- Bullet Journals, daily planners, to-do lists.
If you're anything like me, you've tried
to solve the chaos of your life only to fail.
Let's fix that.
Thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
Hi there, I don't know if you know this,
but my life is a mess.
And it's not for lack of trying.
I've used apps, planners, sticky notes,
Bullet Journals, whiteboards.
I own four white boards.
Why do I own four whiteboards?
But it's the same story every time.
These organizational solutions work
for a little bit, but then fail.
It creates this cycle of planning, productivity,
getting overwhelmed, giving up, and the cycle restarts
when I see some new stationary and get inspired
I'm sick of it.
And you may be too judging by this Google trend data
on Bullet Journaling.
Every year without fail, people seek out this hobby
only to inevitably peter out
in this perpetual planning fallacy.
It seems like we're doing something wrong, but what?
And while it's important not to take graphs at face value,
I made a whole video about it.
I don't think my claim is too far off base.
How many organization apps have you abandoned?
How many planners do you own that are half empty?
In this video, we're gonna figure out why that is.
And more importantly, how to avoid it,
let's get started.
Of course, it all started with a Google search
that led me through a rabbit hole of articles
that ended at yet another 300 page book.
This time I read "The Accidental Diarist:
A history of the daily planner in America"
by Molly McCarthy.
The book strings together analyses of old diaries
and planners to identify the origin of the habit
that inspired this video.
You know, somebody commented on our last video
that my job is basically making book reports,
and it's not even a lie at this point.
If I thought that book about olive oil was dry,
well, this book was simply arid.
Not to say it wasn't good, it was neat and romantic.
However, I did the thing where you read the page,
you get to the end, and then you'd realize
you didn't register any information,
so you need to do it again, I did that several times.
Anyway, here is the evolution
of the daily planner in America.
It all starts with the almanac,
kind of like the smartphone of the 16th century.
It's an annual reference book with dates,
weather forecasts, and other local information.
This book was imported to colonial America,
alongside a habit of sewing in blank pages.
On those pages would go a chronological diary,
or as George Washington put it,
where and how my time is spent.
This practice of recording one's days on limited pages,
familiarized people with regular abbreviated forms
of writing about themselves,
the foundation of modern journaling.
As the years progressed, almanacs fell out of fashion
and were at a place with pocketbooks that invited users
to input more information than ever before.
Demand only grew as people saw
the opportunities held between the covers.
It was a way to track finances
in the rise of colonial commerce,
a more accurate time piece
when mechanical time had yet to be perfected,
and an account for one's time to God.
By the mid 19th century with printing cost
at an all time low, and literacy at an all-time high,
it's place was secured in the cultural landscape.
The pocket book or diary or journal
was marketed under many names,
but it was consistent in its promise.
It was a way to make time one's own.
With a journal time was more than days and hours.
It could be money spent and earned,
distances traveled and places explored.
It captured the rhythms of life as it was lived.
People saw this power and refused to let it go.
So nowadays while the form and technology
may be more diverse, that promise,
that reclamation of time remains.
Okay, so what really struck me about the evolution
of the daily planner is how responsive the design was.
Like there would be this product, this book.
And then people would just use it wrong on purpose.
They'd write in the margins, they'd sew in pages,
they would spread out one annual planner
over the course of years.
But then after seeing how people actually use the product,
publishers would update their designs,
only to have it revamped by people all over again.
It was this iterative process that was driven by the people
who were actually using the product.
They didn't just comply with the framework
that they were given.
They broke and bent it to work for them.
However, I don't wanna buy a $30 planner
only to ignore the guidelines.
So when I try and think of an organizational tool
that has it built in to allow
for this kind of flexibility and iteration,
I can only think of Bullet Journals.
It's a minimalist journaling system
designed by Ryder Carroll.
It uses a blank notebook
which makes the cost of entry relatively low.
Traditionally, Bullet Journals are made up of four modules,
a table of contents, a six-month view,
a monthly view and a daily view.
However, in a throwback to 17th century pocket diaries,
the Bullet Journal method embraces flexibility
and encourages users to define their own layouts
using modules they find online, or otherwise invent,
things like habit trackers, weather forecasts,
or savings goals.
And when it comes to Bullet Journals
there is only one person
I can think of talking to, I'm nervous.
Hi there, Amanda, how are you?
- Hi, I'm good, how are you?
It's Nice to meet you, thanks for having me.
- This is AmandaRachLee, an artist known
for her Bullet Journaling videos
that have amassed over 150 million views.
Do you mind telling me why you started journaling
and Bullet Journaling?
- I felt like just writing down my tasks
was kind of not enough for me to like motivate me
and for me to feel good about getting stuff done.
So about four years ago,
I discovered Bullet Journaling on the internet
and it was just kind of fascinating to me
how customizable it was.
- The more we talk, the more I realize
that Bullet Journals had the flexibility I needed.
But I didn't know how to start.
- Somebody who's just starting out,
who's feeling a little bit overwhelmed,
maybe because the past year and a bit has been a lot.
What tips do you think you'd have for them?
- 2020 did not turn out how any of us expected.
And there was that whole running joke of like,
what was the point of buying a 2020 planner, you know?
I really always recommend for people to start off simple
and then they're able to add like any modules
or things to their productivity system.
I kind of like viewing it almost like a time capsule.
And when I'm writing in my Bullet Journal or journal,
it's very much so like me time.
Yeah, you can kind of use it
as a hybrid of like a journal planner, anything else,
it's kind of all up to you.
- I love that, sweet, thank you so much for chatting, bye.
Okay, so y'all know what this is being leading into.
I'm making a Bullet Journal,
but not just any Bullet Journal,
because I think that there are three reasons
why my past attempts have always failed.
Number one, I just copy a layout I found online
without thinking if it actually worked
with the way I live my life.
Sure I could try and experiment and iterate
based off of that layout,
but then there's problem number two.
I feel really bad about messing up cute
and expensive notebooks.
I know it's dumb, but they're leather-bound
and they're like $30.
I would rather leave it pristine
than waste pages with experimentation.
And last but not least, there's problem number three.
They just seem like a massive commitment.
Like I got to fill out this whole notebook
with stuff I do every day?
What if I don't do anything that day?
Is there just gonna be a weird blank spot?
What if I'm too busy to fill it out then?
Like, what's the point?
So here's my solution.
- [PA system] We appreciate your...
- I'm gonna be making my own notebook,
and it's only gonna be for one month.
So I'm just using stuff I own,
And then a couple of other things I got
from the Dollar Store.
So it comes out to like less than $10.
It's low commitment and it forces me
to reconsider the system that I'm using every single month.
That's long enough for me to get used to it
but short enough for me to power through any inefficiencies.
So join me in my first attempt at bookbinding.
I wonder how this will go, probably not well.
I was actually hoping to design the pages on my iPad
because I have the handwriting of a five-year-old,
but I don't have a printer because I'm not 50
and libraries are closed because of the panorama.
Aargh, okay, how many pages do I need?
I want 36 pages, and I'm gonna split
each one of these into four.
Shout it out with me.
Say Dora the Explorer, yell it out kids.
It's, nine?
It's nine, big brain.
(upbeat music)
Ah, I was just trying to get these satisfying clips
and it's just not happening.
(upbeat music)
Oh Christ, oh it cuts like (laughing)
yeah that didn't work.
Where's my box cutter
Found it.
Oh, damn she's whipping out the toolkit, I did it.
This goes here, ooh, successful.
(upbeat music)
So I folded all the pages in half
and now I'm gonna fold them in half again,
just so that they're small enough to fit
into my butt pocket, which is honestly the only pocket
in women's jeans that can hold anything.
So I'm just gonna (snaps fingers) cool.
I did it.
Is this butt pocketable?
Oh, ooh, I'm not gonna show my butt
'cause you guys are weird sometimes.
I made the cover from some craft bags
because I liked the look.
See that's about, that's like perfect size.
I cut it down to size.
Okay, time to bind it.
Poked holes in the spine, (screaming)
and cut, and stitched it all together.
I'm kind of shocked at how easy that was.
Does it pass the pocket test?
It does, and I just realized
that my graph paper is bigger on one side than the other.
This is one size and there's the other size.
- They're the same picture.
- Okay I gotta clean up like all of this
and all of this before I get started
on filling out that notebook.
(upbeat music)
I just made this journal for February.
Cause I've already given up on January.
Anyway, I made the first page a side quest
basically it's one habit I wanted
to pick up next month and a reward if I do it
Bought an exercise bike at the start of quarantine
and then never used it.
So that's my goal for February.
And if I do it, I get yogurt pretzels.
Now it's time to actually fill up the journal part of this.
Then I made two page spreads for every single day.
For now I only intend to put in to do's.
Because I have a digital calendar for events and meetings
the tasks primarily go on the right side while my feelings
for the day like a journal, go on the left.
Look at that, it's not even centered.
I need to be okay with making ugly things.
And now I'm done.
It's a new day because I ran out of sunlight yesterday
because the sun is only around for like five minutes.
So I decided to keep my layouts extremely simple
for two reasons.
One simple is usually better for beginners,
but also while I appreciate the artistry
that people like Amanda put into their journals,
that's not me, but that's okay.
And actually I think that that is the biggest takeaway I got
from everything I learned for this video.
It's that you can't expect a system
that is bought off of store shelves
or found on internet tutorials to work perfectly
for you because they weren't built for you.
Your life is complex.
It has its own unique tempos and timings
and nobody but you can truly know them.
Now, I don't mean sitting around thinking about thinking
but rather acknowledging
that the system that you're right now
no matter what it is probably isn't perfect.
But instead of giving up, instead of waiting for a new year
a new stationary to inspire you
ask yourself what's the problem.
Is it too much work?
Is it in the wrong medium
by asking these questions ever so slowly
you begin to break the system so that it works for you.
Eventually, I hope that this little notebook
becomes part of a greater collection.
Each one, a step towards making my life
feel a little bit more in control
because right now it doesn't
and all of that work might come
with a little bit of a bonus.
You see the book I read "The Accidental Diarists"
Accidental. It's named after people
like me, or maybe you who just needed a tool
to organize their day-to-day lives
or their households. Every day or every so often
they'd jot down the things
that they needed to do or have done.
And over time they had pages
on pages documenting their lives.
Sure a simple dinner a week from now might just be a dinner
but 10 years from now, it could be the anniversary
of something bigger than you could have ever imagined.
Our lives are made up of little moments,
thoughts, and to do's.
And all I can hope is to have a system
that works well enough to capture it.
I hope you do too.
(soft music)
Hey there, I hope you liked that video.
If you did, please consider sharing it with a few friends.
It goes a long way on YouTube.
You may also want to check out our playlist
where we figure out why things are the way they are.
Like, Why Do Crimes Expire?
Or How Do Conspiracies Work?
But stick around for a second
because we are thanking Skillshare
for sponsoring this video.
If you don't know Skillshare is an online learning community
with thousands of classes covering just about any skill
from entrepreneurship to video making to journaling.
Now, journaling is not only great
for organizing your future.
It's also amazing for reflecting on your past.
Luckily Amanda has a class called
Art Journaling for Self-Care,
3 Exercises for Reflection and Growth
it's short, and it provides a really nice framework
to explore your joys and challenges.
But Skillshare is way more than just journaling.
They're always launching new classes that Melissa, Taha
and I are using to keep our video skills sharp.
And you can join us for less than $10 a month
with an annual subscription.
But here's the juicy bit,
the first 1,000 of y'all to join skillshare's
learning community, by clicking the link in the description
will get a free trial of a premium membership.
So whether you want to explore new skills,
deepen existing passions or get lost in creativity
get started with Skillshare.
But either way have a lovely day.
(soft music)