Information that won’t fit inside your head: Journals with and without bullets | Hacker News Reader

Information that won’t fit inside your head: Journals with and without bullets

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101 pointsvitabenes23 comments

Bullet journaling was a truly fantastic discovery for me as someone who was diagnosed with ADHD as a teenager and still struggles to stay on task as an adult. Something about working though a tactile list of exactly what needs to get done today and what’s up tomorrow is extremely helpful. For the first time this year I’m trying an app (Things) instead of a paper journal with mixed results. More definitely gets entered into it as my phone is always available, but it’s not quite as satisfying to finish the list and I don’t find myself as driven. Side note: if you’re not a creative type (I’m not) your bullet journal does not have to be as beautiful as the ones you see online. My paper journals were VERY utilitarian and ugly.

I am a professional artist and my journals* are almost entirely free of decoration. There's drawings when I need one to explain something in a rare freeform text segment but there's none of the complex multi-colored stuff that people love to share. Mostly it's just dates and lists of checkboxes.

* they are not actually in the "bullet journal" format, but rather in my own personal variant of "the Pomodoro method" where one checkbox = one half an hour I'd like to spend on a task, except when it's part of a shopping list or something.

Out of curiosity, do you use the Pomodoro method when you’re creating art, or do you find yourself in a flow?

I love that my job is sitting on my ass drawing stuff but there are definitely times when it is still Work that I have to force myself to keep doing. Sometimes I sort of sit there watching art fall out of my stylus. Sometimes I am Sisyphus muttering and cursing as I push this fucking stone up this fucking mountain for the millionth time.

"Flow" is overrated IMHO. It's certainly worth building working methods that make it more likely to happen but if it's your job then you need to be able to make yourself do it even if it's not coming.

I do a very informal version of the Pomodoro method, mostly I keep an eye on how long Time Sink[1] says I've spent on whatever I'm working on today and try to make sure it's a round half hour. If it's fighting me then I'll get up and take a break as soon as I get a half hour in. If it's not then I find my body usually wants to get up and move around after about an hour's work anyway.

And I am a lazy old lady who feels like 2 hours of work in a day is good, 3 is great, and 4 is amazing. Having spent a lot of time figuring out how to make my tools do a lot of work for me helps make this a schedule that pays my bills.

1: https://manytricks.com/timesink/

Third time is a good pomodoro variation for preserving flow so long as you actually take breaks.

Take a look at "How To Do Things" -- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58319866 -- for an effective pomodoro workflow

Interesting to see this recommended.

I love this guys blog, but I don't really like buying ebooks, particuarly of this type as I often don't get value from it and i don't like the pormodoro technique myself, surprised that he recommended it considering he has ADHD, I find it hard to context switch, perfer working in longer chunks until something is done.

What's the jist of the method?

I always get so discouraged when looking for bullet journal resources because everyone has those pretty photogenic journals while I forget where I put my pens. Where do I find more "ugly" journals?

Try: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicBulletJournals/

A lot of great ideas there but a lot of them look like planners and not journals.

This is wonderful.

As already mentioned, r/BasicBulletJournals is good. Another that is focused on actual journaling, and not art projects, is r/bujo

And here's a YouTube playlist I've made, with the best videos I've found: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL50SnCmB2W7tUaHuUzeB8OLC2...

Check out the photo of my journal here: https://swizec.com/blog/a-work-ritual-that-keeps-me-sane/

If that doesn’t make you feel better nothing will. I can barely read my own scribbles. A few days pass and they’re as well as encrypted when you lose context.

Nice post! That looks a lot like what I already do, but a little bit better.

I have the problem that on bad days (distraction wise), I never start writing in the in the book either. So it doesn't get a chance to help then. I try to re-frame the whole job I have as "I write notes in my notebook", as actual productivity happens automatically from there...

> on bad days (distraction wise), I never start writing

Some days that’s how it be. A day of fighting fires is just differently productive. Can’t focus on long-term impact if your house is burning down.

I would honestly love to see more journals that look like this.

In Europe, Tiger do cheap bullet journals https://flyingtiger.com/collections/notebooks-bullet-planner...

How's paper quality? Have you tried using a fountain pen with them by any chance?

For me the best of both worlds is getting a pre-filled journal. Yeah yeah I know that’s called a planner they feel super different fight me. It has all the cute art already drawn, and all the week spreads laid out. I just have to add the content and any doodles, stickers, post-it’s or photos are just optional.

And the best part for ADHD brain is since the whole year is already laid out I can put in events far in the future.

Do you have any recommendations?

This is the one I have and I love it!

https://shopamandarachlee.com/collections/planners-1

Scribble or doodle all over the front page immediately after getting it home to break the spell.

Works for me anyway! I try to see it as a tool as soon as I can. I wouldn't be precious about a hammer for example

go to a back-to-school sale and pick up a college ruled notebook or composition book for ~$1 each

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