Journaling Just Works

I've been at it for less than a month so my impressions are preliminary. I've been doing GTD digitally for a long while. I've wound up not doing the planning often, and I have lists of actions piling up, and I haven't developed the habit of looking at my lists in those "I have time, what do I do next?" moments.

I got into using an app called Sunsama that encourages spending a few minutes every morning making a daily plan. That has been very helpful for me! It makes me spend a little time taking stock of what I've previously noted I wanted to do, and what I can get done today. I still had an issue of tending not to check back in with the app during the day.

The journal is not just for todos: it's where I jot down things I want to remember to do, notes, things that happened that I'd like to remember or that I want to tell my wife about, daily reflections. So I'm interacting with it frequently through the day. When I do I see the plans I've written, and think about what I can cross off. It's a nice way to see everything laid out - a notebook is easier to take in quickly than a digital device, and comes with fewer distractions. So I think I'm more likely to check in with my plans at opportune times.

The migration system makes it less likely for todos to pile up endlessly. From time to time I copy my list of unfinished todos to a new page. If it's not important enough to copy then it doesn't need to stick around in the list.

I've taken the bullet journal ideas, and combined them with the Sunsama daily planning idea, and the daily reflection practice I picked up from The Cortex Theme System. My wife has also been using a bullet journal. We've got a new ritual of sitting together with our journals, and coordinating calendars and action items.