Читать книгу The Bullet Journal Method: Track Your Past, Order Your Present, Plan Your Future - Ryder Carroll - Страница 20

If Rapid Logging is the language the Bullet Journal is written in, Bullets are the syntax. Once you’ve set up your Topic and page number, you capture your thoughts as short, objective sentences known as Bullets. Each Bullet is paired with a specific symbol to categorize your entry. We use Bullets not only because it takes less time, but also because wrestling information into short sentences forces us to distill what’s most valuable.

Crafting effective Bullets requires striking a balance between brevity and clarity. If an entry is too short, we may not be able to decipher it later. If it’s too long, then writing down your thoughts becomes a chore. For example, “Return call ASAP!” is too short. Who are you calling back? What are you calling them back about? It’s easy to forget all that in the rush of the day. Conversely, “Call John M. back as soon as you can because he needs to know when you will have the sales figures for June ready for him” is an overly informative word salad. Let’s try again: “Call John M, re: June sales figures.” You’re saying exactly the same thing using only a quarter of the words. In a bit, I’ll also show you how to turn that Task into a priority using Signifiers (this page).

Keeping your entries short without losing meaning takes practice, but over time it hones our ability to identify what’s worth writing down. That’s important because our lives are infinitely complex, and there is potentially a lot to keep track of. If you’ve kept lists in the past, you’re familiar with how quickly they can spiral out of control. They often lack context and priority. Rapid Logging solves this issue in a few ways, first by categorizing entries into:

1 Things that you need to do (Tasks)

2 Your experiences (Events)

3 Information you don’t want to forget (Notes)

Each category is assigned a symbol to upgrade a basic list with much-needed additional layers of context and function. During the day, these symbols allow you to quickly capture and contextualize your thoughts in real time. Later on, they make locating specific content much easier as you scan through your pages. Let’s take a look at each category and see how this syntax can keep your entries organized, lean, and effective.