How Do We Focus in an Age of Information Overload? Six Months with the Bullet Journal

The Bullet Journal (BuJo) is a paper-based note-taking method where you write your tasks down each day and migrate the unfinished ones to the next day by hand. The point is to make you see where your attention actually goes — and what you keep putting off. After six months, my biggest takeaway is this: attention is scarcer than time, and paper forces you to be honest about it.

I started keeping a Bullet Journal in October 2023.

Once I started, I became "aware" of just how easily my attention scatters.

My usage is dead simple — I only use it to log daily work and activities.

What Is the Bullet Journal (BuJo)?

The Bullet Journal is a way of taking notes.

The English name carries a journaling sense to it.

It was designed by Ryder Carroll, a designer with ADHD, as a tool to help him focus.

In the Bullet Journal book, he covers a lot of the attention problems modern people face — and where they come from.

The core idea: write your work and life tasks down on paper, so you can stay more present in your life.

For the full story, I recommend buying the book and actually trying the method.

The book mentions that BuJo takes at least 2–3 months before you really feel the effect.

In short, the Bullet Journal has three core elements:

• Paper: deliberately leave the apps behind, away from notifications and feeds
• Daily migration: unfinished tasks must be rewritten by hand the next day, forcing you to confront your own procrastination
• Symbol system: simple symbols (X = done, > = migrated to tomorrow) track where each task actually went

What Are the Two Ideas from the Bullet Journal That Hit Me Hardest?

The first idea: humans have two scarce resources — time and attention.

Attention, or you can call it willpower, or energy.

The names differ, but the essence is the same.

Our attention is finite.

When we open the phone to find a file, it's incredibly easy to get pulled into a social feed.

After scrolling that, a short video catches your eye.

In the end, you forget what you opened the phone for in the first place.

Yes, that's me — I constantly need the Bullet Journal to remind me what I was supposed to be doing, lol.

This is exactly why the author insists on paper instead of an app.

Because paper has no other distractions, while phones have more than anyone can handle.

The second idea: most people's brains can't process multiple things at once.

In other words, when we split our attention evenly across many tasks, we very likely end up finishing nothing.

Concentrate your attention on a few things, and you can actually get them done well.

Yes — the point is still attention.

If we don't know how to manage attention, we'll be drowned in information.

Focus, you could say, is one of the most important skills of the information overload era.

What Three Things Did I Discover After Six Months of Bullet Journaling?

Discovery #1: My attention scatters constantly!

Seriously. Every time I work for a stretch, I start drifting off course.

By the time I snap back, I've forgotten what I was supposed to be doing in the first place.

I often need to open LINE/TELEGRAM to check a client's message.

But once I open it, I see a wave of new community and group messages.

That client's message gets pushed way down by all the group activity.

Then, out of habit, I tap into those groups and read all the "endless" updates.

There are so many messages, my brain just gets stuffed full of new info.

And then I forget I was originally checking whether the client had replied, lol.

Sound familiar?

Discovery #2: The Bullet Journal boosts your willpower!

Some things I really don't want to do, but I have to do anyway.

When I write it on the page and stare at it for what feels like a while — actually only 2 minutes —

Fine. I'll do it. I'm finishing this today.

If I just leave it as a thought in my head telling me to do it, I'll absolutely not want to, and then forget.

But once it's on paper and I look at it for a stretch, glancing back at it a few times, I can actually push myself to do it.

Discovery #3: You'll find out exactly how much you procrastinate on the things you don't want to do!

The Bullet Journal records things by "daily work and activities."

If a task or activity isn't done, it migrates to the next day.

And then you'll see one task on my journal showing up from day one all the way to day seven!

The author's take is: you just don't want to do this thing, do you? Why force yourself? This is also part of getting to know yourself better!

But my situation was: I have no choice! I already knew I hate it, but I still have to do it!

You know what? That task that showed up for seven days straight was: exercise! working out!

So eventually I bought personal training sessions — having someone else push me works way better than relying on my own initiative.

Later on, my coworkers started playing table tennis together for the sake of my health.

Outside pressure again — fine, I'll go.

Now table tennis and the gym give me at least three workouts a week.

Turns out I really do need outside forces to keep me in line, because honestly I really hate exercising QQ.

Back to our main topic:

How Do You Focus in an Age of Information Overload? How I Use the Bullet Journal to Protect My Attention

The Bullet Journal makes it crystal clear: attention is finite.

Protect your attention. Don't let your phone or social media erode it.

My experience is: the Bullet Journal really works.

And you can flip back through previous pages to see what you actually accomplished this month.

Then you'll discover: wow, I actually got this much done?!

It even helped me steadily get work done on the days when I had the least motivation.

I'm not exaggerating.

To wrap up, I want to leave you with one line:

Too efficient is not efficient.

Too efficient is Not efficient.

This is what I came to after reading the Bullet Journal book and thinking about how to raise my own output.

If you use Notion to manage your tasks,

and a task goes unfinished, you'd:

• Drag the task card to tomorrow.
• Extend the deadline on that card by one day.

This is dead simple — extremely "efficient."

But in the Bullet Journal, you have to rewrite that task by hand.

If you keep rewriting the same task over and over, that means you've already fallen into procrastination.

When we make things too efficient, we even forget the thing itself.

Like that task you dragged across — who's going to remember you ever moved it?

And it's not just one card you moved, either.

It's like speed-reading a book — you don't necessarily remember what you actually read.

2026 Update: Am I Still Using It Two Years Later?

This piece was written in February 2024. As of 2026, I'm still keeping a Bullet Journal — only now I run it alongside Claude Code. Paper and digital, in parallel.

You might wonder: why use two media to record the same thing?

Because each does its own job. Paper helps me focus. Digital makes it easier to review, take stock, and organize. I still love the slow rhythm of putting pen to paper — it lets me settle down in the moment and arrange my thoughts about the work ahead.

Want to sharpen your focus? Give the Bullet Journal a six-month try.

Here's a screenshot of my own Bullet Journal:

1. Date + day of the week
2. Work items: X = done, > = migrated to tomorrow
3. The TT and CT in the top right: T = Tea, C = Coffee

PS: #3 is to keep my daily caffeine intake from going overboard, lol.

FAQ

Q: How is the Bullet Journal different from a regular to-do list? A: The difference is "unfinished tasks must be rewritten by hand the next day." Many apps let you push a task with one tap, and you won't remember how many times you've delayed it. The Bullet Journal forces you to rewrite it. By the third rewrite, you'll be honest with yourself: are you actually too busy, or do you just not want to do it?

Q: Isn't paper more time-consuming than an app? A: Yes, it takes more time — but that's exactly why it works. The "inefficiency" of rewriting is the signal that shows you you're procrastinating. The "efficiency" of an app eats that signal.

Q: How long until I feel the effect? A: The book says at least 2–3 months. My own experience: month one feels like a hassle, month two you start seeing where your attention is going, month three is when the "wow, I actually got this much done" review payoff kicks in.

Q: Is it suitable for people with ADHD or attention issues? A: The author Ryder Carroll has ADHD himself, and the whole method was designed to help focus. But everyone's different — I'd suggest trying it for 2 weeks first to see if you can sustain it.