Hello everyone and welcome back to another video it is
Francesco here today. We are joined by the creator of the bullet journal, Ryder Carroll is so good to have you Ryder
Where are you joining us from?
brooklyn new york
Awesome. It looks like a lovely set up you've got behind you. It looks so clean and and
awesome
Awesome
so let's kick things off with a little bit about
your background with the bullet journal
I think it's for those who don't know maybe a little bit of an introduction to it
And also the story behind how and you what inspired you to create it? Yeah, so the bullet journal came into existence
because when I was young I was diagnosed with a ADD and back then they really weren't a lot of
tools available to me so I had to design my own and it was
Definitely not night process so over many many years. I ways of taking notes and
Systematizing my thought in a way that would make sense and help me overcome my own
organizational challenges and
Many many years later I shared what I found to be most valuable
online and that's what's known as bullet journal today awesome and it's such a it's such a simple way of getting started and
I've I've been slowly getting through the book that you're releasing
very soon and
It's it can actually go a lot more advanced that I've realised
For those people that are interested obviously, there's the I think the YouTube video encapsulate it really well
How would you recommend people get started with the villager animation?
Yeah
so there there's a lot of content online about bullet journal right now and it can
It's easy to get overwhelmed but really quickly. You don't know like who's doing it, right? And then I
Think the first thing for people to realize is that the bullet journal is incredibly personal right? So it reflects the needs of their user
so when you see a lot of these different interpretations, it's not about how to pick I
Think it helps to understand you take a step back and then you begin with the source
Which is the form video you just mentioned that you can find for free bowl eternal calm
which teaches you the very basics of how to bullet journal and
You can basically take it from there. I usually advise people to start off with what they see there
Try it out for three months
three months specifically because there is a technique called migration in the bullet journal and once people have migrated
At least once if not twice it's gonna be like a really it can be a real lightbulb moment when people start realizing
How they can curate their to-do lists in a very effective way, right? So for those who aren't familiar
during migration
You go through your to-do lists and you look for things that you still need to do and then you ask yourself a question
Which is does it still matter? Is it vital? A lot of times it is but sometimes it's not
All right
And then two things happen one is you have to make a choice
You make a choice whether it continues to be part of your life
and if it does that requires you to rewrite it and
a lot of times people think something's important until they have to rewrite it and
all of a sudden like I don't want to rewrite it and
That's intentional like that's by design that that piece of friction because if something's not even work the two minutes
or two minutes the two seconds to rewrite a sentence the chances are that
Important, right? So every month you kind of go through this process where you're
weeding out a lot of things that are ultimately distractions from your list and
That's when people start realizing how powerful the methodology can be and helping them focus and get more of their time back
fantastic and
Previously when you were a product designer sort of full-time
Did you have any like digital tools during that time before that do you like try any and there were like, right?
This system's gonna fix me. Did you ever go through that process? Oh, yeah
I still go through that process all the time now as a digital I I
Wasn't forced into being a digital product designer. Like I think digital tools can
Enable us to get things done that we never were able to before I mean simply being able to do this video chat
You know like the amount of Technology that are required to make this simple. I
Mean, it's it's just all emerging technology and don't it's right. We gotta play games, but I
think that what people forget is
They're like either digital or analog old or new like I just don't think that way for me
It's about the tools that help you become most effective and sometimes those are digital and sometimes those are analog for me. I
always found that stepping away from digital tools allowed me to think more clearly right and allowed me and
to unplug so I wouldn't be disturbed right cuz like I would be in like a
Host of different productivity tools, you know, and I'm creating the perfect to-do list in the calendar next thing
You know, I'm like buying shoes or like, you know
learning about how to build a tiny house or something like I don't know how I
teleported from like one
Reality to the other so quickly, but that doesn't happen to me when I'm with my notebook for obvious reasons right now
It was something that I realized and I feel like that's why you see notebooks in
Most agencies. All right, I think I looked around and they they occurred to me one day I was like
developing some of the most cutting-edge technology and software in the world and the tool that they're using to think about those things is a
piece of paper and the patent
Right. So there's I think there's something to be said like there's
These tools all have a different role to play in the process
Definitely definitely, I think that the way that you've sort of structured the book
Is quite interesting because you've you've put it into a very visual process for people
Can you tell us more about how?
Because obviously you when you first release the concept it was mainly just for the video and and obviously the book that you can buy
How does how would you say the book?
Like centralizes if that makes sense
Sure
so the book is designed for both people who are familiar with the bullet journal as well as those who aren't
but that was really important to me because like a big part of why I
Continued to teach this is because I've seen how affected how effective it can be for people
So on the one hand
I wanted to make sure that people who are familiar with the system gain value and then those who aren't familiar also
gain value and the way that I
tried to solve that challenge is that the book can be read in one of two ways, so
For those who are new to the system. It's important to create a
sequence of information that can that you can build on like a
B C so over time you start being able to plug the pieces together
And that's designed for people who aren't familiar with the system. However, for those people who are familiar with the system
The book doesn't have to be read sequentially, right?
you can only you can go directly towards whatever you have a question about or find challenging and
As you had mentioned there there
there's
Kind of the beginnings of bullet journal which help us organize our thought but then I would say the more advanced version of bullet journal
is really
becoming more
Aware of how you're spending your time and energy on a more I guess existential level if you will, right?
It's not just about getting things done. It's about understanding why
Those things are important to you why they add value to your life
So as you kind of get deeper and deeper into the book you see how to use the system
But then you delve into the practice and I provide
exercises for people to go through in order to be able to figure out
how they
can combine
Productivity with mindfulness to lead a more intentional life. I
love it and I quite like the final bit where you bring in some work examples from
Like people are using actively so that's there. That's quite an exciting chapter because it's more relatable as an essay brilliant
When is the book gonna be released its net is it next Monday?
23rd, it's October 23rd. Yep, now perfect and that will be available on Amazon and all that right?
Yep, lovely jubbly brilliant right out
We're gonna jump on a podcast now, but I really appreciate you coming on the YouTube channel
Is there anything else you want to point people towards? I'd say all the information you need is at for the journal comm
AC thing going on
Apologies talking about the Revenge of the machines
Coming to get all the journal you can go to bullet journal comm we're at bullet journal on most
Channels, so I hope to see you there
Lovely jubbly Thank You Ryder. And we're gonna jump on the podcast now. So feel free to stay tuned and jump over to iTunes
Thank you very much Ryder. I'll see you give a seat. Thanks for having me. Yes