Why I still write by hand 🌸
In a house full of screens, I very much love my notebook full of dots.
I bloody love bullet journalling, it has been a huge part of designing my life on this ikigai journey.
It has changed how I think.
The language of dots and reflection
At the end of a day, week or month, you do not just turn the page... you sit with every unfinished task and you copy it forward by hand if it still matters. This is called migration, and it is sneakily profound.
Because copying a task out, again, by hand, makes you ask does this still matter? If you cannot be bothered to rewrite it, perhaps it was never really yours to do. The friction is the feature. The notebook makes you choose, where an app would simply have nagged.
The bullet journal does not help me do more. It helps me notice what I keep refusing to do, and forgive myself, and let some of it go.
My favourite spreads
Over the years I have tried elaborate layouts and abandoned most of them. What survives is what I actually use, a monthly log to see the shape of the weeks, a weekly spread a combination of planning, recording and thinking aloud on paper, and a scattering of collections... books to read, ideas for essays, small joys to remember. Nothing fancy. Some wonky washi tape and lots of colour, it feels like me.
What this has to do with ikigai
I think the bullet journal and ikigai are the same practice. Both ask you to slow down enough to notice your own life. Both resist the optimisation reflex. When I migrate a task and decide to let it die, I am not being lazy. I am protecting the hours where my actual reasons for living live.
A pen is a wonderfully analogue act of defiance in a world that wants everything frictionless, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
xxx