This blog was in my to-do list
What hobbies have been passed down from your family?
My Dad, in my eyes, is the pinnacle of productivity. He works 40 hours a week, but somehow manages to engage in numerous personal projects at a time, simply for quality of life—Skills to learn, online courses to finish, self-help books to read. Although busier than me, he somehow finds time for it all. In order to keep track of everything he does, he uses a system called the “Bullet Journal”, or “BuJo” for short. Essentially, it’s a way to organize your goals for the year, sectioned into quarters, months, weeks, and then days. The idea is that by allowing your BuJo to hold and record all of your tasks, you can let it go from your brain and optimize your mental energy on things requiring more creativity.
Ever since my Dad got his first BuJo many years ago, I’ve never seen him more faithful to anything else. Oftentimes when I come downstairs for breakfast I see him studying it intensely: Crossing off tasks, rescheduling others, and planning for the day, all in flawless handwriting and with color-coordinated highlights so impeccable it could even bring those papyrophiliac girls in my class to shame. His book wishlist even includes miniature cut-outs of the covers and a short written summary beside it. Every Christmas his sole present is the Bullet Journal he bought for himself the following year, having already filled all 200 pages of his current one.
As his son and successor, for years my Dad has been trying to improve my organizational skills so that I could be on top of my tasks as well. It didn’t really work as well—over the years I’ve accumulated dozens of half-written planner booklets with a month gap between each entry, countless unfinished google docs that lasted only a week or two, and full-size heavy duty binders that have been abandoned with their three pieces of paper haphazardly stuffed inside. Because of my free and untethered personality to do things on a whim without reason nor planning, I was never really able to “catch on” to the benefits of organization and maximizing productivity. I was able to keep track of all my tasks in my head with no problem and never benefitted from the system I had been so annoyingly pushed to use.
This past year my workload has nearly doubled. More projects, schoolwork, opportunities to grab, applications to write, and slowly I began to realize that keeping track of everything inside my head might not be the optimal strategy—I had started forgetting deadlines and missing meetings left and right. Ultimately I raised the white flag and decided to give this organization a shot. After some moderate effort, I installed a dedicated digital to-do list where I can draft tasks, follow-ups, and time blocks for the day. I’m not sure if it’s only due to the fact that I figured it was time to start taking my life more seriously, or if it's partly because of all these years seeing my dad’s insane productivity that began to rub off on me. Maybe subconsciously I felt lame and dumb for having the accountability level of a 5 year old. Who knows.
Either way, throughout this personal growth process of becoming the student I’ve always wanted to be I’ve begun to witness first-hand the benefits of relinquishing the responsibility of handling my to-do lists to the digital realm. As someone who hates having thousands of things swimming in my mind, it definitely gave me more headspace to either work on more interesting problems or just lounge around metaphysically. In essence, I guess you could say I discovered that contrary to my original understanding, the energy saved in keeping a physical to-do list is actually more than the energy saved by not having to make one.
Nonetheless, I am far where I want to be for my productivity optimization journey. There are more corners to cut, more tricks to saving mental capacity. The methods I use are still rather rudimentary, and I haven’t committed to the “bullet journal" organization my Dad lives by, but I don’t have the motivation to do it now. I guess we’ll see what becomes of this new habit of mine once I get even busier in college.
My Dad, in my eyes, is the pinnacle of productivity. He works 40 hours a week, but somehow manages to engage in numerous personal projects at a time, simply for quality of life—Skills to learn, online courses to finish, self-help books to read. Although busier than me, he somehow finds time for it all. In order to keep track of everything he does, he uses a system called the “Bullet Journal”, or “BuJo” for short. Essentially, it’s a way to organize your goals for the year, sectioned into quarters, months, weeks, and then days. The idea is that by allowing your BuJo to hold and record all of your tasks, you can let it go from your brain and optimize your mental energy on things requiring more creativity.
Ever since my Dad got his first BuJo many years ago, I’ve never seen him more faithful to anything else. Oftentimes when I come downstairs for breakfast I see him studying it intensely: Crossing off tasks, rescheduling others, and planning for the day, all in flawless handwriting and with color-coordinated highlights so impeccable it could even bring those papyrophiliac girls in my class to shame. His book wishlist even includes miniature cut-outs of the covers and a short written summary beside it. Every Christmas his sole present is the Bullet Journal he bought for himself the following year, having already filled all 200 pages of his current one.
As his son and successor, for years my Dad has been trying to improve my organizational skills so that I could be on top of my tasks as well. It didn’t really work as well—over the years I’ve accumulated dozens of half-written planner booklets with a month gap between each entry, countless unfinished google docs that lasted only a week or two, and full-size heavy duty binders that have been abandoned with their three pieces of paper haphazardly stuffed inside. Because of my free and untethered personality to do things on a whim without reason nor planning, I was never really able to “catch on” to the benefits of organization and maximizing productivity. I was able to keep track of all my tasks in my head with no problem and never benefitted from the system I had been so annoyingly pushed to use.
This past year my workload has nearly doubled. More projects, schoolwork, opportunities to grab, applications to write, and slowly I began to realize that keeping track of everything inside my head might not be the optimal strategy—I had started forgetting deadlines and missing meetings left and right. Ultimately I raised the white flag and decided to give this organization a shot. After some moderate effort, I installed a dedicated digital to-do list where I can draft tasks, follow-ups, and time blocks for the day. I’m not sure if it’s only due to the fact that I figured it was time to start taking my life more seriously, or if it's partly because of all these years seeing my dad’s insane productivity that began to rub off on me. Maybe subconsciously I felt lame and dumb for having the accountability level of a 5 year old. Who knows.
Either way, throughout this personal growth process of becoming the student I’ve always wanted to be I’ve begun to witness first-hand the benefits of relinquishing the responsibility of handling my to-do lists to the digital realm. As someone who hates having thousands of things swimming in my mind, it definitely gave me more headspace to either work on more interesting problems or just lounge around metaphysically. In essence, I guess you could say I discovered that contrary to my original understanding, the energy saved in keeping a physical to-do list is actually more than the energy saved by not having to make one.
Nonetheless, I am far where I want to be for my productivity optimization journey. There are more corners to cut, more tricks to saving mental capacity. The methods I use are still rather rudimentary, and I haven’t committed to the “bullet journal" organization my Dad lives by, but I don’t have the motivation to do it now. I guess we’ll see what becomes of this new habit of mine once I get even busier in college.
Hello David Jacobs, also known as Dj! I really love your title for this blog post. At first I thought that it was something that you had forgotten to change but after reading it turns out that it was really smart and funny. Its interesting to see how much of an inspiration the people close to us in life are, especially family. The transition used for showcasing the "Bujo" helped to further undertsand it later on in the reading. This blog shows great personal growth. The only suggestion I really have is taking out the word sucessor when you say "As his son and sucessor" as it made me picture you running a company or something of his the future. Overall this is a super duper awesome essay!!
ReplyDelete-Ana Artz
Hey DJ, This blog was very engaging and personal, I really liked how you used the father-son dynamic to explore productivity and growth. The detailed descriptions of the Bullet Journal are vivid and also very humorous, making your dad very genuine, memorable piece to this essay. I thought the gradual shift from resistance to acceptance was convincing and also relatable, particularly as the workload increases. I think maybe condensing some of the longer sentences and some jokes will help the reader visualize better the main reflection. Overall, this is a pretty good essay.
ReplyDeleteI think the ratio between story and reflection is really well-done in this essay. I found myself connecting with you in that I also have the tendency to let that "free-spirit" energy refuse to let me organize anything in my life. A lot of the organization tools that I tried ended up falling short of my expectations, were too complex for the lazy monkey in my brain to sit down and try to understand, or took too long for me to access on hand. I think you should try to find a real reasoning as to why you started organizing. While leaving it open-ended isn't necessarily bad, I think finding that very specific reason and reframing your essay around it might help you a lot.
ReplyDeleteThis was an insightful essay, and I think I might take a look at using a to-do list. I don't feel like I have much going on, but it would still probably be useful. You said that you weren't where you wanted to be with your productivity yet, and that's very relatable. I think very few people have their organization and time management exactly how they want it. However, a to-do list may not be the right thing for you. One thing that could work is a list of ideas. You said you do things on a whim without reason. Maybe instead of researching the idea right away, you could write down fleeting ideas in a journal or Google Doc to come back to later when you are bored.
ReplyDeleteOverall, great essay, but " I’ve never seen him more faithful to anything else" might not be the best choice of words... What about your mom??