• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

SOLIDMAGIC

Contributions to Legerdemain

  • Blog
  • Shop
    • Shopping Cart
    • my account
    • checkout
    • login
  • Bookmarks
  • Newsletter
  • Impressum
  • Datenschutz
  • Privacy Police
  • Contact

The No Bullshit Bullet Journal

30/09/2019 by decova

Using notebooks for decades, I think I know the one thing or another on how to take notes, and what works for me and what not. In recent years, the craze for the bullet-journal method came up. Everywhere in the social media and blogs these beautifully crafted notebooks surfaced, and some people have nothing to do all day long than artistically doing their journals.

Everything you can imagine is documented in trackers, to-do lists, plans, future and past logs, and more. The good old diary met the calendar, met the to-do list, met the trackers, and the logged books. Everybody is optimising and streamlining her- or himself for better performance, for more productivity. Optimise yourself to death. The question is: What for?

I will be honest: I tried this bullet-journal method, and it does not work for me the way they promised it. I tried hard, journal’d everything I could think of, tried to organise my creativity to be more streamlined and productive. But it didn’t work out. I am still living in a (creative) mess. I am still not streamlined, organised, and optimised for productivity. Am I a loser?

My old-fashioned way of keeping a notebook . It’s not a bullet journal, though — it’s only a simple notebook.

At one point, I simply gave up and came back to my ‘old method’ of note-taking: simply writing the ideas into a simple notebook. This has done me good for more than thirty years and still does today. No special system, no trackers, no planners, no nothing. Just a simple notebook and a pen. Without giving a thought on how to optimise, organise, or structure everything, in order to be more ‘productive’. When the pressure of doing perfect notes was gone, suddenly, the ideas started to appear again. And I simply write them down.

Mind you — the bullet-journal method per se is not bad. For some, it is a major and important part to get their life organised. It is certainly helpful for a vast amount of people. A positive aspect is that many of the Smombie generation (Smombie = Smartphone + Zombie) take the time to do something creative and human (thinking, writing, drawing, planning, jotting down ideas), and not sitting in front of their phones, passively consuming what others feed them. They start to creatively jot down everything in and about their lives. Fine.

But then: who will read all this? When you are no longer there, who will then read and enjoy your progress in your habits in the past? Where are the people that appreciate your optimised and logged life when you are gone? Who will read with excitement that your youngest one had diarrhoea on a certain day, and you could do the Yoga workout because of that? And who cares how bad you felt on that day, because you didn’t drink two litres of water, as planned, but only one and a half? And who will be interested that I did the Double Lift thirty times in a row during that or that week, years ago?

The reason for this rant is not the bullet-journal method, but what people make out of it, and there are similarities to what is happening in magic (and for sure in other areas as well). I am always very careful when it gets to the point when something is over-emphasised. When people go to extremes.

The accent in the Social media clearly is on how good, original, clever, beautiful, artistic, well thought out, and advanced people are doing their journals. All this is permanently posted on hundreds of thousands of blogs, Instagram and Twitter accounts. Google ‘bullet journal’ and you will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of search results.

In the end, it is a craze for an empty notebook which is not sold as what it is (an empty notebook, may it be with blank, lined, or dotted pages), but a gimmick that can do wonders and has the capability to change your life. A whole industry evolved, and even the writing utilities industry profits from the trend. Very similar to some copywriting magic dealers used to praise the new ‘revolutionary’ gimmick that will change the way you do magic. Very similar to some of the ‘by-products’ that are sold. What would you do with your precious trick coin set without the fitting leather pouch for only $70.00 to house and transport them? Simply put them into the pocket?

Sure — there are people who have the ability to take an empty notebook and change their life, change the way they organise things and themselves. But then, it is not the notebooks that do these changes, but the people who write into it. The same in magic. Not the gimmicks, new techniques or moves are the most important thing. It is the person, and it is what she or he makes out of the stuff at hand. The leather pouch and the precision coin set don’t better your magic, if you are a not competent in sleight-of-hand. It won’t make you a better performer. I have seen brilliant performers do miracles with buttons, instead of coins. The moves and the magic fooled me completely. There were no gimmicks. it was the performer doing his magic, it was the ability. It was artful craft.

So we are back to the basics: learn the craft thoroughly before you get involved too heavily into all these wonderful gimmicks and gadgets in magic.

Ninety percent of it is crap, anyway.

Filed Under: agenda

Previous Post: « Misconceptions About Presentation
Next Post: Linking Pins Finale »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • The Close-up Pad
  • Color Schemes For Magicians
  • The Lighthouse
  • Bag And Purse Organizers
  • Buffalo Shells
  • Stock Market Crash
  • The Scorpio
  • Deep Work
  • Google vs. Books
  • Simple, Easy and Right
  • Take Action
  • Motivation for Magicians
  • 5,000 Writing Plots
  • Themed Acts
  • The Brexit Trick
  • The Art Of Missing Out
  • TNT III – English Version
  • Eisenhower Matrix Applied To Magic
  • Ockham’s Razor Blade
  • The Negative Approach
  • Script vs. Screenplay
  • Holism
  • Three Simple Questions
  • My Wacky Old Brain
  • Think Cards
  • Magic and Short Stories
  • Working With Ideas
  • Sharing Is Not Making A Gift
  • The Book Without Words
  • The Grass is Always Greener There
  • The Spanish School
  • Jay Sankey Rules
  • Stuck in the Middle of Nowhere
  • Create a Themed Act
  • Table-hopping Chess
  • The 100 Props Challenge
  • The 365YOU! Project
  • The Point of No Return
  • The Big Chance
  • The Blank Book Test
  • The Erdnase Bible
  • Linking Pins Finale
  • The No Bullshit Bullet Journal
  • Misconceptions About Presentation
  • A Street Table or Not?
  • The Artist
  • The 80/20 Concept
  • The 12 Inch Concept
  • Teatime
  • Card in Bottle
  • Buddha Card
  • Multiplying Bottles Hack
  • A Practical Table
  • Build an Act
  • 3-Shell-Game Bag
  • Erdnase False Shuffle
  • 7-Card-Monte Handling
  • Ascanioesque Double Lift
  • Bill in Lemon in Bottle
  • Anti-Gravity Bottle
  • Pimp Your Cups and Balls
  • Multiplying Bottles Retouched
  • Checklist New Stuff
  • Glasses on the Table
  • About This Blog
  • Balls For the Cups
  • A Quote From Seth Godin
  • A Quote From Ken Brooke
  • The Container Theory
  • Props and Gear
  • The Street Magician
  • Cups and Balls Loading Sequence
  • Cracking Magic 6: Selection of Material
  • Cracking Magic 5: Note Taking
  • Cracking Magic 4: Organisation
  • Cracking Magic 3: Tools
  • Cracking Magic 2: Archive Structure
  • Cracking Magic 1: Introduction
  • How to Write Magic Books?
  • Magic as an Indicator of Growth
  • A Thumb Tip Holder
  • Quick Starters
  • The 24/7 Magician
  • How to Better The Card to Wallet
  • A Bass Player in Magic
  • The 12 In. Concept
  • A Matter of Reputation
  • A Comparison to Chess
  • The Family of Three
  • How to Save Time, Money and Energy
  • Move for Balls and Net Routine
  • About Lectures
  • R.I.P. Don Wayne
  • Mark Elsdon‘s Hidden Gems
  • The Rehearsal
  • The Morning Routine
  • Simpler Magic
  • LePaul Cards and Envelope
  • Focus
  • Trapped
  • Chase the Ace
  • Birth of an Act

Copyright © 2019 · SOLIDMAGIC

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsI ACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Necessary Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.