I think fancy weekly spreads are killing the whole point of bullet journaling

I went to a Bullet Journal Meetup in Portland last month and everyone was showing off these painted watercolor weekly layouts with washi tape borders. Look, I get that it's fun to decorate but the whole system Ryder Carroll created was supposed to be about rapid logging and getting stuff done fast. It took me 3 hours just to set up one spread and I realized I wasn't actually writing down any tasks or tracking anything useful. Am I the only one who thinks the artsy stuff has taken over and made people forget the original productivity purpose?

3 comments

3 Comments

richard_anderson26d ago

Yeah I've seen the same thing at meetups here. People spend more time on the setup than actually using the thing. The original system was literally just a dot and a dash for tasks. Now you need a craft store haul just to start a new month. I tried doing a fancy spread once and spent Sunday afternoon drawing little plants around the margins. Monday morning I forgot to even open the book. The whole point of rapid logging is that you can grab your notebook and write something down in ten seconds. If you need thirty minutes to prep a page before you can start, you've turned a tool into a project.

hollyl4526d agoMost Upvoted

It's like everything fun eventually turns into a hobby for its own sake instead of staying practical.

karen_roberts425d ago

I used to be the person who'd spend Sunday afternoons decorating spreads and picking out stickers, but honestly you just changed my mind about all that effort. Now I see that all that prep time was taking away from actually using the notebook for the quick notes and reminders I needed it for. The whole point of the system is to be fast and simple, so why am I making it harder on myself?