Ryder Carroll - The Power of Journaling

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks with Ryder Carroll, the designer and creator of the Bullet Journal system, about how it feels to release a product into the world, the power of keeping a journal, and the best way to get started with your own. Ryder Carroll is a product designer who created the popular Bullet Journal method of journaling. Carroll originally devised the Bullet Journal method to help him cope with his learning disabilities, and began sharing it online in 2013. It has since become a worldwide phenomenon, being covered in outlets like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company and more. This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199. This episode is also brought to you by Future. Future pairs you up with a remote personal trainer that you can get in touch with from your home. Your trainer will give you a full exercise regimen that works for your specific fitness goals, using the equipment you have at home. It works with your Apple Watch, and if you don’t already have one, Future will give you one for free. Sign up at tryfuture.com/stoic and get your first two weeks with your personal trainer for just $1***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Ryder Carroll: Homepage: http://www.rydercarroll.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/rydercarrollInstagram: http://instagram.com/rydercarrollSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Weekend Edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time, and we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school, when we have the time to think, to go for a walk,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring.

• 0:53Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. I hope everyone is doing good. It was actually two days ago now. I thought that maybe the timing would hit perfectly, but two days ago, I finished what will be now my fourth go-around on the Daily Stoic Journal. Obviously, I got it a little... I think it came out in October of 2017? I don't remember. Anyways, this is my fourth one, but... or I'm starting my fourth one? Who knows? The point is, every day, I get the book, and I start in the morning, and I sort of reflect on the intention for the day. It gives you like a question to ask. In the evening, I reflect on sort of how I did, or some mornings, I just do the day before before I do today. But the point is, journaling is a huge part of my life.

• 1:36Ryan Holiday?

  And way before the Daily Stoic Journal, I started journaling. I started with just a Moschino. Then I bought this one-line-a-day journal. And so now, I use a blank journal, the one-line-a-day, and then I use the Daily Stoic Journal. That's my sort of 15 or so minutes of journaling every day. And a little over a year ago, I got introduced to today's guest, Ryder Carroll, the inventor, creator, evangelist of the bullet journal. He sent me a bullet journal, which I often use as my sort of my blank journal, where I just write sort of free-form stuff. And he ended up publishing a book with Portfolio, which is where my books are published. He published The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, and Design the Future. It's a great book.

• 2:21Ryan Holiday?

  Debut New York Times Bestseller. You can also go to bulletjournal.com. But the point is, journaling is an essential practice in my life. It's an essential practice in writer's life. It's an essential practice in countless people's lives and has been throughout history. If you read the Start a Journal chapter in Stillness is the Key, you'll see some names there. But journaling and Stoicism are almost inseparable. Like, Meditations is journaling, right? Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, which translates as "to himself", was not intended for publication. This was him writing to himself, for himself, and he's writing philosophical exercises. He's writing down quotes. He's doing the philosophy on the page.

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  And so I think too many people sort of confuse diaries and journals. I think journaling is a sort of a big umbrella term for a lot of different things, from logging your workouts, which you talk about in today's interview, to, you know, taking notes during a meeting, towards to a commonplace book, which is a collection of quotes and ideas, to reflecting and recording thoughts and feelings and all of that. So to me, journaling is this inclusive practice, but at its core, a deeply philosophical one, a deeply fulfilling one, and then also a deeply soothing and relieving and restorative practice. I tend to find that what I'm angry about, you know, dissipates as I put it on the page.

• 3:51Ryan Holiday?

  What I'm worried about dissipates as I put it on the page. What I'm excited or egotistical about dissipates as I put it on the page, in a good way, right? Taking the time to put this stuff down. We talk about in the interview, we talk about having some literal distance between you and your thoughts. All this stuff is really, really important. And so I wanted to talk to Ryder. Not just a great thinker and a great writer, but sort of a philosopher of journaling. Like, sales of journaling has skyrocketed so much in the last years that a lot of people credit, and a lot of people credit him with that huge resurgence of interest. So he's thought about this a lot. He's talked to thousands and thousands of people

• 4:35Ryan Holiday?

  all over the world through the bullet journal community, which he references a few times. So I thought there was really no one better to talk to about journaling than Ryder Carroll. And of course, you can check out his book, The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future, or just check out one of his bullet journals. It's a great piece of technology. And it really is a piece of technology, a simple, straightforward piece of technology. But technology, nevertheless. So here's my interview with Ryder Carroll. So I was curious, what does it feel like to be, like, single-handedly reviving the stationary and journaling industry? That must be a strange trend to find yourself at the head of.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it certainly is. It's strange because I don't perceive myself that way. But yeah, it comes up quite a bit. It's also just strange because it was never really my interest or focus, the idea of like stationary and journaling and anything. It's always just a tool. It never really seemed like an occupation. So yeah, it's definitely unexpected.

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  How does that even work? So obviously, I understand what the sort of bullet journal looks like. You're nice enough to send me one. I now use them. But like, when I see one out there, are people ripping you off? Or is this like your concept?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  The Bullet Journal Method is my concept. So everything that you see out there that is bullet journal related in some way ties back to that. Of course, a big part of bullet journaling is that you make it your own and you make it work for you. And some of those interpretations look like mine and some of them don't. But yeah, bullet journaling was my mention.

• 6:18Ryan Holiday?

  It must be weird, and now I know you put out a book, but it is this weird thing where you take an idea and then obviously your idea is an amalgamation of all other ideas. You know, the sort of Newtonian concept of standing on the shoulders of giants. And then, then it's out in the world and you don't control it. Sometimes you're credited, sometimes you're not, but you see it just kind of take off and it's just out there. That must be surreal.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  It is surreal. It is surreal and it's, it's, I think any creative has to at some point come to this realization that when you make something, it has potentially two different lives, right? There's the life that you give it. That's the life of the creation process, the, the consideration, the, the toil and the blood, sweat and tears that you put into this thing. That's the life that you give it. And that's a worthy life and that's a powerful life just to create for creation's sake. But if you're creating for other people, then there's this second life that has very

• 7:24Speaker 01

  little to do with you and it has, it's the life that the audience gives the piece. And sometimes that, that, that life doesn't look anything like what you intended it to or, you know, or resembles parts of it and not other parts. And at first that can be challenging, right? Because you feel like either you're not being heard or being misrepresented or people didn't get it. But I mean, over time, at least with bullet journaling, I realized that I could learn so much from that second life that actually, that benefited me in so many different ways. And then secondly, also like that second life only exists if what you created resonates with other people, right? If what you make.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Doesn't resonate with other people. There is no second life. So that's kind of the tax you pay. And at first it was hard as a creative to see people doing this thing in a way where I thought like, "Well, that doesn't make sense," or "That's wrong," or "That's not what I intended." Only to realize that some of what they're saying is actually better and helpful to me as the creator. They've like taken it and made it larger. So yeah, it's been, it's an ongoing and really interesting experience.

• 8:34Ryan Holiday?

  I remember Casey Neistat once did this video, he's showing me where he was sort of saying, "There's like different stages of art, right? There's like, you make something that's creatively fulfilling, you know, that's one level. You make something and, you know, some people see it, that's another level. You make something, millions of people see it, that's another level. You make something that has impact on people, that's a, you know, the higher level. But the highest level is when you make something that helps other people make things. And that's what I think is so interesting about the bullet journal method is like, you made this thing, you were scratching your own itch, but what you made wasn't, it wasn't just like, "Hey, I wrote a beautiful novel." Like you made a thing in the way that, I mean, obviously it's not at this level,

• 9:18Ryan Holiday?

  but like Steve Jobs makes the iPhone and the iPhone helps people through the camera make their own art. And that, that strikes me as a pretty powerful achievement.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yes, and it's, it's, it's humbling because I mean, as you said, the, the reason I created Bullet Journal or what you see now as Bullet Journal started as just a series of attempts of me trying to solve my own problems. And mine originated with like learning disabilities. So all these tools were literally designed to treat what I perceived as disabilities. And over time, like I figured out things that worked, but I never assumed that other people would find them useful because these were my problems, right? These were my disabilities. And then what's become so interesting to me specifically is that I was dead wrong about that. These disabilities are shared by many people

• 10:14Speaker 01

  and a lot of these disabilities, I think, are actually starting to Quote-unquote disabilities are starting to surface in the digital age because a lot of these things dealt with being distracted, right, about being caught up in the daily rush so much. So a lot of these tools that I was designing to help my ADD brain actually have gone on to help a lot of people who are just struggling to stay focused. And that's really exciting work and it's a really exciting space to be in, right? I don't know more than other people. I've just dealt with these things longer than most people and I'm sharing what I learned. And I feel like most of the things that I found to be really

• 10:56Speaker 01

  useful in life are, have come to be in the same way, right? Like my favorite books, my favorite movies, like they address a challenge from the creator and they share their experience. And I don't know, I just find it really engaging.

• 11:12Ryan Holiday?

  If, if we think about, you know, the bullet journal, but then journaling as a whole as sort of solving a problem, and I think it is, and obviously this is a sort of core concept that the Stoics are thinking about, what, what is the problem that one solves by sitting down with a notebook? Like, I'm curious what your answer to that would be?

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Well, I think the beautiful thing is that it can be any problem. I think that writing is a way to think. So it depends on what you're thinking about. So is it a financial problem? Is it a personal problem? Is it a health-related problem? You know, it's, it gives you a platform to really start to explore that issue. And I think that why journaling is so powerful is that it forces you to slow down and it forces you to really pick your words wisely because especially these days, writing takes effort. It's definitely not as convenient to write by hand as it does typing things out. And that's why I like

• 12:16Speaker 01

  the analog thing because it forces me to pick my words. It forces my brain to slow down and in so doing, I think it also helps me identify all the components of a problem. Right? Like generally speaking, when there's a challenge, we usually see it as a whole. It is a mass. But as soon as you start to write about it, you have to start describing it in detail. And in doing so, you're also deconstructing it, which helps you quickly tackle individual pieces of the problem and not feel as overwhelmed. Or at least that's been my experience and that applies to most challenges that I face.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  A lot of times challenges are much scarier than they they appear scarier than they actually are when you sit with it for a while and start to figure out how you can actually tackle it. And I feel like journaling is is one of the most powerful ways to go about doing that.

• 13:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, to me, the the core problem that solving across as you're you're right, it helps you solve lots of different problems. But what all those problems tend to have in common, I think journaling is the way to declutter the mind, which to me is the sort of most pressing problem that people had in the ancient world and have today. There's just a lot going on in there. And how do you figure out how to process it, organize it, discard what's irrelevant and focus on what's essential?

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yes, I couldn't agree more. And like part of that is like decluttering the mind is like one part of the problem solving process and it is a problem in itself. But I think it also helps you shift your perspective fundamentally, which is something that I think it's very hard to will yourself to do. And we always hear about like, oh, you know, see it from this perspective, or maybe you should try, you know, trying to take it from this angle or align yourself here, this mental model or that mental model. I don't know about you, but like personally, I can't will myself to see something differently by forcing myself to do that.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  But when I write, I can start to explore different perspectives that that are unnatural in my own mind, if that makes sense. It's it's like I can, like if I try to write for something from somebody else's perspective, if I try to tell their story, like I can do that when I write, but I can't will myself to think from their perspective, if that makes sense, or at least not as clearly. And that can help fundamentally, yeah, look at things differently.

• 14:57Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think at a bare minimum, right, it gives you a foot or so of distance from your own thoughts. Right. Like you're putting it on the page in front of you. So even if, even if you were just sitting there and thinking about your own thoughts, right? You were like, hey, I'm gonna go sit out on this porch swing and just think about what's happening. You don't have any literal distance between you and those thoughts, right? It's like you're unfortunately using your own thoughts to analyze your thoughts. And like, I think there's something, it's, it's a way to, to, to put your own mind or your fears or whatever it is on the page, and then you can look at them. And I think in looking at them and feeling them come out of your body,

• 15:39Ryan Holiday?

  you often realize how wrong some of them were, or you realize how strongly you feel about this or that. Or you realize that actually up until this moment, you've never really even thought about this. And it, it, it was just sort of, you know, implicit or unconscious up there. And, and now it's good that you've articulated it.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's, it's, it seems so obvious, right? It's like, take the thought and put it into the world, like externalize the thought. So you can look at it. And that's, I can't exaggerate how powerful that can be. And there's another part to that, like this thought is static for the first time in some ways, right? Because like when we try to hold on to a thought, that doesn't work so well, at least not for me. Um, so actually having it written down and being able to look at it, that can also change the nature of the thought very quickly.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  It's, it's, okay, I'm not actually feeling anger, or I'm not feeling grief, or I'm not feeling rage. Like that was the first take, that was my first reaction to it. But once I start seeing this idea trapped in space, it's all of a sudden it can unfold and it can, I can become, I can increase the fidelity. Of an idea or of an emotion very quickly, if I have something to work off of, it creates like the foundation.

• 17:07Ryan Holiday?

  Well, now, and now there's a record of it, right? Like now it exists. And even if you don't review it, you put it down and now it's there. And I think, I think having the archive also, in a way, it's like letting it, it's almost like letting, letting it go. Like by writing it down, you're like, okay, I felt that. And it puts it, it almost allows you to put it in the past tense, you know? Whereas if, if it's just, you don't want it to keep bouncing around in there because that's what's causing you the angst or the anguish.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's very much like labeling things, you know? Different forms of meditation. You label what you feel and like, that's the first step in giving yourself distance from it. And I feel the same thing is true when you write something down on paper, you have to define it. And that's a really important exercise because a lot of times you don't really know what you're feeling. Are, are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you angry? Or are you, you know?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  All of a sudden you have to use, you have to use your words. And in that process, you quickly start to better understand what's going on. And as you said, then you also have that record from which you can work from. And that record is something you can come back to as well. So you can see if you've made progress over time, which is, I think is also really important these days. Like, how do you feel about this days later?

• 18:36Ryan Holiday?

  I feel like people have this trouble. I talk to them, like, I'll get emails about it. They'll be like, so where do I start? Like, people seem to, to have this sense that it's a difficult thing to do. Like, no one's, I, no one's like, hey, how do I start eating? You know, or like, you know, how do I start waking up in the morning? Like, it happens, right? Like, so it's a weird, it, it's sort of a weird problem that I don't quite get. Like, I usually just go like, just start and then fine tune from there. But I'm, I'm curious, like, how, how, when you talk to people about starting the habit, other than like, you know, pick up a bullet journal, like, where do you, where do you find the best entry point into a habit that seems to be, for whatever reason, harder to get going than you would think?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I think there's two points here that I usually tend to advise people. I mean, with bullet journaling, a lot of people come to me and they have a preconception of what bullet journaling needs to be. And oftentimes, people come to it from like Instagram or Pinterest where they see like very elaborate artistic interpretations of the system, which aren't wrong, but are very intimidating. So my first piece of advice that I give people is like, just start writing down your thoughts. That's it. And keep it short. Yeah. Write down your thoughts in short form. And that usually helps. And like, they're like, what thoughts? I'm like, okay, well, think about something that you're worried about. I think that everybody has something they're worried about at any given point in life.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Like, just start writing those things down, you know? Maybe it's something you're anticipating or something that is happening currently. Just focus on that for a while to take it out of your head, to declutter your mind. So that's one, keep it short. And here's a second part, especially with journaling. I feel like a lot of people are intimidated by the blank page. And so they feel like the only way they can start is by writing down that's something that's smart or profound, right? They want to write something that matters. And I feel like that's also something you have to let go of as soon as possible. It's not for anyone else. And if you want it to be something that it's not, it becomes a performance.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  And I feel like the performance aspect gives people stage fright. Like, they don't want to do that, or they don't know where to begin. They're like, whatever I put down is going to be dumb, or like, I'm going to realize how uninteresting I am. My thoughts are boring. My life is unexceptional. My feelings are standard. Like, this is, I think, something that people worry about, that they realize that. Things about themselves they don't want to. And I've, and I try to encourage them like, that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter at all because you begin there and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper over time. Like, most of the things you write down don't matter. It's about the things that do occasionally, the things that help you see something that you wouldn't have otherwise. That's what matters.

• 21:34Ryan Holiday?

  One, one of the things I like about your model that I think is also an easy way to get started for people is, is the idea of logging. So like, like if, if someone's job was to write down, you know, the minutes in a meeting, they wouldn't be like, where do I start? This is so hard. Like, it'd be so obvious what you're supposed to do, right? And so like, I think if you, you can pick something that you do or that you want to be doing, and you can just track progress. So like, if you're trying to build the muscle of like, taking the time to journal, like to me, like workouts or, you know, your diet or finances, like you can use the journal to

• 22:18Ryan Holiday?

  note what you're doing. And then pretty soon you notice you're able to regularly do the habit.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it can be that for sure. I mean, I, I guess the way that I like to look at it is like, write things down that give you, that motivate you, right? Um, I think that like whatever tool that you're using, like that tool should immediately prove to be effective. And for some people, tracking their workouts can be very motivating, but it can also be demotivating to others, especially if they're not consistent. So then they blame the tool, you know? So it really depends on the person. So like, I encourage that, but that's a very big part of bullet journaling is to like, check back in. Like, the whole methodology is designed to be cyclical, right?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  So like, you try something, you evaluate it, see if it worked, see if it didn't, what worked, what didn't, and then come back to it. So I always try to encourage people to find what it is that's bringing them back and cultivate that part. And I feel like it's like building a muscle. It's like when they figure out something that they love, that really engages them, then they can start adding things that engage them a little bit less, but are also important. You know, so like for some people that starts with like, okay, I'm making a lot of progress at the gym. I should probably also be tracking my mood. You know, which is not great a lot of the time, or whatever it is, you know, people.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  But because they know it works in this one thing, all of a sudden it's easier to maintain both of that, both of those records. So it's always just finding the thing that makes you want to come back to it.

• 24:02Ryan Holiday?

  No, that makes sense. And yeah, like it doesn't have to be working out. If you don't work out, it could be. Hey, what time did I wake up this morning? And it doesn't, it's not like, hey, was it early? And if it's not early, you're a failure. It's just. I think keeping something consistent that you do, like for instance, like I, I use a couple of different journals, but I love. I have this one called the one line a day journal that I love. And I just write one sentence every day about something that I did the previous day. And what I love about it is. It allows me to see like, so I'm, I'm working on a book now, but I can see where I was on. Cause a lot of times I'm writing what, you know, hey, I finished this chapter. I was working on this or hey, today was the day I submitted the manuscript or whatever.

• 24:44Ryan Holiday?

  I, I really get a reinforcement and an excitement about seeing what was going on in this day in my life. 12 months ago, 24 months ago, 36 months ago, and I'm, I think I'm almost at the four year mark. So I can. Being able to see that, that, that progress, and it's actually not even progress. It's just. You know, hey, I'm two and a half years or two years ago, I went on vacation on this date. And I was seeing yesterday is like, oh, this is when I got food poisoning. Like it's not progress, but it is. I'm able to, to check in with my own life.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  And I think that that is an incredibly valuable thing because we have a really. Poor ability to really have a realistic sense of our own life. I think often, right? Our memories are not great and what we think happened didn't really happen. And that's one of the reasons that I like logging events as well. So in the bullet journal method, this thing called the monthly log. And on one page you have a timeline where you write down basically what happened that day in one sentence. And I've found consistently. How my memory of how things unfolded and what actually unfolded are very different and often better than I remember, which is helpful.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  You know, having like a record of like, or like, wow, actually, two years ago, I was hoping to achieve the thing that I now have and don't even care about anymore. Right. Because in those two years, my, whatever my priorities have shifted, but like, you know what, I, I have something to be grateful for today and I didn't two minutes ago. But now I'm like, wow, okay, pat myself on the back and get on with business. But that's fun and that's important, you know, like reminds you of what used to be important and how you've grown and how you've changed. And maybe your younger self would be happy with you.

• 26:42Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know about you, but the, what the pandemic has done, I think for me and a lot of people is like obliterated our sense of time. And obviously for the Stoics, the passage of time is the most essential thing. Like the passage of time is the, it's not that you're moving towards death for the Stoics. It's that you are literally dying, right? And, and so one of the things that having a journal that's rooted in the date. So I, you know, I'm seeing it in the one line a day and then the daily Stoic journal, which I have is like, you know, here's today's prompt, reflect in the morning, review in the evening. It's also like, when I don't think like, hey, where did the last six months go? It's like, no, I've been, every single day I'm like, holy shit, it's September already.

• 27:26Ryan Holiday?

  You know, like I, I'm, I'm, I, it roots me in the present moment, but also make sure that I don't just let time slip through my fingers, which I think is so easy to do.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I found now more than ever bullet journaling has become very much like a mental anchor for me in some ways. It's like every day this practice happens, which I use to define my days. Right. Bullet journaling for me is the.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  You have multiple cycles inside a day, right? In the morning, you wake up and you review your content and you write things all day. And then evening, you review your content again. And the thing that I feel like a lot of us are missing these days are like natural boundaries, right? And boundaries, I don't just mean like office and work, but like boundaries created by time, boundaries created by relationships, boundaries created by all your different lives, your work life, your personal life, your social life. Like those aren't there anymore. So the only boundaries are important for you to think and to transition between different states in your life. And for me, journaling has now become one of my most prominent boundaries. Like when I'm writing, that's what I'm doing.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  And it allows me to kind of create better boundaries in a time and space where natural boundaries have kind of disappeared. It's

• 28:53Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  What am I trying to do in all these different parts of my life?

• 28:58Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think of Seneca being exiled. I mean, he spends eight years in exile and then he gets exiled sort of less officially, but nevertheless, later in life. And I imagine there's a similar sort of obliteration of time. And certainly, as you said, an obliteration of routine and structure and normalcy. And so when he talks about this habit that's become his in the evenings, says, after my wife has gone to bed, I sit down and I review the day and I look at what I've done. And his other thing, he writes this in his letters to Lucilius. He's talking about how he's like, look, it's just one thing every day. He's like, if you make one bit of progress, if you acquire one little thing, that's what you need to be better, to improve.

• 29:39Ryan Holiday?

  And he's like, so his letters with Lucilius are the exchange of that one item. And to me, that's, it's like, I think the journal is also humbling in that sense where it's just like, all right, put up or shut up. What did you do? You know, was it like, you don't have to have, it doesn't, every day it doesn't have to be I cured cancer or, you know, I turned in the manuscript or whatever. It's like, hey, I learned this or, you know, today I did this or today I accomplished this, you know? And I think that's what roots you in the moment. And it's, it's, it's, it doesn't seem like much, but it adds up.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think like most things, the obvious thing is the very powerful tool. And a lot of times we try to overcomplicate things, but the idea of just writing something down seems too obvious to be effective, right? But it is, it is as more as somebody like most of my career was spent designing software. That's what I did. And I think technology is fantastic, but writing something down on paper is sometimes the most powerful tool that I need, that I could hope for. And one thing that I find also really interesting with this record is that it also corrects

• 30:56Speaker 01

  your thinking sometimes, like there are days, especially in a time where there are, there is no time, especially you can feel like you're not getting anything done. And one thing that I really love is at the end of the day, like I have a list of all the things that I wanted to get done and I might feel like I was unproductive, but when I sit down with that list and I start crossing things off, I'm like, oh, how I feel and how I behaved do not align. I actually did get things done and if I didn't have this list, the feeling would become my reality as opposed to the actual data becoming my reality. And that's really, that's, that's really important. Um, and like, that's the power of a list.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  It stays there, it waits for you, you know, you don't have to remember anything. It's just there.

• 31:46Ryan Holiday?

  Do you feel like, cause you mentioned it a couple of times, do you, do you feel like people do overcomplicate this? Like I, I, I see the same sort of beautiful pictures on Pinterest or Instagram or, or all, all people will describe, this is more, I see this like on the research side of books, they have this super complicated system that's Evernote and this, and they're exporting and that, you know, it's like this whole complicated thing. And like on the one hand, it seems like a lot of work, but then I'm always, I, I'm, I, my, and maybe this is the wrong way to think about it, but I always go like, and what have you done? Like I, I never see, you, you, I never see like John Grisham show this complicated system.

• 32:29Ryan Holiday?

  You're like, oh, you're one of the most productive, successful authors of all time. I can see the, the, the cause and effect there. It, it, there's a weird sort of overlap, I think, with amateurs and really complicated, beautiful systems.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  I guess it just depends on your definition of success. Right, so I'll speak for the bullet journaling community specifically. Like, if you've ever seen my bullet journal, it's black and white, it's chicken scratch, there's nothing there. You Google bullet journal, you see like these illuminated manuscripts. And, you know, it's kind of hard to reconcile the two. And when I first started seeing these like really beautiful, like, hyper complicated interpretations of what I was doing, I was like, they're missing the point. Right, the point is to like, check in with yourself to make sure that, you know, you're being very intentional about how you're spending your time and your energy and just, you know, spending more time with less things that matter. That's really,

• 33:30Speaker 01

  that's really the point of it all, to me. And when I started talking to the community, I realized that in decorating their notebook, and this doesn't apply to everyone, obviously, some people just draw because they draw, but these people are in decorating their notebook, they are doing exactly those things. It's their time to reconnect with themselves. It's their time to be creative, and it is also the process that motivates them to keep coming back to that, to this practice, which ultimately helps them be more focused and productive and, you know, more fulfilling life. So I was dead wrong. It's like, their definition of success is to

• 34:15Speaker 01

  get A, B, C done, and because they have this complicated system, they are. And for some people, definition of success, at least in bullet journaling, is like, I want to have this notebook that may, this is my safe haven. This is where I feel like I can be myself and express myself, and this is how I do it, and this is what I use it for. So that, to me, is success. But it gets back to your, to your question. There is also the flip side of that. People who see these beautiful things and they're like, okay, that's what it has to be, so I'm gonna start there. I'm gonna start there, and most of the time, it doesn't work.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Because there's no, it's because people usually approach systems from like a process-driven point of view, right? They they focus on the process, like what's the best process? What's the best process? And I used to be like that myself, but it all changes when you start thinking about purpose, right? What is the purpose? Why are you doing what you're doing? And I feel like that's at the core of like the work that I'm trying to create is like, yes, I help you organize what you're doing, but I do that so you can have a better understanding of why you're doing it. And I think that, once you have

• 35:35Speaker 01

  the purpose, then you figure out the process. And the process can be as complicated as it needs to be to support the purpose. And for some people, it's simple, and some people, it's complicated. But at the end of the day, is it helping you move closer to your purpose? And I feel like when you don't have a purpose, the process continues to become more and more and more complicated because it's making up for the vacuum of meaning.

• 36:03Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Yeah, it's almost a form of pornography. And it's not just journals. Like I see, you know, people, what are the famous routines of this person and that person? And, and, you know, how did this, how did, how did Hemingway do it? And how did this person do it? And, and there, there's almost a form of sort of play acting or, or imitation in it that that's missing the point. There's this famous story about the generals who succeed Alexander the Great. I think Plutarch is talking about it. It's sort of like, all of the generals trying to sort of become Alexander's heir, you know, that they cut their hair the right way, just as he did, and they, they walked the same way, and they

• 36:44Ryan Holiday?

  developed the same affects of speech, and so on and so forth. And he's just like, you know, but none of them sort of actually imitated his like, sort of boldness and vision and, you know, acumen and competency. And I think that's a lot of people, you're right, they look at the most beautiful photogenic version, and they go, that's what I have to emulate. And what they're really missing is, is the, the function beneath the form.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, I mean, like, one of the questions that I get a lot is like, what pen do you use? Or what notebook do you use? And, and like, it reminds me of the questions I used to ask, like, when I, you know, back in another life, I shot little movies and music videos and stuff, and I constantly be like, oh, what lens were they using? What camera were they using? And, and you buy all these tools and all these things, expecting that that's the magic sauce, right? Like, I buy this stuff, and now I'm gonna be productive. And I was guilty of this constantly, and then all of a sudden, it's like, no, you get the tools that support the purpose, like.

• 37:48Ryan Holiday?

  And what are you trying to, what were they trying to say? That's what matters.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Exactly. Try, what are they trying to say? What are they trying to accomplish? You know, and it's the same thing, like, with software. It's like, I used to be an early adopter, really. You know, my phone was, like, absolutely jam-packed with different apps for all this stuff. Like, for what end? All these things are tools. What are the tools trying, what are they for? What are you trying to build? And I think starting from that point

• 38:18Speaker 01

  can be very helpful in the tools that you end up using. And, you know, becoming less complicated. You can become efficient after you know what you're trying to build.

• 38:29Ryan Holiday?

  No, there's a, there's a great quote, I forget who said it, I'm probably paraphrasing it, but it's something like, genius in the end tends towards simplicity. And so I think that's the other funny thing, is like, yeah, you have your phone, and it's full of apps, or whatever, and then you'd pull up, like, a billionaire's phone, or someone who's actually sort of profoundly elite in whatever their field is, and they're like, here's my flip phone, or, you know, they're like, what's, you're, like, you realize, like, they haven't even heard of most of these things, because they're sort of mostly busy doing. And so I think that's, that, to me, the, the main rule you wanna deduce is that the best routines and practices are ultimately pretty simple, or, or they're few.

• 39:12Ryan Holiday?

  So i- if it is complicated, the, the flip side is, that's like, one of the only complicated things they're doing. There's not, not every hour or minute of the day is, is consumed by all this, you know.

• 39:26Ryan Holiday?

  Stuff.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think another thing to point out is that all these systems for successful people are also really hard won, right? It's not like

• 39:38Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  they just created this thing. It's like probably the years it took them to become who they are today was also the years in which they figured out how to do that thing. So that system maps onto their specific set of needs and their specific experience. So of course it's not going to work for you. You know, like pieces of it will. And like when it doesn't work for you, people are like, oh no, like, what's the problem there? It's like, well, it worked for them because that's the life that they led. So like, I think it's really important also, it's like when people are trying out these systems and everything, it's like, also remember that you're wearing somebody else's shoes, you're wearing somebody else's clothes, you're driving somebody else's, you know, machine.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Like, you need to build your own, take what works and, you know, that's, that's the work. That's part of the work.

• 40:32Ryan Holiday?

  And, and I think what sometimes we, we confuse strategy and tactics, right? So like journaling is a strategy. It's like a, a way to do a lot of things. It's got this, you know, it's, it's important. It's a big, big ticket item. The pen used in the journaling is a tactical thing. So you often find people are paralyzed by these little things like, hey, what time do you do it at? Or, you know, what pen do you use? How many pages a day? How much time do you allot for it? You know, like, do you like to, do you, you know, do you like to change colors of pens? Or, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, or, you know, what software do you use when you're writing? And, you know, all this stuff. And it's like that, th- those are only going to give you marginal improvements.

• 41:17Ryan Holiday?

  You want to, I think, look for these big things and journaling to me, and the, the method you're talking about is a big thing. You want to make sure that you're, you're not optimizing at the margins before you've even gotten the major benefits of the, of, of the thrust of the change that we're talking about making.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it comes back to the whole idea of purpose. Like, is this moving you closer to your purpose or not? It's like, is it getting you closer to what you want? And I feel like staying true or staying focused on that and being mindful of that will help you pick your tools almost organically because tools are there to like help extend your reach, right? That's basically what's happening. We're like, open up doors, but you need to run into that door first. And I think that's like really important. People don't like hearing that. It's like you have to, you have to find the doors before you open them, or else it's just like a frame standing in a field. You don't know which

• 42:21Speaker 01

  way is in and out. It's, um, yeah, I, I think that that's, people get too detail oriented because that's clearer, if that makes sense. Like a pen is clear. What your purpose is is not. That's a big question and that takes a long time to answer. But that's the much more important question. Like, why do I want to write? Not what do I write with?

• 42:46Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and maybe this is a good place to wrap up because I, I think you make a really good point and I'd be curious what you think. So to me, I think the instinct is what pen to use? That's a question someone can answer for you, right? And this question you've been kicking around, you brought it up now several times. So I can see how important it is. It's like, what's your purpose? That's something that no external person can tell you, or really maybe even help you with. That's ironically one of the things that you kind of have to figure out on the page over a long period of time. So I'm just, how did finding what that was become clear to you? And how do you, how do you follow it as it evolves?

• 43:30Speaker 01

  You create a record of your experience and you study it. Like, that's what helped me. It's not like, I think a lot of people come to the question of like, what is my why? Or what is my purpose in a time of crisis? When you lose the job or you lose a loved one? When you're in the worst possible place to think rationally, right? And for me, journaling is about asking that question like every day. What do I want? What adds value to my life? What do I want more of? What do I want less of? And day by day, week by week, month by month, and so on, that answer becomes clearer, right? You move a little bit closer towards things.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  You get closer to understanding it if you start from zero. And that's already so important. The progress to understanding is work worth doing. Because if you don't know what you want, you'll never have it. So like putting the effort into understanding that, while also remaining aware that it's going to change over and over and over and over again. Right? It's really an infinite game. Like you're just trying to understand what adds value to your life based on your lived experience. And then you try to cultivate that. And that just happens one entry at a time. That's really what journaling is for me. It's about understanding

• 44:56Speaker 01

  what adds value to my life and what doesn't. And trying to find opportunities to spend more time doing the things that matter and less time doing the things that don't. And that sounds so obvious. And the work is so important. But like, that's how it's done, day by day. And that's really what journaling is all about for me.

• 45:16Ryan Holiday?

  Beautifully said. I appreciate it, man.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 45:20Ryan Holiday?

  So if you like that, if you're interested in journaling and starting and interested in Stoicism, and you are, you wouldn't be listening to this. I do want to recommend the Daily Stoic Journal. It's more than a journal. There's, there's all sorts of writing and quotes from the Stoics in there. It's, it's almost got a book length worth of content in it. So it gives you sort of weekly themes and quotes and ideas that will help you. And then each day, there's a prompt. And it's based on Marcus Aurelius's idea of, I think, sort of preparing for the day ahead. And then Seneca's approach of reviewing the day just passed. So we're sort of Marcus in the morning, Seneca in the evening. And then, you know, Epictetus's idea of, you know, he says, keep these thoughts around you right.

• 46:05Ryan Holiday?

  Think them, say them, read them, keep them around you. That's what the philosophy is. That's how you help internalize and absorb all the ideas. It seems weird maybe that I do my own journal, but, but, you know, having the question each day, like, I'm not telling you to buy anything that I don't personally use. Again, every single day I use the Daily Stoic Journal. I really mean that. And it's been a huge part of my journey over the last few years. I remember a couple of years ago, there was something I was really mad about, someone that sort of screwed me over really bad. And it just happened that like, three days in the journal in a row were about controlling your temper. It was a set of questions that really stopped me cold, forced me to think, and then channeled that energy much more productively. So I think you'll like the journal.

• 46:49Ryan Holiday?

  You can get it anywhere books are sold, The Daily Stoic Journal. And anyways, even if you don't do it, even if you don't pick up the Bullet Journal, just start journaling. It will help, I promise.