Let me start off by saying I’ve tried out a bunch of note-taking apps like Microsoft OneNote, Google Keep, Evernote, SimpleNotes, and NextCloud Notes. My favorite is Microsoft OneNote as it’s the closest thing to having a multi-subject notebook in the cloud. It’s great for organizing things like Bank Details, Ideas and notes that I need to refer to.

When it comes to Todo lists though, I’ve never been able to productively maintain and follow a list on my phone. I’ve always felt like writing it down on paper makes it seem more official and real. I’ve used a regular notebook for a few years, and maintained what was effectively an endless list of things to do that I’d cross off.

Enter Bullet Journaling. I’m pretty sure I came across the term on a reddit thread about productivity and all I remember was leaving with a feeling of wow that would suit me. Eventually I looked it up and it was a system by this dude named Ryder Carol. I really recommend watching the video if you want to setup your own Bullet Journal!

It’s basically a flexible system designed to give you a granular view and bird’s eye view of your notes, todos and schedule. You setup different temporal views, for the entire year, for the month, and then for each day. This lets you focus on your daily tasks, jot down ideas your ideas, thoughts, notes all in what is called the daily log, but if you need to plan for sometime in the future, you can note it down in the monthly log or the yearly log.

Additionally, I really liked the different kinds of bullets that let me classify what exactly I’m jotting down.

Here is my beautiful Keys page:

I really enjoy that I can plan my days, but also come back and write about something noteworthy that happened that day. I’ve been just doing this for a month but I’ve already found so much value in looking back at events that happened a couple of weeks back. I foresee a lot of value in being able to track my progress and seeing if I’m doing more interesting things/achieving what I set out to do at the beginning of the month or not.

I’d highly recommend checking out the video and see if it appeals to you. At the end of the day, it’s a way to neatly lay-out the mumble jumble that is my brain and I get the much coveted lucidity out of life.