my two notebook system to stop infinite scrolling

This is my two notebook system to stop infinite scrolling. I have one notebook to track my life and another notebook to stay productive. I have a journal for tracking my daily highlights, goals, habits, and reflections and a pocket journal for productivity for daily to-dos, shopping lists, and doodles.

I'm going to walk through the exact setup that I use for both journals, which is super easy and sustainable. And at the end, I also share with you how I integrate them with the digital apps that I use. But first, why would you want to use analog systems in the first place?

As someone who tries out using a lot of different productivity apps and tools, I still find that analog systems are the only thing that stand the test of time. While apps are useful, they are quite unpredictable. They might stop getting supported, your data might be deleted, or they might change to a subscription model.

So, while I do use productivity apps, I try not to rely on them too much, and I only use them as a supplement to my analog journaling systems. These notebooks that I use and keep will probably outlive any computer or phone that I have. There's also something so satisfying about going back to my old notebooks and seeing where I was at and what I was focused on.

All right, so starting with my main journal. This is a Loyerm 1917 A5 journal, which is my favorite form factor for reflection and tracking my life. I've mentioned this in a different video, but what I do is I use one notebook for every year of my life, starting my birthday.

I started doing this when I turned 20. So on my shelf, I have one notebook for every year of my life. And at any time I can pull one off and see what I was thinking or feeling at that time.

I think as I get older, these journals will only become more valuable because I can look back and see what it was like to be 20 years old at any point in my life. The way that I've been journaling for the past 7 years is with the life tracker system. And at the core, it's pretty simple.

So every month you have a monthly page where you can see your daily highlights, habits you care about, and any metrics. On the right side, you can track any goals you might have for the month or any milestones. I also use the space below for any monthly reflections or tracking anything else.

As far as these journals go, I don't use it for productivity at all. It's purely meant to track my life. I think that's really why a lot of people find journaling to be difficult or hard to keep up because most journaling methods out there, they try to have you do some very complex method or complex spread for you to track all of your to-dos and events in a journal.

With these journals, I try to put as much as my different ideas, memories, random drawings, daily highlights, and memories to look back on. Nobody wants to go back through their journals and see how much math homework they got done or what meetings they have that day. The way you can make journaling fun and valuable for your personal growth is to use your journal as a life tracker.

You don't need to set a daily habit to journal 10 minutes a day. What you can do is simply track your habits, highlights, and just reflect on it whenever you have an inspiration. I've been doing this format consistently for seven years now and it's been super sustainable and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

I actually look forward to journaling and with checking off my habits in my journal. It's pretty satisfying and addicting to see those streaks. Basically, at the end of every day, you just write down what your daily highlight was that made that day memorable and you can easily look back on that day with fond memory.

Studies have shown that reflecting your daily wins can help your motivation and it's also pretty fun and nostalgic to look back on your memories. Uh besides the monthly pages throughout the notebook, I journal about my different thoughts. ideas and reflections about different things that are going on in my life or things that I'm thinking about.

Sometimes I'll be inspired by listening to a podcast or having a conversation with somebody and I'll want to think about it more or capture an idea that I have on my journal. I think this is really one of the keys to stop overconumption and infinite scrolling. When you journal in your notebook, you're no longer just mindlessly consuming content.

You might listen to a podcast or read a book and be really inspired, but if you don't capture your thoughts or ideas anywhere, it's really easy for those ideas and inspiration to just disappear. Journaling has gotten me out of so many different ruts and hard experiences in my life. It doesn't matter what's going on in my life, how busy I am, or how overwhelmed I might be with work.

I can always go to my journal, capture what I'm thinking, and formulate a plan for the future. Honestly, I feel like my journal is one of the most stable rocks in my life. If I'm feeling lost, a lot of times I also find wisdom in my old entries.

So, when you start to journal this way, you really start to think about your different actions, what your philosophy and values are, and you can pass this down to the future generations. If you've ever read or heard of the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, it's one of the most famous self-development books of all time. And he didn't even set out trying to write a book like that.

The book is really just a reflection of the things that he learned and how he should act differently in the future. When you journal and you write down why you want to do something and how you're going to get there, you increase your own motivation and you increase the chances that you're going to succeed. Just think about who is more likely to achieve a goal.

the person that methodically writes out a plan and then strategically gets there or the person that kind of just has a vague idea and just generally moves towards it. When I first quit my job to pursue entrepreneurship, I wrote down in my journal all the different things I wanted to try and what are all the different possible outcomes. Anytime I felt less motivated, I would just go back to that entry and read how motivated I was and how much I didn't want to go back to what I was doing at the time.

If you're trying to do something that's difficult or something that you've never done before, one of the best things that you can do is to develop plan in your journal. It's better than watching any YouTube video or reading a book. The second notebook that I use is this phone size pocket notebook.

And I use this to keep track of the things I need to do for that day, shopping lists, and anything else that comes up. Having a pocket notebook is really powerful because I don't have to carry around this notebook everywhere and worry about losing it. I can just carry this around and write in this.

This is a Fieldnotes pocket notebook. And I carry this around with me wherever I go. In my other videos, I shared how I use a to-do app to keep track of different deadlines and complex projects.

But what I like to do every day is to actually write down the tasks I'm going to do and to actually cross them off. This forces me to be more realistic and conscious about what I can realistically get done in a day. So throughout the day, I just work off of this analog notebook.

It's a lot less distracting and I don't have to carry my phone if I go out. Because these notebooks have one side that's lined and one side that's grid. I use the line one for writing down my to-dos, uh, writing down any different thoughts.

And the grid side I use for different sketches, doodles, or even guitar tabs. I find it super satisfying to actually cross off the things I need to get done and to look back on different days and see how productive I was. As far as how I structured the daily page, it's pretty simple.

So, on the top, I write down the date and day, and I write down three things I want to get done for that day. Those three things are the most important things I need to get done. Below that, I'll have less important tasks, errands, and habits I want to get to.

For me, the separation is really important because it makes it obvious what are actually the most important things to get done that day. When I just look at a big list of to-dos in my to-do app, it doesn't really prioritize what the most important things are. And if I just work off of that, I might choose the easiest things, which are not the most impactful things I can work on.

The pocket notebook is really powerful for creativity because chances are you're going to be outside. You're going to have a new idea and you can just capture and write it down and get back to it later. When I was in Japan, I tried to avoid using my phone as much as possible.

So, I used my pocket journal a lot. I wrote down different words that I learned. I wrote down directions of how to get to different places.

And I I even would get in the habit of doodling on the train. I think this is one of the best things that you can carry around to stop infinite scrolling. A lot of times if you're feeling bored, you might feel the impulse to start scrolling on your phone.

But actually creating something like doodling or writing out different ideas is way more stimulating than any Tik Tok that you can see on your phone. It's really a lowcost investment with infinite ROI because even if you don't want to carry around all day, you could also just keep this on your desk and write down different things that you want to get done. With these pocket notebooks, I tend to go through them pretty quickly and sometimes I even tear pages out.

Whereas with my main journal, I only use one for every year of my life. Now, I want to talk about how I actually integrate the different apps that I use on my computer with my analog system. I'm not really a analog purist where I'm going to not use any new technology.

Like, I find a lot of value in using stuff like the Whoop and uh other trackers to track my stuff digitally and it's really a lot more practical. But how I actually integrated with my analog systems is that I make sure to capture that data into my notebook. So, for example, my Whoop gives me a sleep score every day, and I might write down my average sleep score for the week or month in my monthly page.

The reason why I write down the data I care about into my journal is first, it gives a context around the other entries and habits I'm tracking in my journal, but second, my journal is going to outlive my phone or any app that I'm using. Back in college, I had a period where I was tracking my budget and finances pretty closely with an app on Android. And after I switched to iPhone, I kind of just forgot about it.

And then I lost all that data. And that data would be super interesting to look at today to see how far I've come and how different my spending habits were back then versus now. But because now I use a completely different app, I use a different phone and I don't even know how to find that.

I just don't have access to that anymore. So while it's useful to use digital abstract things, it's also important to realize how fleeting these digital apps are and how often new and better apps come along. So, I always make sure to capture the data that I care about digitally onto my journal.

Whether that's my sleep score, my finances, or even how many miles I ran that week. It can literally just be one line in your journal, and it'll probably outlive the app on your phone. By writing down the data that I care about into my journal, it makes me really conscious of the things that I'm tracking.

The way I see it, the purpose of these different tech devices and apps is that it makes it easier to track different things. But, it's up to you to distill the most meaningful metrics and to capture them in the journal, which you will keep for your lifetime. I think if I hadn't started journaling when I turned 20, I really wouldn't be where I am today.

Like even this YouTube channel, it's only possible because of journaling because I set out a plan and stuck to it. If you're watching this video and you made it to the end, this might be a sign for you to start journaling. I'll leave a link below to the full guide which you can check out.

It's the best way to get started. But I'll see you over there. Let's get it.