I never thought it could happen to me, but here we are.
Years and years ago, when I first started to bullet journal, when I first made it a regular part of my practice, I recalled seeing several YouTube videos about it. However, there were also a few videos out there that largely seemed like clickbait discussing not why a person quit bullet journaling, but stating bold suppositions like, “You will quit bullet journaling.” As if this were a foregone conclusion for everyone.
I didn’t think it would ever happen to me.
Even in times when I’d take less and less time to bullet journal, I’d always eventually return to my practice sooner or later, taking a break of maybe a few days or a week at longest.
But now I’m here, and I had to really convince myself to make a monthly spread for May earlier today. That’s also on top of how much less often I was bullet journaling since late February in general. Still, I was sure this would blow over eventually. I had already stripped everything to the bare basics that were in Ryder Carroll’s book. I was already using utilitarian layouts that just got the job done. Despite all of that, it felt like I was still forcing myself.
That’s when, one recent morning last week, a small household task led to me injuring my thumb on my writing hand. The injury hurt for two days, and I could still write, but with compromises. I could endure a wincing pain holding a pen or pencil in my preferred style of writing, or I could fidget and experiment with different grips while sacrificing both speed and handwriting quality. It was the worst of both worlds while letting me at least write again.
But the recent issue really made me stop and ask myself, in regards to my bullet journaling practice: What went wrong? What happened?
Thinking that I simply “lost interest” was too much of a cop-out. I was bullet journaling until something about my mindset made it feel like it was too much now. How was I supposed to get back to it?
Why Keep Bullet Journaling?
Why would I want to continue the practice if it no longer serves me, if it seems more like a chore than something that improves my life?
In all honesty, I love the benefits of the practice, and I love how the bullet journal gives me order, yet here I am wondering why it takes me a few weeks to do a daily spread anymore, or why I hardly update at all.
But that’s just the key: I don’t want to stop entirely because I like the benefits of bullet journaling. I love to see everything at a glance, be it over months, weeks, or days. I love being able to have a catch-all for my notes, tasks, and scheduled events.
And let’s face it: Sometimes, a calendar app, a generic notes app, or a task tracking app doesn’t really cut it. Even if I find several great apps, I don’t like the idea of juggling so many. I wanted something that:
- I can easily access on multiple devices, like through my personal Syncthing setup.
- Is easy for me to open up and access with minimal effort.
- Is relatively simple to set up without having to re-learn or experiment.
- Doesn’t cost anything extra to use on top of what I already have.
- Does not require me to go out and install a new app.
While I am a great proponent of analog, I thought that going digital, even if it was only a temporary thing, would drastically help me. It could lead to less friction, I’d be able to have a bit of a “refresh” with the novelty, I’d still reap the benefits of bullet journaling, and I wouldn’t lose track of the things I care about in my life.
My Temporary Solution
So what did I pick? What did I go with that fulfilled all of my criteria?
I decided to take another look at my current Obsidian vault. Ironically enough, there was a time many years ago where I nearly stopped bullet journaling entirely in favor of using my “second brain” religiously for every little thing. Regardless, after I abandoned the second brain idea and mindset, I didn’t erase my Obsidian vault. Instead, I ditched PARA and repurposed everything to suit my needs better.
That’s why I took the opportunity to open one of my folders to set up a temporary bujo:
400 Personal Systems|440 Temporary Bujo|441 Daily Logs | 2026 | 05 | 04 | Daily logs go here|442 Monthly Logs | May 2026|Future Log
This gave me the canvas I needed to get the most basic and fundamental parts of the bullet journal set up. I wanted something dead simple with as few additional plugins as possible.
I first set up a catch-all “Future Log” file along with templates for daily logs and monthly logs. The Future Log itself is just a bulleted list with headings for upcoming months.
Using the template plugin, I set up new templates for both daily logs and monthly logs like so:
# {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}## Primary Focus- [ ] *What is the one thing that must happen today?*## Daily Log> Use `[ ]` for tasks, `-` for notes, and `[o]` for events.- ## Reflection-
You may be wondering where the signifiers are, but I’m mostly omitting those for the sake of sheer simplicity. Again, I want to use as few extra plugins as possible.
# Monthly Log: {{date:MMMM YYYY}}## Calendar| Date | Event/Task || ---- | ---------- || 01 | || 02 | || 03 | || 04 | || 05 | || 06 | || 07 | || 08 | || 09 | || 10 | || 11 | || 12 | || 13 | || 14 | || 15 | || 16 | || 17 | || 18 | || 19 | || 20 | || 21 | || 22 | || 23 | || 24 | || 25 | || 26 | || 27 | || 28 | || 29 | || 30 | || 31 | |## Monthly Goals- [ ] ## The "Mental Inventory- [ ]
Of course, for the monthly log, you may need to erase rows like the 31st (or even the 29th and 30th) depending on what month it is, but this is largely simple and effortless.
While it’s not strictly necessary, I like having templates easily insertable with a keyboard shortcut. My preferred method is simply opening my command palette and typing “template” to insert what I need almost instantly. From there, I just select the template I want to use and get started.
After that, I just set up the daily note add-on to select my 441 Daily Logs folder as the destination, and I select my daily log template from above to be my go-to template.
From there, it’s extremely simple. Now, if I want to open a new daily log, I simply open my new daily note. It creates automatically if it doesn’t exist, and that allows me to type my usual double brackets with a space inbetween for tasks, simple dashes for notes, and [o] (no bullet before) for events.
Why Not bujo-cli?
You may be wondering why I didn’t want to give more of a shot to the bujo-cli app I was looking at recently. In short, it came down to two reasons:
- I wanted to be able to sync everything easily on multiple devices. While it is more than likely possible with this app, it would likely require more overhead and setup than I wanted.
- After using it for two weeks, the bujo-cli app didn’t really “click” with me as much as I hoped it would. I could see others liking it more than me, but it ultimately wasn’t my thing.
Again, I wanted something simple that I could easily use and sync on multiple devices.
How’s Everything Now?
It’s been a week since I started implementing this bullet journaling in Obsidian. Since I started, I have been more consistent with logging. While I’m not logging every single day, I only missed one so far. That’s still a far cry from where I was in my analog bullet journal for the past two months, where I would maybe get one day per week in some cases.
Updating my monthly log in particular gives me a lot less pressure as well, as I can easily edit what I typed should I mess something up. It also still serves its purpose of letting me see future appointments for the month. For anything outside of the month, I kept everything dead simple with a future log that serves as a short list of points beneath the name of each month.
Should I want to access my Obsidian-based bullet journal, I can easily open my phone and take a glance at it as well, which is convenient. Still, even with my Pixel keyboard, I don’t find myself doing that so much, but having the option is always nice.
It remains to be seen if this will truly be a temporary setup or if it may eventually become the new normal for me. Regardless, I do have several notebooks lying around that I do want to write in, and my stationery collection is quite large. How will this go in the long-term? There’s only one way to find out.
Do you bullet journal? Would you ever consider a digital bullet journal over a handwritten, analog setup? If yes, what would you use? If not, why? Whatever the case, feel free to drop a comment down below.
Sudo Science 