



Having a planner is great, I use them all the time. Whether I need to remember someone’s birthday, a date or something that I know I need to do, I love to use a good old planner to organise my life. I’ve gone through many planners, diaries, to-do lists and every other type of planner but they all seem to have one or more fundamental problems which mean that I just can’t seem to maintain them.



I love to-do lists, they’re a great way to concisely show what task you’ve got that has to be completed soon. But my biggest issue with them? I almost all ways seem to lose them and never quite seem to finish them and sometimes never even get to start them. When you’ve finished making your to-do list you’ve just got a long list of tasks you need to do, which oftentimes can be quite off-putting and can increase procrastination. And just as you’re about to finish I always find myself leaving the last few tasks I have left, always backing it up with “I’ve done the majority of the tasks, I’ll finish the rest another time”, and often times it’s these unfinished tasks that seem to make their way to the next to-do list.



So a few weeks ago, I challenged myself (by putting it on my, then, current to-do list) to find a better way to organise my day to day life. I tried many planners and most of them had their own unique benefits but none really seemed to fit until I found out about the Bullet Journal. It seemed to be the best option for me, the benefits were everything I was looking for. I just got started with an old notebook and a pen and customised it to my needs. I then decided to get the actual bullet journal itself to which I found myself to be more productive and more aware of the tasks and dates I had in the future.





1. It’s easy to get started

Although it can sometimes seem intimidating with all the steps and layouts you can implement into your journal, the Bullet Journal method is actually very easy to get started. Once you’ve organised your pages in a way that can help enhance your productivity the process of following and filling in your journal seemingly happens by itself. This is because the Bullet Journal technique actually lays out the whole journal first which means that all the hard work is done at the start and that all you have to do is to fill in the dates and activities later. There are several great resources out there which helps you to get started with Bullet Journaling like the video on How to Bullet Journal or my other blog Bullet Journaling Tips for Beginners.





2. It’s cheap

Although Bullet Journaling is best done with a notebook, at the fundamental level it can be done with just some paper and a pen. According to the Bullet Journal Website:





“Bullet Journal is actually a methodology. It’s best described as a mindfulness practice disguised as a productivity system.”





So it just goes to show, with the right mentality, bullet journaling could literally be done on a piece of paper. Now there are some great alternatives to this ‘primitive’ approach and my personal recommendation for using a Bullet Journal is to buy the Bullet Journal Note Book. It has dedicated pages for an index and dotted lines to maximise customisability.





3. It’s a great creative outlet

This could arguably be one of the biggest benefits to Bullet Journaling. Since Bullet Journaling is best done with blank pages, it allows you to decorate and design your notebook in whichever way suits your creative style. Whether it’s colourful or plain, you can style your Bullet Journal in whichever way suits you.

As well as the decorative aspect to Bullet Journaling there is also a cognitive benefit to using handwriting. In his book The Bullet Journal Method, Ryder Carroll says :

“When we write by hand, we’re forced to be more economical and strategic with our use of language, crafting notes in our own words.”

While typing notes on a keyboard may be faster they often end up becoming frictionless with information going in one ear and out the other. In contrast, handwriting forces us to pass information through our own neurological filtration system where only the most important information can pass through and often means we have to paraphrase, which, in turn, means that the information is more likely to be absorbed.

4. It’s great for planning and tracking goals

Bullet Journal’s motto is:

“Track your past,

Order your present,

Plan your future”





So it would be fair to say that Bullet Journaling was designed as a mix of some of the best planning and tracking methods out there. In fact, in his book, Ryder Carroll says:





“It was a cross between a planner, diary, notebook, to-do list, and sketchbook”





There’s an almost endless amount of tracking, planning and organisation pages you can put in your Bullet Journal to suit your needs.





5. It mitigates the feeling of forgetting something

Do you ever get that feeling where you know you had to remember something but forgot what it was you had to remember? You’re not alone. I think I speak for all of us when I say that I get this feeling ALL THE TIME and until starting my Bullet Journal, none of the organising tools I used really helped to eliminate the feeling. Bullet Journaling actually helps to release some cognitive real estate and means that either you can write down important tasks you don’t want to forget or you’d have freed up some mental space to be able to remember them easier.





6. It increases intentionality and productivity





This kind of goes without saying, but Bullet Journaling is a great way to boost productivity, but perhaps more importantly than this, it increases intentionality. Without intention, goals are simply just thoughts. You can turn your goals into realities by striving for them with intention. If you want to do something but don’t intend on doing them then perhaps your priorities aren’t as straight as they should be. The Bullet Journal acts as a bridge between your beliefs and your actions by integrating into the nitty-gritty of your life.





7. It keeps all your notes, goals and objectives in one place

The great benefit of an all in one planner is that it keeps everything in one place. Some may argue that this would just cause a cluttered notebook, but I would beg to differ. The Bullet Journal system actually puts in place standards that can reduce and mitigate any clutter within the book. To add to this, it’s better to have every thought, goal, and activity in one place than in multiple notebooks. Ryder Carroll said:





“Many a great idea,’keeper’ thought, or important ‘note to self’ has fallen victim to a misplaced scrap of paper or an outdated app”



We often think that the more the merrier when it comes to to-do lists or planners but in many cases productivity is inversely proportional to the number of planners you have but proportional to the planning you do. In other words, if you have one planner (the Bullet Journal) and plan intentionally and usefully in it then often times this yields higher value than the many lists and planners some of us are all too familiar with.