I’m still using my Bullet Journal® notebook, and Ryder Carroll has released a Bullet Journal app for iPhone, under the name Bullet Journal.app for $2.99. It’s available on iTunes or the app store.
It’s not an app that functions as a an actual journal, rather, it’s intended to help people set up their first Bullet Journal, and be a guide to getting the most out of a Bullet Journal. The internal name is Bullet Journal Companion, and that’s apt; it’s a companion for your analog notebook. The app was released in February of 2017, and while I downloaded it then, I wasn’t really impressed. There have been several updates, and a new feature, the Library, has been added, as of the version released on May 17, 2017.
When you launch the app, the first screen you see is a linked table of contents:
Keeping track of what you need to be doing is important. Keeping track of why you’re doing those things is critical. Reflection will help keep you focused on the why through daily trackable reminders prompting you to unplug and review your notes.
The idea is that you set an AM and PM time to reflect each day on why you’re doing what you are doing. There are several inspirational quotations, and you can “log” or track the fact that you did in fact reflect by tapping a calendar date. If you set up Notifications, the Bullet Journal Companion will remind you to reflect. I’m not one to find this appealing, but others may.
Library
I think that the purpose of the Library is to allow you to use your iPhone’s camera to take photos of a BuJo® page, give the Bullet Journal app permission to use the photo, and then associate it with a specific journal, date range and one or more tags to create a digital index of sorts. The search function appears limited to tags, rather than actual contents. I suspect that there are plans to allow OCR or some better ways of locating data than tags; as it stands it’s not terrible useful, and it’s certainly not innovative (see for example EverNote or Moleskine notebooks and app or Baron Fig notebooks and Codex.app.
Articles
Most of the articles appear to be also available on the official BulletJournal Website, though I admit I can’t find the one on Reflection on the site. The articles are a useful resource, especially for those getting started.
Guide
The Pocket Guide is a version of the step by step setup guide Carroll wrote for his Website. It goes through the basics of creating your first bullet journal with a blank notebook. It’s quite useful in that respect, and much easier than trying to look at a Web site while you work. I would absolutely have found it helpful when I set up my bullet journal. It’s updated, by the way, when the app updates, but the content is local to your phone, which means you can use it without being connected to the ‘net.
Store
This appears to be an overview of the Official Bullet Journal notebook, also sold from the Website, but it doesn’t appear to be an actual store in terms of being able to buy one from your iPhone.
The Guide has merit for those starting out, but not $2.99 worth. The free .pdf Starter Guide you can download when you subscribe to the Bullet Journal Newsletter is, in my mind, more helpful. I’m not outraged at spending $2.99, but the Bullet Journal Companion app strikea me as somewhat useless; it’s not going to stay on my phone.
It is often helpful to know what week, out of the possible 52 weeks in a calendar year, a particular week is. Here’s how to tell Apple’s.app Calendar to show week numbers.
Open Calendar.app(or iCal on earlier versions of macOS) on your Mac.
Choose Preferences from the Calendar menu.
Click Advanced in the Toolbar.
Click the box to the left of Show week numbers.
Close the window.
Advanced tab of the Preferences for Calendar.app on macOS
Now look at your Calendar. You’ll see gray week numbers along the left margin of your Calendar.
It is often helpful to know what week, out of the possible 52 weeks in a calendar year, a particular week is. Here’s how to tell Google Calendar to show week numbers.
Log on to your Google Calendar
In the sidebar to the left, click the pop-up menu for Other calendars.
Select Browse Interesting Calendars from the pop-up menu.
On the top of the Interesting Calendars page, click More.
Click Subscribe to the right of Week Numbers.
Click the Back to Calendar link to see your calendar, now with small blue week numbers in the top right corner of every Monday, next to the time setting at the top of the calendar.
The arrow points to the week number. This is week 16.
When I first started experimenting with a standing desk, to see if it would work for me personally, I used odds and ends of household furniture two create two setups for test-driving standing desks.
But the Spark by Ergodriven is a much better option. It’s a flat-packed sturdy cardboard temporary lift, meant to be placed on an extant table or desk and thereby convert the furniture you already have to a standing desk. The Spark comes in threes sizes, allowing you to choose a desk suited to your height. It’s made out of surprisingly sturdy corrugated cardboard, and it’s pretty easy to assemble.
It’s also dirt cheap. Small Sparks for people under 5′ 4” or Medium Sparks for people 5′ 4” to 5′ 11 are $20.00 from Amazon; Large for people over 5′ 11” are $25.00. And because it’s flat-packed, it strikes me as something to consider if you do a lot of consulting that involves working from hotel rooms. You could have Amazon ship the Ergo Spark to your hotel, or stash it in your luggage and assemble it there. Most hotel rooms have a desk or table, and you can use the Ergo Spark to allow you to adjust your position from cramped and hunched, to standing.
My bullet journal trial has been successful. I’m going to continue using it, at least while I have limited ‘net access.
The portability factor of my bullet journal, and the ease of planning and tracking my time without access to the ‘net has really helped. My access to the Internet has been particularly spotty due to weather problems, so I started using the bullet journal just in time. While I’m still using my digital tools, I can work without them, thanks to the bullet Journal.
I am not one of the many artistic people using a BuJo, nor am I one with beautiful handwriting and perfect spelling. I use mine to track deadlines, keep lists of projects and due dates, and to track blog posts and writing-for-hire work. My BuJo isn’t pretty, but it is functional and it doesn’t require a lot of effort to maintain, leaving me more to write (and read!).
I’ve pretty much decided on my format. I got some super advice from this post.
How I Use A Bullet Journal As A Writer
I have three broad stages of writing (not counting intermittent stages of pacing, hair-pulling and long walks):
* Research and brainstorming
* Drafting
* Revising
I track all of them in my bullet journal. I brain storm ideas via lists of possible topics for various venues, with short notes about the venue and about points for research. I track research tasks—locating a particular book, obtaining and reading the book, potential interview subjects, etc. (These are lists, but in official BuJo parlance they’re called *Collections*).
I also track pitches, submissions, due dates and publication dates.
My Bullet Journal Set Up
I use colored ink (red for deadlines, due dates and holidays, green for other kinds of emphasis) to highlight and differentiate information.
I don’t use the standard Bullet Journal “key,” symbols to identify information by type that Carroll created; I use some derived from the lazy genius post I linked to earlier.
I use reduced-size monthly calendars, three months to a page through January 2018, for long-range planning.
“Future log”: AKA six months at a glance
Ryder Carroll calls these pages the “Future log.” His is a list of days/dates; mine is a miniature calendar. I use these for visualizing blocks of time as I plan what I need to do when. The visual indication of blocks of time in a calendar helps me “see” my time.
Month-by-month spreads for each individual month, pretty much as described by Ryder Carroll; a list of days and dates on the left page, with a blank page on the right for memos etc.
I’ve not yet needed the right hand page much, but I suspect I will, eventually.
Individual month pages; a list of days and dates, divided into weeks via a separator line.
I list projects due dates, and bills, and tasks that are repeated weekly on the appropriate dates.
Daily pages include appointments, tasks, and occasional notes.
I usually create the daily pages (or really, portions of pages; a day’s entry doesn’t take an entire page for me) the night before the day in question.
I list appointments or items due on that day, and tasks I want to complete. I fill in the box (or triangle) as I complete a task, or partially fill in those that require more than one day to complete.
During the course of the day I make brief notes about things I might want to know later; people I’ve met, birds I’ve seen, sometimes the weather, especially in terms of birds.
Collections
“Collections” in Carroll’s terms describe data that is not primarily task or appointment related. Mine include:
Books to read
Books I’ve read
Things to write & pitch that are not yet contracted
Blog posts—I move these to specific days as needed in terms of drafting and then publishing them.
A list of long term projects in the research phase
A list of birds for the year
Recipes that I need to use fairly often but don’t know by heart (sometimes I prefer paper in the kitchen)
Future Plans: I Need a Notebook
I’ll use the current no-name blank book I have through March, I expect, but I’m going to need a replacement soon, since I’ll have run out of pages.
While there is an official trademarked Bullet Journal, available from Leuchtturm.us and BulletJournal.com, most of its extra features (three ribbon markers, designated Index pages, a printed key code and guide to Bullet Journals) don’t matter to me.
What I Want in a Bullet Journal Notebook
I want something around 5 inches by about 8 inches.>
I want better quality paper.
By that I mean paper that I can use pencil on and erase, and that I can use fountain pens on with minimal bleed-through.
I think I want dot grid paper. That said, it’s not a deal breaker for me, and paper quality is.
Dot grid paper has faint dots marking a grid. The dots help me keep my handwriting legible, and they’re useful in creating the occasional charts or diagrams I sometimes use in planning writing.
Other features that are common—elastic bands that keep the notebook closes, ribbon markers, pockets, pre-printed pages—are less important to me.>
Possible Notebooks
I’m currently consideringthe accepted standard notebook for bullet journals, the Leuchtturm1917 Medium Hardcover, or a Rhodia Webnotebook. Both come in dot grid (as well as graph, lined, and blank). The question of Leuchtturm vs Rhodia is apparently a bit of a quandary for others, too.
Leuchtturm1917 Hardcover Medium
The Leuchtturm1917 Medium Hardcover is an A5 size hardcover bound journal, available with dotted, grid (“squared”) or lined pages. It’s 5.7 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches, and has 249 pre-numbered pages (125 sheets), a reserved set of pages for an index in the front of the notebook, two ribbon markers, and a pocket for notes inside the back cover, and an elastic band to keep it closed.
Rhodia Webnotebook
The Rhodia Webnotebook with dot grid paper. It’s roughly the same size as the Leuchtturm A4 at 5.6 x 8.3. The paper is 90gsm, versus the Leuchtturm1917 which uses 80 gsm paper. But the Rhodia, while it has heavier weight paper, also only has fewer pages; 192 pages (96 sheets).
There are other minor differences (the Leuchhturm1917 has pre-numbered pages, a reserved area for an index, and two ribbon markers, where the Rhodia has one, etc.), but essentially, for me it comes down to a question of more pages (Leuchtturm1917) vs higher quality paper and less bleed through (Rhodia).
Having just drafted this post and link-checked it, I’ve discovered a third possibility via Amazon. A newcomer called Scribbles that Matter — Dotted Journal Notebook Diary. There are four colors of leather cover, all with icons, but with black, gray, pink or teal backgrounds. The icons on the cover don’t thrill me, but I like the 100GSM ivory dotted paper with185 numbered pages (plus a key page, 3 index pages and 2 pen test pages, two ribbon, markers, a pocket, and a pen loop). List price is $24.99, but right now, it’s $19.99, and I confess, that paper is really tempting. There’s a Scribbles that Matter lined paper journal as well as the dot grid version. I see from the Scribbles That Matter Facebook page that they’re planning on new covers in different colors (possibly including a really nice blue, and contrasting elastics), and they’re at least discussing covers without icons.
I haven’t had a chance to do any local shopping yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find something locally. I quite like the blank book I’ve been using, which has high quality paper with minimal bleed. I’d use it again, honestly, but I do think dot grid paper will be helpful.
It’s not an app that functions as a an actual journal, rather, it’s intended to help people set up their first Bullet Journal, and be a guide to getting the most out of a Bullet Journal. The internal name is Bullet Journal Companion, and that’s apt; it’s a companion for your analog notebook. The app was released in February of 2017, and while I downloaded it then, I wasn’t really impressed. There have been several updates, and a new feature, the Library, has been added, as of the version released on May 17, 2017.
The Pocket Guide is a version of the step by step setup guide Carroll wrote for his Website. It goes through the basics of creating your first bullet journal with a blank notebook. It’s quite useful in that respect, and much easier than trying to look at a Web site while you work. I would absolutely have found it helpful when I set up my bullet journal. It’s updated, by the way, when the app updates, but the content is local to your phone, which means you can use it without being connected to the ‘net.
When I first started experimenting with a standing desk, to see if it would work for me personally, I used odds and ends of household furniture two create two setups for 
The 
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Having just drafted this post and link-checked it, I’ve discovered a third possibility via Amazon. A newcomer called