How many times have you picked up your notebook, promising to log an entry daily, only to gradually lose practice as your life gets busy? Now, it's collecting dust in the corner of your bookshelf, and the pages are mostly unwritten. You may try again someday.

We get it — keeping a journal or planner can feel like something of a chore when your day is already booked from morning to night.

Enter the bullet journal, a rapid-fire journaling method developed by Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer living in Brooklyn, New York, and inspired by years of his own personal organizational challenges. The concept is simple and yet, it's sweeping the nation as the most efficient activity for gathering your thoughts and unifying not only your hectic schedule, but your entire existence, period. "Bullet journaling provides a framework that encourages users to stop and think," Carroll explains. "It's about cultivating a habit that will allow you to lead a more intentional life, pursuing things that actually matter." Over all, bullet journals are a welcome reminder to sit down and give yourself the few minutes you deserve by means of a process that makes you happy.

You may be wondering what makes the bullet journal method stand out from, say, a storebought planner in which the structure of your to-do list is already configured. For one thing, bullet journaling allows for greater depth and creativity, and it's an exercise in personal reflection.

"The bullet journal is mindfulness practice disguised as a flexible productivity system that uses a notebook to help declutter your mind," Carroll explains. Furthermore, the benefits of bullet journaling are bountiful, ranging from improved memory to reduced stress levels. "Some studies have shown that we have as many as 50,000 thoughts a day," Carroll says. "We are flooded with information. It's easy for the important things to simply get washed away. Bullet journaling allows you to quickly capture meaningful thoughts as tasks, events or notes." According to Carroll, the technique provides mental clarity and focus while lowering the anxiety we feel from everyday occurrences.

So how, exactly, are bullet journals different from the regular kind? Let's break it down.