I have been bullet journalling for years, but I’ve never really looked at the book from the guy who started it all. I looked at the articles and now have a significantly different system in place than the ones I started with, but I figured might as well get a refresher on what the actual system’s intent.
The book takes a bit of a sandwich approach to explaining the method. At the start, it’s a lot of very practical tips, tricks, and steps to set up your very first bullet journal. The ideas are great, and it gets you set up to start with the habit and start to see the ways in which it can work for your life. The end also has a lot of practical advice, particularly when it comes to talking about the boom of the aesthetic bullet journal practice that makes it look as if you have to be an artist in order to do it.
You don’t, by the way. You just need to find a way to make it work for you.
The middle took a bit of a strange turn. The framing of it is to talk about the other ways you can use a bullet journal other than just keeping it as a planner and to do list. It feels like a loose framework to talk about how the method has been motivational and substantially changed the lives of the people who have used it, which felt weird. It’s a way to keep organized, which can be life changing? But it felt like a bit much.
Overall, it’s great for if you want to get started and try it out. Now is a fantastic time to try out new things, and this is one of the rare self help things I think can actually be practically useful.