From "to-do" to "done" with bullet journaling

If you're like me, you have a hoard of leather-bound or colorful and quirky notebooks of all shapes and sizes looming down at you from your bookshelf, questioning in desperation, "When shall I be taken down, lovingly opened, and filled with random thoughts, amateur poetry, lo-fi schematics, and other bits and pieces of content?"

That day, for so long, was forestalled until I read an article about bullet journaling.

To me, the author, Beth Skwarecki, did a good job of encouraging her readers to just get started. You don't need fancy templates, colorful pens, stickers, and all the other beautiful #lifehacks that litter the internet whenever you timidly google how to get started with productivity.

As a technical writer, I love indices, tables of contents, structured authoring, and otherwise organizing information to make it more findable and usable. The simplicity of reserving a few pages up front in the journal to help you navigate it later really appealed to me. Similarly, using a limited, simple set of notations to quickly highlight tasks, key points, ideas, and further areas to research helped me keep my notes skimmable, something my naturally verbose self could struggle with.

# Bullet journaling primer

Tasks
• a task
x completed task
> migrated task
< scheduled task for later

Signifiers
- note
* priority or important
! inspiration or idea
👁 explore or research further

In particular, drawing out my day in terms of hours helped me visualize how to chunk the tasks for the day into the meetings and other commitments I had. When I switched to a full-time remote position, such visualization became especially important because I no longer had the rituals and workflows that an office with coworkers establishes.

Perhaps I'm nostalgic because I just finished a notebook that has spanned my entire experience in tech, from days as an intern at Red Hat, through years at IBM, to my current job at a startup, solo.io. But if you are looking to organize your thoughts and can't give up pen-and-paper, I'd encourage you to give bullet journaling a try.

Shall I actually refer to this completed notebook going forward? Perhaps not. Perhaps he will join the rest of his waiting brethren on the bookshelf, but having lived a full and happy life. Sometimes, it's all about making the journey a little less chaotic as you're traveling through it.

Digital bonus: My personal favorite digital "bullet journaling" tool is Obsidian. Thanks to Will, a co-worker of mine, for first introducing me to it!