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Comment by cbcoutinho | Hacker News Reader

I use the bullet journal system, which is essentially a way to structuralize a notebook. Instead of removing redundancy, it embraces it.

1. Make yourself a very brief year plan

2. Every month refer to year plan and go into detail as needed for that month.

3. At the beginning of every week, make a plan while referring to the month plan.

4. In the morning give yourself a daily plan or keep notes to help stay on track.

I really like having to go back and forth between time scales, it helps me keep track of what I'm doing and also answers the question I've also had with previous note taking apps: how does what I'm doing today fit into the rest of my life?

Hint: if you're interested in learning about bullet journaling, stay away from Instagram, pintrist, and tumblr - people have a tendency to turn this amazing productivity tool into an art contest, and it only gives the illusion that the barrier to entry is higher than it really is

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> if you're interested in learning about bullet journaling, stay away from Instagram, pintrist, and tumblr - people have a tendency to turn this amazing productivity tool into an art contest, and it only gives the illusion that the barrier to entry is higher than it really is

This is exceptionally good advice for any kind of organizational system. It's really easy for me to get down on myself for not creating these robust, beautiful pieces of art that memorialize my experiences and help me work. I used to have a tendency to view organizational systems as much more difficult than they are. Now, I use a very basic task list that's on my computer and phones, that is organized by due dates and projects. I don't let myself get down when I miss a due date, or I forget to document everything for a couple days. I just hop back on and keep working.

I use bullet journal, basically, but I just write my points at night for the next day (I find it too hard to get started in the mornings if I have to make a list, by the end of the day I know everything I want to do the next).

It's just a damn mess of scribbles and dots, to be honest. But it works great.

Absolutely right about art part. My bullet Journal is on a simple notebook, using only left side of paper, not the both sides of sheet. Yes, monthly plans exist, but otherwise its just a checklist with date as heading. I try to tick as many as possible items, but in the end of week or month whatever is pending, has too little chance of getting done. Wider topics gets their own collections, like vacation preps.

No fancy color pens, no washi tape, no artwork, no clean handwriting, no tabs. Just pen, paper, page numbers.

I also tried using bullet-journaling for a while but fell back to the yearwise hardcover diary of sorts (something like my father used)[1]. I think that does the job easily without me getting bothered by creating things like monthly and yearly calendar and some other lists. The templates are already present.

Just for information, did you pick up bullet journal after using any other (paper or web) tools? Were there any advantages compared to the other tools?

Having said that, my problem is more about following the systems religiously rather than starting them. For example, creating a morning ritual to plan my day/month/etc. has been a difficult task because most of the times I plainly forget about it. :(

[1]http://www.graphicimage.com/v/vspfiles/photos/AJL-GTI-TUP-4....

I never used those notebooks because they contain too much structure. If I miss a week then I have a number of blank pages, and I would rather have consecutive pages of text rather than blank pages when I didn't plan anything. YMMV

I use Evernote quite a bit, but it was a bit restrictive for me when I tried to do my planning in either using my phone or the desktop/web application. I like to doodle and make quick tables - basically just using a pen and paper. Evernote ended up being too slow for me as well, now I have a notebook with some bookmark ribbons to switch between my yearly and weekly planning sheets. That is difficult to do with Evernote IMO.

As for following it religiously, I miss weeks as well, and I don't really note my days as much as I probably should. What I do make sure to keep consistent is a weekly plan, and right now I'm able to get one week done in about 5 minutes - enough for a cup of coffee on Sunday morning. I think the secret is to keep it as short and sweet as possible. I used to take 30 minutes or more, but that ended up being overkill and I didn't look forward to creating my layouts. Now planning my week is easy and I look forward to it

This right here! Many people try to make bullet journaling an art, though it's supposed to be quick and easy, not time consuming and pretty.

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