Bullet Journaling on Index Cards

I’ve loved bullet journaling since the moment I heard about it, but I’ve never been able to stick with it. It’s a wonderfully flexible way to manage your life if your brain is wired in that way. However, parts of the bullet journal system don’t work for me.

I love how simple and effective rapid logging is for managing daily tasks, events, and notes. I like how everything pertaining to one day is found altogether in one small daily log. Barebones bullet journaling, not all those pretty layouts you might have seen, is an easy way to manage day to day operations. It’s great.

What’s not so great for me is everything being bound in a notebook or journal. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a beautiful, high quality, expensive, special notebook that fits perfectly in the hand. Or if it’s a cheap spiral bound notebook, or if it falls somewhere between the two.

I adore notebooks (well, office supplies in general, but I’m focusing on notebooks here) and I’m always so frustrated by making mistakes in bound notebooks. I seem to always question what I’m writing and I spend a lot of time trying not to make a mistake. I know it doesn’t matter, but it’s so hard for me.

The other problem with traditional bullet journaling, for me, is that I have this huge case of object permanence (basically, out of sight, out of mind) unless it is a habit or there is a trigger.  That includes books. If the book is closed, my list doesn’t exist.  That makes consistent bullet journaling difficult. Ever tried to follow a list that doesn’t exist?

Not long ago, I discovered a reddit post by Chris Aldrich about bullet journaling on index cards, then I followed it to his blog post about it, and I decided to give it a try myself. (It also lead me to the indieweb world, but that’s a story for another day.)

I got sidetracked by all the indieweb stuff, but 6 days ago I started daily bullet journaling on index cards and it has been amazing. My daily index card lives in front of my laptop during the day when I’m at home and if it I’m on the go, it’s easy to tuck into my purse. At the end of the day I review my card, move things to the next day’s card or note them elsewhere as needed, then I file the day’s card in the front of my zettlekasten. I then see if there’s other items I need to add to tomorrow’s card.

The next morning I revew the index card and add or change anything that I need to. I make important notes through the day as needed and I cross mark tasks as they’re completed.

This has given me a simple way to track my tasks, events, and a place to notate anything unusual or important about the day.  So far, I’ve been very consistent, and between quitting instagram and this, my productivity has gone through the roof and I don’t feel so frazzled.

If bullet journaling doesn’t work for you, bullet journaling on index cards might.

If you didn’t check it out when I mentioned it earlier in the post, go over and read, “A year of Bullet Journaling on Index Cards inspired by the Memindex Method” by Chris Aldrich.