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

by Ryder Carroll

Reflection is the nursery of intentionality.

Thanks to our ability to rapidly adapt, even the most pleasurable experience or purchase quickly becomes the boring new normal. Soon we’re itching for another quick fix of pleasure. No longer satisfied with what we already have, we treat our withdrawal pains by incrementally upping the dosage. More shoes, more booze, more sex, more food, more “likes,” just more. This phenomenon is known as hedonic adaptation.

Notice how much advertising focuses not on “good” but on “more”: better, faster, fresher, stronger, lighter. “Good” is enough, but “better” is a promise of “happiness” that’s just another transaction away.

What can be bought can be owned. That is the social contract. You buy shoes at the shoe store, clothes at the clothing store, cars at the dealership, and so on. Notice that there is no happiness store. It’s not because it can’t be bought; it’s because happiness can’t be owned.

How do we best harness our curiosity while reducing the risk of failure? We set goals. When set with intention, goals can provide structure, direction, focus, and purpose.

Your goals should be inspired by your felt experience. Surely you have sources of real passion in your life—whether the positive impetus of what brings you joy or painful lessons from the school of hard knocks. Put them to work! Both are powerful wells from which you can draw meaningful goals.

What little thing can we change to improve the situation? What could be done better the next time?

Thomas Edison supposedly once quipped, “I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

You can choose to focus on all the reasons why you can’t, or you can look for some small way in which you can. If you’re not happy with your life, then ask yourself, What tiny thing could I do tomorrow that would make my life a little bit better?

Question by question, task by task, you’re cultivating a sustainable path toward continual improvement and good change, one small step at a time.

When asked to describe his theory of relativity, Einstein (mercifully) paraphrased it like this: “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.”43 In other words, our perception of time changes relative to what we are doing.

The hard truth is that we can’t “make time,” we can only “take time.”

The quality of our time is determined by our ability to be present.

Time boxing adds two key motivational ingredients to a Task you’ve been putting off: structure and urgency.

When we do something has a large impact on how well we do it.

If there’s something you find yourself putting off, then you’ve identified your chore. Procrastination indicates that it may be the most challenging Task on your list, because it worries you or doesn’t interest you. Put it first.

Life is so subtle that sometimes you barely notice yourself walking through the doors you once prayed would open. —BRIANNA WIEST

We can control how we respond to what happens to us.

It’s within our power to be intentional about how we respond to the wildly creative problems the world, people, and even our emotions subject us to. No matter what happens in your life, no matter how bad things get, you’re never entirely at the mercy of your experience. There is always opportunity and freedom to be found in how we choose to act. It’s our obligation, then, to make the most of this freedom.

Seth Godin once wrote, “You’re either the person who creates energy. Or you’re the one who destroys it.”52

be mindful about the people you surround yourself with, because they will shape you.

We have a tendency to blow our problems way out of proportion. No matter how bad a problem really is, chances are we’re making it much worse in our minds. It can feel all-consuming, making us believe we’re powerless, and helpless, but that’s never true.

The big misconception is that the alternative to perfection is failure.

Every action is a step up from where you were. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, or if you stumble along the way. What matters is that you continue to step up.

We’re not here to design a lukewarm life.