A notebook to save you from infinite scrolling.

Summary

The video introduces the 'Life Tracker' method, a personal modification of the Bullet Journal system designed to optimize and track various aspects of life. The creator, who has been journaling for six years, emphasizes the benefits of a physical journal over digital alternatives. The system includes a monthly overview with goals, habits, and metrics tracking, such as sleep, weight, caffeine intake, and exercise. Journaling not only aids in documenting highlights and achievements but also serves as a tool for self-reflection and goal setting. The video also highlights the use of a specific journal brand, Leuchtturm1917, praised for its versatility. Through this method, the creator shares insights on improving mental clarity, consistency in habits, and ultimately, enhancing life's quality.

Takeaways

• 📈 The Life Tracker system is a personalized journaling method that incorporates elements of the bullet journal technique to track daily activities, habits, and metrics.
• 🗒 Journaling with a physical notebook, particularly using brands like Leuchtturm1917, is favored for its tangible and versatile nature, allowing for a variety of layouts like grid or dotted pages.
• 📌 Monthly pages in the journal are set up to track specific habits (like weight, caffeine consumption, workout, and meditation) and daily highlights, aiding in self-awareness and habit consistency.
• 📝 Reflective journaling is not about detailed daily entries but focusing on significant daily highlights and habit tracking, making the process low-friction and manageable.
• 📉 The right side of the monthly spread is used for setting broader goals for the month, not as a daily to-do list, helping to keep a broader perspective on personal achievements.
• 💧 Personal experiments, like 30-day challenges, are documented to observe changes and impacts on lifestyle, functioning as an experimental log.
• 💡 Insights gained from journaling can lead to mental clarity, reduced anxiety, and better life optimization, echoing the practices of historical figures like Leonardo da Vinci.
• 📚 Regularly updating the journal helps in tracking progress towards goals and maintaining awareness of personal habits and achievements.
• 📆 The journal serves as a historical record, allowing retrospection on how habits, goals, and personal metrics evolve over time.
• 📖 Starting journaling early in life is recommended to capture and reflect on personal growth, with the physical journal acting as a tangible record of one’s life journey.

Q & A

What is the Life Tracker Method and how does it differ from the Bullet Journal Method?

The Life Tracker Method is a modified version of the Bullet Journal Method designed to optimize and track the creator's life. It focuses on low-friction journaling and incorporates tracking of habits, metrics, and personal goals, differing by its specific emphasis on life optimization and habit consistency over the more general organization focus of the Bullet Journal.

How long has the creator been using the Life Tracker Method, and how many journals have they filled?

The creator has been using the Life Tracker Method for 6 years and has filled five journals, buying a new one each year.

Why does the creator prefer physical journals over digital apps for documenting life?

The creator prefers physical journals because they capture the essence of time more effectively for them. Despite trying various apps and digital methods, they find physical writing with pencil and pen to bring them back due to its tangible nature.

What brand and type of journal does the creator recommend and why?

The creator recommends the Leuchtturm1917 brand, particularly the dotted or grid versions, for their modularity, which allows for drawing different diagrams and capturing a wide range of information efficiently.

How does the creator structure the monthly page in their Life Tracker Method?

Each monthly page spans two pages, with the month written on both sides. The left side includes dates, daily highlights, and habit tracking (e.g., weight, caffeine intake, workouts, meditation). The right side is reserved for monthly goals and accomplishments, like reading certain books or upcoming trips.

How does the creator track habits and metrics in their journal?

The creator tracks habits and metrics by drawing columns for each item (e.g., weight, caffeine, workouts) and marking them daily, either by coloring in for caffeine intake or drawing an 'X' for missed workouts or meditation sessions. This allows for a visual representation of consistency and progress over the month.

What are some examples of the types of information the creator journals about?

The creator journals about a wide range of topics, including daily highlights, habit tracking, sleep times, book summaries, personal goals, and even doodles. They also include reflections on personal experiences, like 30-day challenges, and observations, similar to Leonardo da Vinci's journals.

How does the creator view the role of journaling in achieving goals?

The creator sees journaling, specifically through the Life Tracker Method, as an effective way to achieve goals by allowing for the tracking of progress over time. By documenting habits, actions, and reflections in a physical journal, one becomes more conscious of their behaviors and more likely to follow through with their goals.

Why doesn't the creator force themselves to journal every day?

The creator doesn't force daily journaling because they believe in writing whenever new thoughts come or something significant is learned. The monthly page is the only section they try to update daily, but missing a few days is acceptable as they can retrospectively fill in the details.

What long-term goal does the creator have for their journaling practice?

The creator intends to maintain their journaling practice indefinitely, aiming to have a notebook for every year of their life. This allows them to document and reflect upon their thoughts, experiences, and learnings at different ages, wishing they had started before the age of 20.

Outlines

00:00

📓 Introduction to the Life Tracker Journaling System

The Life Tracker journaling method is a personalized adaptation of the Bullet Journal system aimed at optimizing and tracking various aspects of life with minimal friction. This method has been a consistent practice for six years, filling five journals since starting at age 20, and is favored over digital journaling for its tangible essence and flexibility. The system allows for tracking sleep, weight, habits, and reading, using a preferred journal brand, Leuchtturm1917, for its grid or dotted pages. A monthly two-page spread includes goals, daily highlights, and habit tracking, emphasizing the power of physical journaling in capturing life's moments and optimizing habits.

05:01

🗓️ Monthly Page Setup and Habit Tracking

The Life Tracker method simplifies journaling to capturing daily highlights and tracking habits, rather than detailed daily entries. Monthly mini-goals or challenges are set up on a monthly page visited daily, allowing for reflection and documentation of experiences in an experimental log style. Individual entries for deeper reflections or ideas are added as needed, with the format being highly flexible to include diagrams, book summaries, and other observations. This system is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's detailed journals and emphasizes mental clarity and life optimization without the pressure of daily journaling.

10:02

🎯 Achieving Goals with the Tracker Method

The Life Tracker method is not only a journaling practice but a powerful tool for goal achievement, enabling meticulous tracking of various metrics. Transferring digital metrics to a physical journal enhances goal consciousness and consistency. The journal serves as a historical record, tracking changes in focus areas over time, such as net worth and health metrics. The intention is to maintain this practice throughout life, allowing for retrospective insight into thoughts, actions, and personal development at different ages. Starting journaling early is encouraged for its lifelong benefits and potential to optimize life.

Keywords

💡Life Tracker System

The Life Tracker System is a personalized journaling approach designed to optimize and track various aspects of one's life, modifying the Bullet Journal method for greater efficiency. It emphasizes low-friction entry into journaling, enabling users to monitor habits, achievements, and personal metrics over time. The speaker shares their six-year experience with this method, highlighting its benefits in capturing life's essence through physical documentation. This system integrates components like date, daily highlights, habit tracker, metric tracker, and goals, facilitating a comprehensive view of one's progress and experiences.

💡Journaling

Journaling, within the context of the video, refers to the practice of regularly documenting thoughts, experiences, goals, and reflections in a physical or digital journal. It's underscored as a powerful, yet underrated, method for self-improvement and introspection. The speaker's adaptation, the Life Tracker Method, simplifies journaling to a structured format that includes daily highlights and habit tracking, making it accessible and manageable to maintain as a routine. This approach is celebrated for its role in enhancing mental clarity, reducing anxiety, and optimizing life.

💡Bullet Journal Method

The Bullet Journal Method is a customizable organization system that combines elements of a planner, diary, and to-do list into one streamlined notebook. The speaker mentions modifying this method to create the Life Tracker System, which focuses on efficiently tracking and optimizing one's life through simplified journaling. This adaptation illustrates the flexibility of the Bullet Journal Method and its potential for personalization to fit individual tracking and organizational needs.

💡Habit Tracker

A Habit Tracker is a tool used within the Life Tracker System to monitor and document the consistency of personal habits over time. It allows the individual to visually represent habits like sleep patterns, caffeine consumption, workout routines, and meditation practices on a monthly basis. This visual documentation aids in recognizing patterns, assessing progress towards goals, and identifying areas for improvement. The speaker emphasizes the habit tracker's role in fostering discipline and enhancing awareness of one's daily practices.

💡Metric Tracker

The Metric Tracker in the Life Tracker System serves to record quantitative data related to personal goals and well-being, such as weight, sleep duration, or any other measurable aspect of health and productivity. By tracking these metrics alongside habits, the individual gains insights into correlations between daily actions and their outcomes, enabling more informed decisions and optimizations in lifestyle and goal attainment. The script highlights this component as essential for objective self-assessment and progress monitoring.

💡Leuchtturm1917

Leuchtturm1917 refers to a brand of notebooks favored by the speaker for journaling and implementing the Life Tracker System. Characterized by its quality, durability, and options for dotted or grid pages, Leuchtturm1917 notebooks offer the flexibility needed for the speaker's modified Bullet Journal method. The choice of this brand underscores the importance of selecting a physical medium that complements and enhances the personal journaling experience.

💡Physical Journal

A Physical Journal, as described in the video, is a tangible notebook used for the documentation of one's life, habits, goals, and reflections. The speaker advocates for physical journaling over digital methods, citing a deeper connection and a more meaningful capture of time's essence through handwritten entries. This preference highlights the personal and introspective nature of journaling, suggesting that the act of writing by hand can enrich the experience and foster a greater sense of fulfillment.

💡Goal Setting

Goal Setting in the context of the Life Tracker System involves identifying and documenting objectives for personal growth, productivity, and well-being on a monthly basis. These goals, which can range from reading a certain number of books to implementing new workout plans, are recorded to provide direction and motivation. The system's structure supports the monitoring of progress towards these goals, illustrating the importance of setting clear, achievable targets as a mechanism for self-improvement.

💡Self-introspection

Self-introspection refers to the process of examining one's thoughts, feelings, and actions to gain insight into one's character and motivations. The Life Tracker System facilitates this practice by providing a structured format for reflection through journaling. By documenting daily highlights, habits, and goals, individuals engage in a form of self-introspection that promotes mental clarity, reduces anxiety, and supports personal growth. This concept is central to the speaker's message, emphasizing the value of awareness and reflection in personal development.

💡Consistency

Consistency, as emphasized throughout the video, is crucial for the effectiveness of the Life Tracker System. It involves the regular documentation of habits, metrics, and reflections to build a comprehensive and accurate record of one's life over time. The speaker highlights consistency in journaling as key to recognizing patterns, achieving goals, and fostering personal growth. However, they also acknowledge the flexibility of the system, allowing for missed entries without undermining the overall benefit of the practice.

Highlights

Introduction to the Life Tracker journaling system, a personalized adaptation of the Bullet Journal method for life optimization and tracking.

Detailed explanation of the Life Tracker's layout: date, highlight of the day, habit tracker, metric tracker on one side; monthly goals and achievements on the other.

Benefits of using a physical journal over digital apps for documenting life and habits.

Preference for Leuchtturm1917 brand journals for their quality and versatility in journaling styles (grid or dotted).

Monthly page setup: tracking daily weight, caffeine intake, workout routines, and meditation practices.

Importance of recording daily highlights to remember the essence of each day.

Adjusting and setting new strategies for habits and goals based on monthly reflections.

Integration of monthly goals and book reading lists into the journal.

Value of looking back at past entries to see progress and reflect on past thoughts, habits, and goals.

Individual entry system allows for flexibility in content, including diagrams, book summaries, and more.

Inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci's method of documenting observations and studies in journals.

Advocacy for tracking progress towards goals through journaling as an effective method for goal achievement.

Transferring digital metrics (e.g., sleep, weight, steps) to the journal for a comprehensive life overview.

Reflection on the evolution of journal content over time, from financial tracking to health and fitness metrics.

Long-term commitment to journaling with the aim of having a notebook for every year of life as a personal archive.

Encouragement for others to start journaling, regardless of consistency, as a means to optimize life.

Transcripts

This Is The Life tracker system on the

left you have the date the highlight of

what you did a habit tracker and a

metric tracker on the right you have

your goal for the month and then after

this you have one of the most powerful

and also underrated things that you can

do is actually journaling and today I

want to share with you my journaling

system which I call the life tracker

method it's a modification I made to the

bullet Journal method to optimize and

track my life I believe it's one of the

lowest friction ways that you can start

journaling and I've been doing this for

the past 6 years I filled five journals

I buy a new one every single year and

I've been doing this since I was age 20

there's just something about a physical

Journal that really captures the essence

of that time I've tried using a bunch of

different apps and digital ways of

journaling and documenting my life but I

always just come back to using pencil

and Pen I'm going to show you the system

that I came up with to track things like

my sleep my weight uh different habits

even the books that I'm reading but

before we get into that let me talk

about my favorite Journal brand that I

actually use yeah so I've tested a lot

of different Journal Brands and I think

the best one for my usage and for what

I'm using it for is this brand called Le

term

1917 I'm not actually sure how to

pronounce it I think it's a German word

but it's Le l l e u c h t t u r m

there's a bunch of different version it

comes in like either Grid or dotted and

my favorite one is either a dotted one

or a grid one and the reason for that is

just because it's more modular when you

have a grid or dotted like you can draw

different diagrams you can capture a lot

of different stuff I'm going to show you

some of the stuff I've captured at the

court of the system every month I have a

monthly page that is two pages so I

write the month on the left and the

month on the right so I'll just show

you I'm going to create January's page

and then I'll have the numbered dates 1

2 3 four five 6 7 8 30 31 so I'll have

the dates of January here on the left

side and I also put in an abbreviation

for the day so Monday Tuesday Wednesday

Thursday and then on the left side here

I'll have different metrics and habits I

want to track so for example right now

I'm on a cut so I'll track my weight

every day so I just put in like pounds

here and I'll draw a line and then I can

see my progress over different days and

what I'll often do too is I'll track

like two or three different habits okay

so now we have

three rows that we can use for tracking

habits so I'll just do one is like

caffeine maybe like

workout and then

meditation

so if I drink caffeine I'll just color

it in and if I skip my workout I'll just

draw an X and I'll skip my if I skip my

meditation I'll draw an X and it's

really cool because at the end of the

month you can just see how consistent

you are with your habits and you can see

how that correlates to any other metrics

that your track so for a while I also

track my sleep times like I tracked when

I went to bed when I woke up and that

actually became like two whole pages but

now I'm just tracking my weight and a

caffeine usage workout meditation so

like if I'm only drinking caffeine every

other day then maybe the next day it's

like this and the next day I'm like that

and then on the left side here I will

write down the highlight of that day

like what made that day memorable like

it could be like I ran 10 miles or I had

a PR or I just uploaded a video but the

point of this left side is just to kind

of document the main highlight of that

day so that if I read it I can kind of

see like oh that's that's the day that I

did that so like like hung out with

friends this is pretty much it for the

left side of the monthly page and then

the next month I do this again and now I

know like maybe I need to change my

habits or I need to do a new strategy

for these habits so this is a really

effective way to really make sure that

you are consistent with your habits and

also thinking about how to optimize for

them so on the right side of the month

of P share usually I'll write down some

of my goals for this month or some of

the things I want to get accomplished I

don't use my journal as a to-do list but

I just use it to kind of track like what

I'm doing what I'm thinking and some of

the things I'm working on so I might

have like you know

read five

books and then maybe I have the books

here 1 2 3 four five and I'll write like

so yeah super simple just like something

I want to keep in mind for the whole

month it could also just be reminders or

like trips coming up like once you

actually start doing this and if you're

like me you start actually doing this

for multiple years it's really

interesting because I can flip back to

Any Given month in the past 5 years and

you're going see like on every single

day like what is the highlight of that

day did I follow through my habits on

that day and what were my goals on that

year and that that date

so this is like the easiest way to

journal because rather than actually

journaling every single day like what

you did everything you did you're only

journaling like one single line and also

tracking like whether or not you hit

your habits but after you set up this

page this is the page that I go to every

single day in the morning or at night

when I'm updating it sometimes if I

don't update it like for a week is

totally fine too cuz I can usually just

think about like what I accomplished

over the week so while you probably have

your yearly goals or your decade long

goals that you're working on these are

just like monthly mini goals or like

mini challenges that you want to try out

and you can kind of like document your

experience kind of like a experiment log

or a laboratory Journal so a lot of

times I'll do like 30-day challenges

like not for YouTube but like just for

myself I'll do a 30-day challenge here

and I'll track it and then I'll like

Journal about like my experience with

doing that so after I set up the monthly

page I'll usually have individual

entries whenever I feel like journaling

or there's something that I want to

think about on paper and how I do that

is that I'll just write like the date

and then I'll write the time the beauty

of a analog Journal is that it can

really be any format that you want so

sometimes I'll be like drawing a diagram

or for an idea that I have definitely

the coolest thing is just being able to

look back on any given date or year and

see what you were thinking about what

kind of decisions you were trying to

weigh and it really helps with

increasing your mental Clarity reducing

anxiety and just being able to optimize

your life further it doesn't even have

to be individual entries like sometimes

I'll be summarizing a book that I read

or capturing things that I've learned

because this journaling system is really

inspired by Leonardo da Vinci he's

really known for his journals where he

like writes down his observations or

things that he's studying and it's

really interesting even now to look at

some of the things that he was thinking

about or some of the things that he was

studying I think Bill Gates previously

bought one of his journals for like $30

million and you can create something

like that for yourself too I also don't

force myself to journal every day or

even try to make it a habit I just write

down stuff whenever some new thought

comes to me or I just want to capture

some sort of thing that I learned the

monthly page is the only thing I try to

update every single day but even if I

missed a couple days it's still totally

fine cuz I can go back and think about

what I did on that day and then fill it

out I don't want to show the actual

entries but I want to show like some of

the things that I've captured in my

journal so like like here's like an

energy graph where I was like starting

how I use my time and I noticed that I

had this like different Peaks and

troughs throughout the day and I kind of

like graph this out that is an

interesting thing just for myself to

look at yeah here in July of 2021 I

wrote down so my goal is like read four

books like do this new workout plan

sometimes I just Doodle for fun in my

journals um here I actually like grafted

out my sleep for I think this must be

like around almost a month I grafted out

my sleep like when I was going bed and

when I was waking up and it was just

really interesting to see like this kind

of correlation based on like how much

coffee I was drinking let me see what

else sometimes I just like Journal stuff

just so I can document it and record it

for the future cuz I know like sometime

in the future I'll look back and I'll be

like nostalgic of this information here

I tracked like how many steps I was

taking for a vacation to Japan and I

wrote down like what I did every day um

so you can see how many steps and I also

like even tracked my time on the trip so

I can see see like it's been like 150

hours sleeping like 23 hours exercising

I still hit the gym oh here I have a

immersion tracker so this is also when I

was studying Japanese I tracked like how

many hours I was spending on the

language every day and you can see like

on average I spending like almost 3

hours for these three weeks I was

tracking it yeah I track down like

guitar uh riffs that I

learned I also have some piano notes

sometimes when I I finish a book that I

think is really good I'll also like

write a one pager of everything I

learned and also just different quotes

um from there so this is after I finish

the book 0 to1 I wrote down like a one

pager of like some of the most impactful

things that I learned from there I

developed the system during college when

I wanted to find a way to capture not

just the ideas I was having but also a

way to capture what I was actually doing

dayto day so that I could just look back

on it I realized how fleeting and

unreliable my memory was and I was also

really overwhelmed was trying to find

the best allinone app that could help me

capture everything that I cared about at

some point I realized that an app like

that will probably never exist because

my interest will constantly change and

so the formats of my pages will never be

the same year to year or even month to

month like sometimes I have piano or

guitar notation other times I'll have a

doodle or some sort of diagram that I'm

drawing I would say if you're going to

start journaling definitely don't worry

about it if you're not doing it every

day just keep the journal around do the

monthly pages and in between the months

you can add in different journal entries

or just take notes on things that you

are interested in but I also want to

talk about another benefit of journaling

and using this tracker method which is

that it can enable you to achieve any

goal that you set your mind to one of

the most effective ways to set goals and

Achieve them is simply to track the

progress of your goals over time the

more metrics that you track the easier

it is to quantify and improve and even

though a lot of the metrics I'm tracking

digitally like how I'm spending all time

or what my weight is and how many steps

I took I'm actually transferring that to

my journal so I can flip to any month

and see all these different metrics I'm

tracking when you don't do self

introspection or document the reality of

your habits and actions it's really easy

to just forget about them and move on to

the next month but when you just

document them and write them down in a

physical place you become more conscious

of them and following through with your

goals become way easier like I found

that there's a huge difference between

just stepping on the scale versus

stepping on the scale and then copying

that number onto a journal it's also

really interesting to see how I track

different metrics throughout different

ages like one year I tracked my net

worth super closely every single month

and in the past year I've been super

interested in tracking my fitness and

health metrics and seeing correlations

there here I actually tracked my wake

time sleep time and the steps I was

taking every day and I intend on doing

this forever I want to have a notebook

for every year of my life so I can just

pull a journal off the bookshelf and see

what I was thinking at age 25 35 or even

50 my only regret is that I didn't start

this earlier before the age of 20 so if

you're considering journaling this year

I would highly recommend it and even if

you don't know how consistent you'll be

with it just buy a notebook put on your

table and just write in it until you

finish it hope this journaling method

can help you optimize your life I'll see

you in the next one

[Music]

peace