Ryder Carroll

I’m about to start my fourth year on bullet journaling, and the system is great. I was hoping for a bit more expansion into the ways people have been using their journals, but unfortunately most of the useful information is stuff that you could already acquire off the four-minute intro vid on the bulletjournal.com website.

As other people have mentioned, the third section, Practice, is a little less practical and a little more self-help. It feels out of place in a book that pushes utility so much.

Still warrants at least three stars due to being the only journaling/scheduling/note taking system I’ve ever stuck with, and I don’t feel one bit sad about paying for the book considering that the method itself is essentially free on the web. It’s about time I chipped in a few bucks for something that basically changed my life.… (meer)

Overall the Bullet Journal (BuJo) method is a comprehensive productivity system that is partly an organizer (with space for traditional calendar planning), a GTD tool (managing lists, projects and tasks) and a tool for actual journaling, triggering introspection and self-awareness. Its great added value is that since it is pen & paper based, the friction of using physical devices forces the users to focus on what really matters and avoid bloated and complex systems. However it will not turn me away from digital apps for obvious efficiency reasons, I think it can also be considered as a wisdom benchmark for someone building his own system in the digital world, drawing lessons from the method’s constraints of having to focus on simplicity.

Strong points
1. Comprehensive productivity system, described with practical details
2. A bridge between modern world productivity and the ancient practice of journaling
3. A very practical and non-intimidating way to get introduced to journaling

Weak points

1. The actual journaling practice could have be detailed with more depth
2. More examples from users’ templates and usages would have been welcome
3. A history of journaling with examples of famous figures practicing it is missing… (meer)