Brief Summary

The Bullet Journal method fails to be a good productivity system due to numerous flaws in the way it clarifies and organizes information. However, some of its underlying principles can be reused to create a supplementary tool for the Getting Things Done system. This tool serves as a robust and complete way to capture items you need to engage with, thoughts you need to process, and events you may want to detail in the future.

Problems with the Bullet Journal

The primary problems of the Bullet Journal are its inability to deal with volume and complexity. These issues are holistic - they do not emerge from a single flawed component or one bad practice. Rather, they are just the expression of fundamental issues within the Bullet Journal method. In my opinion, fixing them is impossible without radically restructuring the system.

The issues are as follows:

The inflexibility of the layout

On first inspection, stating that the Bullet Journal is inflexible seems absurd. However, I believe that there is a strong argument to be made in favor of this position.

Firstly, it’s important to list the building blocks of any Bullet Journal. An average Bullet Journal will contain all of the following components:

  1. Index
  2. Future’s Log
  3. Monthly Log
  4. Daily Logs
  5. Collections

While all components on this list are individually flawed, this part of the article is primarily concerned with how they interact as a whole within the layout of a notebook.

The primary problem with a notebook layout is that there is no easy or practical way to move or update individual pages. This becomes a problem when you have complex projects or responsibilities that require constant status updates - should you run out of space on the current page (or pages, if you devoted a chunk of your journal towards this specific collection), you can’t add an extra sheet of paper or “move” the existing collection to a location with more available space.

The only practical option is to continue the collection in a new position, away from the original page or set of pages. I see this as a source of friction - having to constantly bounce between clusters of pages without being able to get a general overview of the topic is tiring at best and harmful to your productivity at worst.

The issue doesn’t stop there. Again, the current world is one of shifting responsibilities - my entire monthly or future’s log can be shuffled at any time, and more often than not the only solution is to just write a new one. Again, in a modular system based on folders and lists, this isn’t a problem. Individual items on the list are easy to cross out or delete, lists and individual papers can be edited or removed without damaging the other portions of the system.

No reference system or filing procedure

A robust reference system is a necessity for any good productivity system. While the one David Allen suggests is insufficient, having a bad system is better than no system at all.

Reference systems are useful for everyone, not just knowledge workers. Having a structured way to keep track of project support material, business cards, phone numbers, financial and medical documents, etc. is integral to staying organized.

A vast majority of Bullet Journal implementations do not account for this.

The Bullet Journal method accounts poorly for projects

Sprints and SMART goals are only sufficient for simple, short-term projects. Unfortunately, these are the only tools that the Bullet Journal gives you.

There are no project planning steps, nor is there any structure dedicated to managing projects. While the Bullet Journal works fine for small and straightforward projects, the flaws within the system make it impossible for you to manage several complex, long-term projects at once. The Bullet Journal becomes overwhelmed as soon as projects require more than a few weeks of labor or become dependant on other people.

The bullets themselves are flawed

  1. The Task Bullet

    The task bullet is bad at clarifying items. It has no way to indicate priority, context, urgency, or belonging to projects/areas.

    As such, the only data it can convey is that this is an item that you need to engage with. This is problem since you need to devote limited mental resources to figuring these things out instead of receiving the information the moment you look at the list.

    There’s no real way to rectify this. “ABC” priority lists (or, in the case of the Bullet Journal, asterisks) don’t work well because priorities often shift - at 8:30 PM, after a long meeting, watering your plants might take more priority over that really important paper you need to write. Why? Because it’s the only thing you can realistically do at that point.

  2. The Event Bullet

    I don’t really have any particular complaints about the event bullet. You could argue that it leads to data hoarding without any particular upside, but I don’t see any issue here.

  3. The Note Bullet

    The note bullet itself isn’t terrible, but the problem comes from how you use it. If you just have a large notebook of poorly developed notes, then you won’t go very far in terms of writing or intellectual development. The note bullet is only useful if you have an external system for processing notes.

The Bullet Journal puts far too much emphasis on time

The Bullet Journal bases most of its structure on time.

When you unnecessarily bind actions to specific days or months, you create a brittle and unstable structure that can only remain as it is if there are no external interruptions. Personally, I’ve had days where my Daily Log was rendered entirely obsolete due to a new set of obligations I couldn’t refuse. Similarly, there were times where my monthly log would need to be redrawn entirely due to a change in direction or external circumstances.

Getting Things Done circumvents this issue by having a dedicated reminder system and only putting items on the calendar when it is absolutely necessary.

Lack of self-documentation

The Index and the practice of pagination are a fundamentally bad idea.

Constantly keeping an index updated and writing out page numbers for each sheet of paper in the notebook does nothing to make you more productive - I would argue that it’s just busywork you do to patch up the holes in a flawed system.

A good system is self-documenting - it achieves this by having a clear and modular structure, in which all of the components are distinct. When I look at a file folder on my desk labeled “Next Actions”, I immediately understand that it contains a list of the things I am to as soon as I have the opportunity to. Inside, there is a sheet of paper enumerating my next actions. That’s all there is to it - this particular component of the system is entirely self-documenting. It demands no particular effort from me in order to function.

Meanwhile, I have to manually update the Index each and every time I write out a new log or a new collection. Of course, this doesn’t really document anything - “Daily Log, 22.09.2021” only tells me there is a daily log present on that page. It does not tell me if I still have items to process on that page, or duties to attend to, or notes to filter through. It only indicates that the page is occupied.

By writing in the Index, I’ve essentially achieved nothing and lost time and effort that could have been spent elsewhere.

Furthermore, I would argue that any system which requires extensive manual documentation to navigate is a system that cannot be relied on.

Integration with Getting Things Done

What is a capture tool?

A capture tool is, by my personal definition, any physical or digital tool used an “inbox” for things you must engage with, ideas and thoughts that require further development, or events that need logging or processing.

For me, a capture tool should not only serve as an inbox for the Getting Things Done system, but it should also serve as an inbox for my journals[1] and as a way to record fleeting notes for my Zettelkasten.

[1] Briefly noting events as they occur so you can reflect on them later is a journaling strategy I use regularly. I journal for about thirty minutes every night, and having a list of things I want to process emotionally/mentally makes me use that time much more efficiently.

Using the Bullet Journal as a capture tool

After enough thinking and about two weeks of practical use, I do think that a modified Bullet Journal can fulfill the role of a general purpose capture tool.

Modifications necessary

  1. Removal of the index The BuJo is no longer the main system - it’s just the initial processing station. All of the information in it is “in transit.” Storage is no longer one of its functions. As such, the Index has become redundant.

  2. Removal of future’s and monthly logs I’ve already detailed the problems with the Bullet Journal’s emphasis on time. In any case, Getting Things Done has both a calendar and a tickler file, rendering both of these logs entirely obsolete.

  3. Redefining bullets The task bullet now indicates that this is an item that must be processed through the Getting Things Done system. It may be a next action, a project, an appointment, so on and so forth. It does not indicate that this is something you have to do now. It only indicates that you have to process it through the system.

    Crossing it off means that it has been entirely transferred to Getting Things Done. The item is no longer in your inbox.

    The note bullet indicates that this is a fleeting note. As you may already know, a fleeting note will either be processed through your Zettelkasten or discarded entirely.

    The event bullet indicates that this is a noteworthy event that you want to journal or write about at a later point in time.

    You can still use inspiration and urgency bullets as they were originally designed. The rest can be discarded.

The practice

In this setup, the Bullet Journal serves as a robust and easy to use capture tool capable of serving as an inbox for your primary systems. Take it with you and have a pen at the ready - instead of using whatever is available in the moment, you actually have a dedicated capture tool.

I recommend processing the pending items in your Bullet Journal on the same day, or the very next morning. Any longer than that will decontextualize the content and may overwhelm you with unprocessed data.

You can also use the journal for mindmapping, brainstorming, and idea generation during project planning or anything along those lines. Just remember to process that data so it can be used in your actual system.

The use case

I suggest everyone to experiment with this but I think this version of the Bullet Journal is most useful for people who:

  1. Use paper-based productivity and notetaking systems, such as a physical version of Getting Things Done and an Antinet.
  2. People who find digital capture tools to be inadequate. I type slowly on a phone and don’t like any of the popular note-taking options, so writing in a small notebook tends to be much more pleasant for me.
  3. People who might not be able to access their digital capture tools at any given moment. Obviously, the situation here varies, but if you often find yourself away from a computer or a phone, implementing this could benefit you.

Integrating Getting Things Done into a Bullet Journal

Bluntly speaking, I don’t see this as possible. The folder and list based philosophy of GTD clashes far too much with the notebook-centric design of the Bullet Journal.

Keeping your lists tidy and updated in a notebook just isn’t practically doable without tons of space available, future’s and monthly logs are generally rendered obsolete by the calendar and tickler file, and the Daily Log would just end up being an inbox as it is in my implementation.

If you find any success with integrating GTD into the BuJo system, I would love to hear about it.

Conclusion

Using the Bullet Journal as a productivity system is ill-advised due to the various structural flaws it has, and generally speaking not much can be done to fix them without creating a new system or modifying the existing one beyond recognition. However, I believe that adopting some elements of the Bullet Journal into the Getting Things Done system can lead to improvements in capturing things you need to engage with or think about. This is due to the general modularity of the Getting Things Done system.