Just realized my minimalist bullet journal setup is actually slowing me down

I've been using a super sparse layout with just a monthly log and dailies for about 6 months. Turns out I was spending 20 extra minutes each morning trying to remember what tasks I needed to do because I had no weekly overview. Last week I switched to a simple weekly spread with a task list and it cut my planning time in half. The ironic thing is I thought less pages would equal more efficiency, but the opposite happened for me. Has anyone else found that a slightly busier layout actually works better for their workflow?

2 comments

2 Comments

parkerb7516d ago

Respectfully, I see it the opposite way. The whole point of minimalism is to cut the noise, not add more pages to remember. You spent that time adapting to a system that wasn't working for you. I've used a plain notebook with nothing but a daily task list for three years and I never have this problem because I just write down what needs to get done that day and ignore everything else. Adding a weekly spread just gives you more stuff to look at and more decisions to make about where things go. Maybe your issue was that you didn't have a good way to capture tasks as they came up, not that you needed a bigger layout. A simple inbox list on a sticky note would have solved the same problem with less clutter.

eric_carr16d ago

Yeah that's a good point @parkerb75, sticky notes are way underrated for dumping tasks fast. I think the trap is treating minimalism like a religion instead of just testing what clicks for you and ditching what doesn't. Did you ever try a weekly spread or did you skip straight to the sticky note system?