journaling. Thanks Ryder!
I am FINALLY starting my first official Ryder Carroll bujo for 2021. I've done two years of creative stuff but this year I'm going to stick to the program and see how it goes. :)
During the pandemic, and with the start of the new year, I am interested in organizing my time, and establish goals that are measurable and achievable. Habit tracker sounds like a good way to facilitate this.
Mr. Carrol, I just want to thank you and say your method is literally SAVING MY LIFE! Can't thank you enough for how much you helped me and my family!!! Our best regards from Brazil!!!
I like the use of the monthly to write down retrospectively what happened. I occasionally do this to remind myself of how busy I've been, but doing it more consistently in this manner could also be a nice, quick way of creating a log of memories. Thank you so much for sharing.
After trying annually subscriptions for apps that were not helping me to track my life properly, I found your BUJO book at my bookstore and I want to thank you for sharing this system. Thanks to Bullet Journal, my health has improve radically. I keep track of my work out routines, my medicines and so many other activities. I wouldn’t thought that a simple notebook and pen could surpass today’s technology. My BUJO has became an extension of me.
I really like this and think I’ll see if I can do it with the calendar on the left page and a timeline on the right with the habit tracker in the middle. I’ve only just started bullet journaling this year and I love it! I’ve never been able to follow through with a journal or planner in my life and I’m so attached to this. Thank you!
I love the layout/organization. I'm planning on making two copies: one within a physical notebook, and two a online platform on Onenote so I could relay the info digitally/reflect on the "why," I failed or felt further. More as a reflection tool, rather than a second copy.
Hello! I have been more productive than ever finally, after 21 years of my existence haha. Downloaded so many productivity apps but, holding the phone just easily distracted me. Your system was very very helpful. Thank you very much. Anyway I am totally new, and this is only my second day in my new journal. Maybe what I'm about to request is something you already have in your content! But I have been searching about goal setting. Maybe you also have a system for that. A system to plan each steps to reach that goal, to keep track of the steps, and reach a rather big or long term goal. Thank you again for your content! Very helpful and simple. Very easy and effective method.
Love the simplicity 👌 I’ll def try this. I love how your videos and methods are so simple. I want to understand your methods before trying anything overly fancy.
I like the idea of going one week at a time also, because it's visually less intimidating than a full page of dots I must work to transform into x's. I see 30 x's on my page, whoa, I have to be really disciplined! I see 5 or 7 x's...I can handle that!
I am loving my second bullet journal so much! I am able to keep on top of everything I need to do and I added in reading at least one book a month. 😊 I also made a bullet journal for my work as well.
Makayla Smile I use mine for literally everything now. Personal and work, home stuff, family appointments/notes, hospital clinic update letters, everything. It’s now just become a running journal of my life. I’ve recently started to set goals at the beginning of each quarter, and every month, write tasks that will help me get there. Also I now do a monthly review at the end of the month, with 4 key questions. 1. Wins of the month (not strictly a question, but nice to call out some of the awesome things that happened that month), 2. What should I start doing, 3. What should I stop doing, 4. What should I continue doing,
I LOVE this expansion on the habit tracker, Ryder. Thank you!!! I’ve used similar for the last couple months but without bulleting my planned times to act on the habits, without reflecting and adapting the upcoming week’s to the previous. I’m really looking forward to these aspects as well as the horizontal lines to delineate weeks. Can’t wait to try it this month. Your designer’s mind fascinates me!🌟
I had a separate habit tracker I was using that I saw in a weekly journal at a book shop. Going to give this a try. I like how simple it is to track behavior and it uses the month calendar page.
Awesome! I too have added my trackers to my monthly log, to keep effort minimal. But I still learnt here some small improvement, in going back to fill in my activities after events, to correlate data from events to tracker. Thanks!
Very useful. This system is amazing. So useful during university. Its hard to maintain routines but even so It keeps me organised and aware of everything.
Genius. I stopped using habit trackers because of the self-shaming, but recently added some simple ones back in. I always think I'm being minimalist about something until I see Ryder's version :-D
This method is so sensible and easy to do. I like how you've schedule the habits with task keys and cross things out when completed. Assessing habit every week is also wise so you can adjust it to a more manageable pace rather than quit and wait another month. Thanks for this! Will definitely try it out :)
My husband can only use planners of any type to track his timeline (things he has accomplished). If he sets personal goals, he gets panicked and sabotages himself. This type of tracker is something we can both follow. Thank you, as always, for your inspirational videos!
I've been bullet journaling for about 4 years now but this past year I've barely used my journal. I got really overwhelmed with it thinking I have to make it all fancy with drawings. These videos reminded me why I started in the first place. The core is still productivity and finding out what works for me. In 2021 I'll be going back to those minimalistic roots so I can concentrate on achieving my goals!
I tried different habit trackers based from bujo youtubers and nothing really works for me mainly because it's too much of a hassle and it's also way complicated than what they are showing. So I'm so happy to find this method and I'll be doing it this month!
This is awesome! I am totally going to do this! I have fallen away from tracking because I didn't want to draw out a tracker and wanted minimal. So this is perfect! Thank you! Love your videos!
This is great. I'm just getting back to the basics of bullet journaling because at one point I fell into a rut when I started overplanning my journal. I like how this is a tracker, but also a process for building habits. Shoot for something ambitious, see where you land and try to maintain and build up from there. I've tried habit trackers, but definitely ended up in the scenario where you just beat yourself up for not achieving your ideals and just quit altogether rather than try to build out consistency first.
This is a good refresher. I do like to use the monthly log to track appointments and important phone calls for follow up. It's been especially important since hurricane Ian, with insurance and contractors. (We’re Okay, there's just a lot of competition for contractors.)
this is great. exactly what ive needed. im getting back into bullet journaling after a 3 year hiatus and the spreads that Really worked for me back then were the simple ones like this. fingers crossed its as good a fit in practice as i think it will be!
I write them below my weekly log since I use it more regularly than the monthly log, and when you track more habits, the month one can get a bit messy. Loved this tho 🙌🏼
Wow, you are way younger than I expected you to be, lol. I just read your book and have begun my first bullet journal. I love it! Thank you so very much!
This so simple....DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE. In trying this out I am finding a level of thoughtfulness behind this idea that makes it seem like it took Ryder those four months between videos to properly vette this idea for release Orrr...he just had it his back pocket for a while now and was just now able to find time to put in a video ;) i keed...i keed... Until the next lesson, sensei...
I love you. This is so simple and just what I need. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing people getting all creative with their journals, however being someone who gets overwhelmed easily (and this being the reason why I dropped the classic planners and turned to bujo) I just got confused and annoyed with myself... But coming back to your channel really helped out.
I just discovered Bullet Journal from your TEDx Talk at Yale, and I am amezed of how usefull all your work is. I love it. I just bougt the app, a notebook , subscribed to the blog and I eager to get the notebook tomorrow in order to start journaling. By the way, funny that the day you upload this video it was my birthday :) I think there is a mystical connection here
A fantastic idea. I see such a difference from moving from a monthly habit tracker to a weekly one, as I use weekly spreads more then the monthly one. Thank you :)
I like this idea... I am working on better habits, changing bad habits into better ones, etc. Since seeing the habit trackers in videos about the BUJO a long time ago, I've been working on getting them into my life. :-)
I've been bullet journaling now for a little while now. But I started by looking at people who are experienced in bullet journaling and have tailored it to fit them. This didn't work for a number of reasons. I'm an aesthetic perfectionist. Obsessed with things looking nice and clean. This combined with confusion and not knowing how I should set things up resulted in me changing my journaling style every 2 months. Which is defeating the purpose because I put every other task on hold to set up the task tracker :/. I'd be in the middle of a journal and want to change everything up so I'd restart in the middle of the book. I'm currently at that stage right now and I hate it, but I'm going to try and stick it out until the new year and buy myself an actual dot journal (I've been using lined ones because it's hard to find dot grids). While looking for bullet journals I stumbled across your website and it's changed everything. After watching a beginner's video made by another creator I realised it's best to go back to the barebones basics and build up my preferences as I journal. So here I am learning!
Omg this is what I did for my February layout! I saw that my January layout wasted too much space so I tried to fix it and came up with this exact layout!! Much more easy to use 👍🏻
Wow, I already create weekly habit tracker but never thought to set goals for it based off the week before instead of my "bigger" frequency goal. I love that!