How I Adapted the Bullet Journal Method to Organize My Entire Life

As a lawyer, my time is a scarce resource. I’ve designed an all-in-one system that beats any productivity app.

Jennifer Chan
Simple, Not Easy

--

Photo: Studio Ease/Unsplash

Since notebooks have always been around for as long we can remember, we tend to take them for granted. Their appeal — especially when compared to digital tools like Trello, Todoist, and Evernote — is, to put it lightly, lackluster. In the past, I’ve found they rarely spark creativity. They’ve felt functional, uniform, and mandatory. The coils eventually unwound. Markers bled through the thin paper. Everything was unsatisfactory to the eye and to the touch. Goodbye paper, hello laptop.

Recently, though, I found myself playing with different digital tools in the hopes of finding a workflow I could commit to, something that would help me stay on top of both my personal life and my work as a lawyer. Once again, everything was unsatisfactory. Trello didn’t match how I broke down my work. Todoist was too much to keep up with, and Evernote failed to wow me. Exasperated, I returned to my old system of using 4×6 index cards to write down my daily tasks, symbolically ripping up each one at the end of my workday. But I didn’t just want a space to record my tasks; I wanted a full-fledged operating system where I could capture ideas…

--

--

Jennifer Chan
Simple, Not Easy

Productivity, craftsmanship, and the pursuit of excellence at work. Writing now at jennifertchan.substack.com.