Weekly Discussion Post (Returns!)

[annofowlshire]

After a great Journal Jam, it's back to the weekly discussion!

Comment to tell us about what you've been up to with your journal, planner, or other stationery related items. Tell us about a new pen or a coveted notebook. Consult the hive mind with a problem you've been having. Post a picture! Whatever goes as long as it falls in the realm of journals and planners. Remember, you can always make your own top-level post, too!

If you missed the Journal Jam, feel free to continue adding to the conversations!

Comments

[sporky_rat]

Augh, I missed Journal Jam because I was getting my feet under me with schooling!

I've gotten my planner in good order with school assignments and family life, plus bills. Have a monthly and weekly set up and time carved out Saturday night to go over it for the week and anything that didn't get done the last week that gets moved over.

[lunabee34]

I hope your semester is off to a good start!

[olivermoss]

Not much going on except that I need to recommit to my habit tracker. I had a fever for a few weeks and fell out of using it and... I am very dumb about restarting things like that. It's not a big deal, self, just restart. No need to feel weird guilt.

I've added a new thing to my tracker, a weekly count of how many 'keeper' photos I've taken. I started a photoa day blog over on tumblr and have years to content to post, but I want to make sure I keep replenishing my folders. My goal is 7 pictures a week that I consider keepers. But obviously it will vary a lot as some weeks I will find lots of stuff to shoot, and sometimes not. I just want to keep and eye and see what my productivity level is like.

[lunabee34]

A photo a day blog is such a cool idea! What sort of things fo you take pictures of?

[olivermoss]

I take pictures of a lot of stuff, but the blog is focused just on my pictures of Portland. Street art, neighborhood cats, general Portland stuff. It's here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dorkvania

One of the great things about tumblr is that I can fill the queue once in a while and lot it go

[lunabee34]

I only got to see two pics before the site told me I had to log in to see more, but I love the yarn one and the justice sign. Those are great pics. There's an all girls college in Atlanta and every Halloween, they put up these yarn decorations on the grounds that are really cool.

Being able to queue things up sounds so amazing. Just do a flurry of things and forget about it.

[olivermoss]

Oh, I didn't realize Tumblr did that!

Thanks, glad you liked them. If you are ever curious to see the raw photo dumps as they happen, I've got them all on my photography tag: https://rathany.dreamwidth.org/tag/photography

Yeah, it may take a while before my work finds it's audience on tumblr, but it is hilariously less work that any other site and organic growth is still possible there.

[lunabee34]

It's never done it to me before! I am miffed. Lol

Thanks for the link. :)

[mothereader]

I finally finished my planner and had it printed through Lulu. I posted about my process here and there are a few photos at the end of the post if anyone wants to see how it turned out.

[lunabee34]

Oh wow! That looks awesome! I love the month name going vertically on the calendar page, love the relect on the month page, and your vertical weekly spread.

Seriously cool.

[mothereader]

Aww thank you so much! Designing it was a rad experience by itself and then holding the result in my hands? So awesome!

[lunabee34]

I am very much enjoying taking meeting notes in my Apica CD notebook.

I have also been enjoying using my Ohto Rays flash dry gel pen, a Sharpie gel pen, and a variety of Pentel Pearl gel pens this week. Very smooth writers all.

[kalloway]

It turns out my (mostly) hobby-planning for the month attempt was a dud. I have several prompt lists I want to write some things for, but the way I'd tried to organize them really didn't work. Trying a different set-up now to see if it'll be easier on my brain. ^^;;

[lunabee34]

I hope the next iteration works better!

[kalloway]

Thank you, me too! ^^;;

[lassarina]

I got a delightful stamp-cleaning pad that made my September set-up really easy and I loved it. I have a black/grey/dull lavender theme of planets and stars and I'm enjoying it very much.

[lunabee34]

That sounds really cool. What makes the pad easier to clean the stamps than just wiping them off or whatever?

[lassarina]

It's this one, which is basically a large-sized scrub brush for stamps. I also got a spray bottle of stamp cleaner and you just spritz the stamp, wipe it a couple times face-down on the pad, and every bit of ink has vanished, much more efficiently than rinsing/scrubbing in the sink. The cleaning of stamps afterward was always kind of annoying to me and now I will not have problems with it!

[lunabee34]

That sounds so useful and so much easier.

[annofowlshire]

I haven't even replied to my own post!

The last week or so has been mad - child came down sick for several days, and then only recovered just in time to start at school! The school schedule is only part time this week so we've also been doing a lot of shuffling with friends for childcare until the before/after school clubs kick in next week... arg. And then work has been its own crazy as my "lieutenant" (as it were) is off on holiday...

I find in these times, I don't use my planner as fully, and what I do is more utilitarian. There hasn't been any washi tape or stickers, sometimes my daily pages turn into multiple days of running to-do lists because that's how thing are...

And that's all fine, it's there to be whatever I need it to be at the time. A to-do list, a place to store quotes and thoughts until they're collected elsewhere...

Other things not reported during Journal Jam:

I did start a habit tracker a couple of weeks ago, as sometimes I need it.

I've been using 750 Words again a lot for my daily brain dumps. I've found I can export my monthly babbling as a txt file which is great. Not that I expect to go through them, but it's nice that I can.

I downloaded Obsidian for longer form/longer term notes/collection/knowledge storage (which I think someone... catness maybe? mentioned a while back) on my new computer and have been trying to use that instead of Evernote since I never use the advanced features in Evernote anyway. So far so good.

[lunabee34]

Are you drawing out your own habit tracker or using Gantt chart in a planner?

Also yay for this comm working as intended; so happy when people mention they are using things that people have suggested. :)

[annofowlshire]

I draw my habit tracker out - this is not mine pictured, this is author VE Schwab's, but it's what mine is inspired by. (And also what I have a handy uploaded image of after referring to it on another comm.)

[lunabee34]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

back to Hobonichi

[egret]

I went through a whole "which planner to use" crisis from my digital planner to just using Outlook and finally ended up back in my Hobonichi Techo Cousin, which I think is the answer. I even found a different Moterm cover for it (tucked up in a pile of discarded planning stuff) which works better for my purposes than the official cover I bought with it. I even found some thin matching notebooks to stick in the back and use for To Do lists. Yesterday I ordered a new Hobonichi for January so I'll be prepared. This year they're doing the Cousin A5 size in an English version!

While I was ordering stuff on JetPens.com, I also ordered a shiny pink pen to go with my cover and some pink, purple, and teal ink cartridges.

Japanese stationery makes me happy.