I first came upon Bullet Journalling as a means to keep my sanity - a standard to-do list wasn't cutting it. When you don't complete a task on a to-do list, it feels like a failure, but Bullet Journalling lets you migrate or schedule or delegate the task, and also record what you did do, perhaps instead.
Like just about anybody else, I'm attached to my smartphone, my Outlook Calendar is the biggest controller of my schedule, emails create tasks at work and otherwise. I do have separate work and personal accounts, to say nothing of social media or other membership accounts that could influence where my time goes. Digital records are searchable, and even if all that data wasn't under a common umbrella or dashboard, at least they'd all be in the same place and easily accessible, right?
I have my reasons to try and put my life together in a paper notebook. Here are some:
- 1.
Screen time reduction. If I want to avoid screens in the last hour of the day or the first hour of the day, my bullet journal is a great alternative. I usually have some last minute details to jot down, or even simply reflect upon. Screen time can affect sleep patterns, and lots of us are trying to keep the sheer amount of screen time we are exposed to in check.
- 2.
Physical senses. The texture of paper and the image of ink being released from a good pen feels soothing to me. Writing also gives me chance to have a better posture than the typical "texter's neck".
- 3.
Distraction. People are moving to 'dumb phones' to avoid the constant distractions that smart phones force upon us (aside: try turning off as many notifications as possible, it's done wonders for me). If I'm going to spend money on less capable technology, I'll try to save money and go further along the technological scale to pen & paper.
- 4.
Brain health. It's been proven that writing by hand is better for your brain. Even without thinking about long-term benefits, I've notice that I remember appointments and details better once they've gone through my brain and out my fingers via pen in a way that doesn't happen with a digital device. Once we enter the info into a computer, it seems like the brain abdicates responsibility to the device. Off-loading seems nice, but I'd rather the phone was a back-up instead of a separate, second data source without overlap to the main source (my brain).
I can however, think of some drawbacks:
- 1.
Search. Unless I know the date of something, or knew its importance at the time of recording enough to put it in the index, I won't be able to find old information without manually flipping through pages.
- 2.
Space. Not only do I have to keep old notebooks, but my preferred notebook size (A5) is bigger than a smartphone and doesn't fit in my pocket.
- 3.
Security. I can't claim my notebooks are encrypted, waterproof or fireproof. But the way cyber security has been going lately, I'm not sure cloud services have that much advantage over my notebooks. At least you'd have to leave your couch to get at personal info in my notebooks.