The Bullet Journal Method: Track Your Past, Order Your Present, Plan Your Future

by Ryder Carroll

Iteration sounds more complicated than it is. Once you ask yourself a small question, like What small thing can I change to make this better?, you’ve already started a process known as the Deming Cycle, after W. Edwards Deming, the father of kaizen.42 The Deming Cycle provides us with a four-stage framework for continual improvement: “Plan → Do → Check → Act.” Let’s break that down. Plan: Recognize an opportunity and plan a change. Do: Put the plan into play and test the change. Check: Analyze the results of your test and identify what you’ve learned. Act: Act on what you’ve learned. If the change didn’t work, go through the cycle again with a different plan. If you were successful, incorporate what you learned to plan new improvements. Rinse and repeat.