What is a #bulletjournal and how to create one easily

photo credit Carmela Kia Giambrone

When suddenly a winter afternoon I discovered that "focusing on too many things at the same time" apparently was not just my problem, I discovered the world of #RyderCarroll and #bulletjournaling.

"Natural curiosity is incredibly important because genuine ..."

When I discover something new, the explosion of content, the desire to know everything immediately, pushes me to the spasmodic search for information. By nature I am very little patient, yet patience is really a virtue, especially at the beginning of an adventure.

For some time now, I joined the world of calligraphy and bullet journaling and acquired a myriad of information found on the net, thanks to videos of aficionados, official and non-official "sector" websites, instagram users and pinterest tutorials.

My personal bullet journal

Bullet journaling is the best method I have ever experienced to really understand how much power I have in shaping my life.

But let us proceed step by step.

This method was designed by Ryder Carroll. The organizational method of Ryder Carroll, his bullet jouraling, is not about collecting objects or #drawing on an #agenda or keeping a nice diary, nothing farther from this fact, it is not sketchbooking.

Creating a bullet journal means keeping track of the past, organizing your daily #life, your present and managing and planning the future.

In his TEDxYale "How to Lead an Intentional Life", Carroll explains very clearly his vision of organization of life that could be easily summarized in:

"Freedom of choice is our privilege"

But this freedom, like everything in the world, has a cost and this cost consists of time as well as dedication to bring it forward.

In fact, making a decision necessarily requires us to #focus on it.

The concentration, in turn, requires #energy and as mentioned, of #time. Time in spite of us, however, is not a renewable resource and this is one of the greatest truths capable of creating the greatest stress and the worst anxiety possible in all of us.

In order to face our life we ​​ultimately need a #space to think and focus on.

Caroll, trivially, gives us the method to get this space and to do it we will just:

-start, clean up everything
-externalize our thoughts to simplify our mind by creating "a mental inventory"

How to create our "mental inventory"

photo credit Carmela Kia Giambrone

Let's get a sheet of paper and a pen and write down 2 categories of "things" that we have to do and our #goals:

-the things you have to do
-what you should do
-those you want to do

and for every thing that we write down, let's always ask ourselves

a) is it vital?

b) Is it really important for me and for my life?

in this way we can capture all or almost our thoughts.

Capturing thoughts allows us to work in due course without excessive anxiety or enormous stress.

Important: if, however, both questions a) and b) our answer will be "no", it means that we have just identified a #distraction that, if desired, we can delete from our list.

"The key to establishing our goals and preparing for success" will be to take these objectives and break them into small #projects that are able to satisfy our curiosity.

In fact, Caroll suggests that our small projects, in order to "work" must always satisfy some main characteristics:

-they must not have entry barriers: we must not wait for anyone or nothing, but we can start now
-they must have a clear and defined list of actions and tasks
-it must take a maximum of one month to complete them: if this is not the case, just break them further

But what is our "mental inventory" for?

Our "mental inventory" gives us an idea of ​​how we are investing our time and energy. So Caroll suggests that we ask ourselves a fatal question at this point:

"Why am I doing this?"

we must not be charged with useless responsibilities, we are so distracted by everything that commits our life that we forget to ask ourselves if what we do really matters and why we do it.

This mental inventory is like a #map: while we live our lives we must remember to keep this map updated by adding or subtracting new passages, paths and paths. At the contrary? if we do not do it: have a poor map that takes us far from our point of arrival, off course.

To keep our map updated, it takes only 5 minutes a day.

In his lecture Carroll, he exhorts us to be aware of and perceive the importance of the actions we perform during our lives. But making decisions is something difficult and so the design of our resources allows us to have what we really need to live our lives to the fullest, helping us to face the daily #challenges.

His method is based on:

-simplify our #mind
-to cultivate our #curiosity
-stay #focused over time

The promise is to lead a distracted life by pursuing one's intentions.

Step by step we create our Bullet Journal with Ryan Carroll
photo credit Carmela Kia Giambrone

#Tools needed to create your Bullet Journal:

-a notebook or an empty agenda
-a pencil and a pen
-yourself

The essential pages:

-the index and the keys
-monthly calendar (of 2 pages: one with the days, the other with your activities)
-daily calendar
-various and possible

There is no order to respect, everything is #customizable.

Basic bullet journaling glossary

photo credit Carmela Kia Giambrone

on the web there are many fans of BJ, who have been inspired by Carroll, a girl, Italian and very young that I found very clear and prepared, nice to follow both in her video tutorial and on Instagram is Roberta Ranieri che trovate come "Qualcosadierre" able to explain the ABC of this fantastic method to those who are beginners.

• Index: index, main page, helps to optimize time without the need to browse our BJ

• Keys: keys, code that we use on our BJ

• Brain dump: empty the brain bones all the thoughts we have without categorizing or dividing them, serves to take stock of the situation and free the mind

• Bucket list: list to insert in bullet journal or agenda of things we want to achieve in our life

• Color coding: list of colors that we use on our bj to identify some elements

• Daily log / view: that is a daily vision that we make on our bj; It must be done daily without planning the week

• Future log and calendex: schedule long-term appointments and events month by month, all year round

• Goals: goals

• Gratitude log: page of gratitude, what was the little joy that made me happy? (I have decided to insert a "happiness" box month by month)

Extra:

• Edit tracker: section to monitor our habits (gym, health, food ...) that must be completed daily

• Time mountain: it is a graph that expresses the hours of the day our productivity with the aim of improving it where necessary

• Collection / Vision board: things to do linked by the same theme, lists, dreams, wishes, travels ...

• Master BuJo: second notebook in which to write lists, permanent information (birthdays, books, series, ...)

You just have to try step by step, day after day, action after action, to create your own personal bullet journal, experiencing the power of this method of mental organization in your daily life.

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