Open Discussion Thread

[annofowlshire]

How goes it?

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!

Comments

Experimental Concoction

[annofowlshire]

This week I'm trying something a little different. The Hero's Planner Kickstarter encouraged me too look back at the PDF I have of the Hero's Journal and re-evaluate it. I'm using inspiration from the Hero's Journal, but modifying it specifically to my needs/desires.

Firstly: the theme. I kind of love and hate it. As a storyteller, and particularly one aimed at fiction for a female-identifying audience, I'm a bit bored of the Hero's Journey. I'm not looking to conquer, I'm looking to connect. So I've rebranded mine as the Witch's Journal for now. This mostly means reframing several of the terms. Instead of My Quest, it's My Calling. Instead of Allies and Threats, it's Potions and Poisons. Etc.

Second, I quickly realized that I didn't need a two-page spread for a single day. The original Hero's Journal has a lot of illustrations to fill the space, but even with my washi and stickers, it felt excessive. So I condensed it into one page.

And then just as quickly, I came to realize that I'm going to get bored of repeating the same header over and over. I understand the power of rewriting my "calling/quest" each day, but I don't actually need to do that. I just need to be able to see it. I don't want to be ungrateful, but I find daily gratitude starts to become rote and loses meaning. So I think next week I'm going to try a two day, two page spread with a shared main header.

Finally (for now), the reason I wanted to DIY into a blank journal was because the main block I had with the Hero's Journal is that it's very single goal-focused. I'm... not a single goal-focused person. I have a career*. I have a family to look after. I have a hobby farm. I have other hobbies, too! These all tend to bleed together in my day to day life, and for better or worse that's how it needs to be right now. A journal aimed at a single goal is super powerful. But it's not what I need, I need something that let's me see and optimize how it all interacts. So my layout gives me a bit more flexibility to blend the spheres of my life, but also at the end of the week I have endless blank pages in which to write notes and whatever, and then I start the next week's spread wherever that's left off.

Is it a winner? I guess we'll see....



*I do actually have a work journal as well, but it's more for meeting notes and sketching out ideas and other such things and lives on my office desk and is less for day to day planning.

Re: Experimental Concoction

[lunabee34]

I love these changes, especially the reframing of connections vs conquering. I think about words for a living, and I know that's such a small change, but you look at that every day, and I think it's a meaningful one.

Re: Experimental Concoction

[feast_of_regrets]

I love the thought process you put into the restructuring. I love the way putting things in practice in journaling sometimes clarifies what we really need, too. I tried a gratitude in the A6 last week and it was nice, but yeah repetitive and sometimes needlessly time consuming. I love the way you've got your spread working for you instead of against you. And always we'll see, for sure.

[ravengown]

I don't think I have posted anything here since the start of the year!

I mostly journal instead of plan - I have one book that contains my to do lists and experiments in how to plan weekly (a Hobonichi Weeks), and a Hobonichi A6 for journaling and decoration. I actually kind of want to size up again for next year:.. but an A5 is too big. I could swap to a B6 maybe, but then I would have to lose all of my pretty Hobonichi covers... so really, I should just cut down on decoration and keep using my A6, probably.

I am still trying to hold back my magpie tendencies to buy more stickers and washi tape. I do use them, but not as fast as I accrue them. The eternal struggle.

[lunabee34]

Hi hi! It's good to see you.

I mostly journal instead of planning as well.

I hear you re the hoard. For me it's notebooks. I have so many and yet I always want more. LOL

[feast_of_regrets]

So many magpie tendencies! The struggle is so real! And I really only use washi in like two places once a month! Oh, well.

I landed pretty hard in B6/B6 slim, and the cover situation is such a wasteland, especially if one does not do well with leather. (It's me; I do not do well with leather - too bulky and stiff.) A6 are so fun and so cute though. (And Hobonichi's covers are SO great!)

random words on random pages

[oldtoadwoman]

I've been letting things slide for so long, I forgot where I had put my planner notebook and had to hunt it down. I've now largely separated things out into a notebook where I'm trying to keep track of major things that I don't want to forget, habit trackers, to-dos, and such, versus the freewriting notebook where I spew out random thoughts in my head that I don't want to save. (I just skim things over the next day to see if anything important came up to be logged more permanently and then the freewriting pages get destroyed. There's something weirdly satisfying about destroying old pages.) I'm not sure how efficient this is, but keeping it all in one place wasn't working very well for me.

Re: random words on random pages

[lunabee34]

I love destroying old pages. It's why I have finally realized that to-do lists are much more my speed that using a traditional planner. I love throwing away a completed list.

Re: random words on random pages

[feast_of_regrets]

WOW I LOVE the idea of a freewriting notebook built to destroy! *takes notes*

I'm definitely starting a permanent collections/important stuff notebook next year. Or maybe this year if I can get a minute to sit down and do it. (To dos and habits have to stay in their own separate place for me.

[octahedrite]

Looking for habit tracker recs, both analog and apps. :) I used to use Habitica and I'm too used to it/fed up with it for it to be useful to me any more.

[ravengown]

Do streaks motivate you at all, or is this more like "how many times can I manage something in a week/month"? I don't use a digital tracker but I've experimented with how to format an analog one some!

[olivermoss]

I use a Rhodia notebook for mine. Stuff for me kinda has to be very custom to use useful, which is why I draw layouts. It works for me, but during unproductive or bad weeks it can feel like the set up effort is a lot. Like 'didn't I just do this? what happened to the week?'

[annofowlshire]

I'm not currently Habit Tracking, but when I do, I do something like this (although usually with less goals). It can be streak oriented, but I also like use it as a temperature check. I don't need to, say, do crafting every day--but have I done it this week?



This example (and idea) is not mine, it's from author VE Schawb.

[lunabee34]

What about something like this?

https://www.jetpens.com/Midori-Habit-Tracker-Diary-Blue-Green/pd/29215

[feast_of_regrets]

Only two things have worked for me for habit tracking:

1. I keep 7 colors of highlighters with me usually for other color coding things, so for the first part of this year I picked a spot in my weekly planner and did 7 columns of highlight however high it had to be for however many I was tracking (usually five; two I was trying to cement and three I will forget if they aren't either a habit or an item on my to do list). Then I did MTWRFSS across the top and that was my habit grid, which worked for me because no drawing. I do one line for partial and an X for completion.

2. Jibun Techo Days has Gantt charts under the monthly calendar and they are phenomenal. (My current issue with them is that I also use this space for project tracking and I want to put in a sleep/mood graph, so the 7 slots available aren't enough.) You don't have to use this specific planner; you can get a notebook full of Gantt charts like this (JetPens link). (You can draw them too, but I hate drawing spreads. Actually now that I'm looking at this I probably need to implement this and move habit tracking completely out of my planner. Thanks for helping me think through that!)

I got tired with Habitica, too.

A5 (or 8"x5.25") thin unlined journals? cf. Moleskine cahier for thinness

[yhlee]

I'm still dying for want of a thin, softcover journal in the A5 or Moleskine cahier 8"x5.25" range that has fountain-pen-friendly paper (I'm spoiled, I like Tomoe River, but it doesn't have to be that literally) and is unlined. Show-through is okay (...Tomoe River) but the last journal I tried has horrible bleedthrough. I'm literaly at "do I take my stash of A4 Tomoe River, suck it up, just bind my own??" but if someone has recs I am all ears. The Moleskine cahiers would be perfect if the paper were better for fountain pens and I could for love or money get the unlined ones without having to order them online. But I'm thinking, if I'm ordering online anyway, maybe there's a better option???

Re: A5 (or 8"x5.25") thin unlined journals? cf. Moleskine cahier for thinness

[ravengown]

From the description, these look like they're blank? I really, really love Galen for their leather products, though, but these look more than passable...

Re: A5 (or 8"x5.25") thin unlined journals? cf. Moleskine cahier for thinness

[lunabee34]

Does the soft cover need to be soft because you're wanting to fold the front cover to the back cover when you're using it? Or do you just want Not Hardcover and it doesn't need to be that flexible?

How thin is thin? What kind of page count are you looking for?

Do you want thread and glue bound or is staple bound okay?

Re: A5 (or 8"x5.25") thin unlined journals? cf. Moleskine cahier for thinness

[intothisshadow]

GoodINKPressions on Etsy makes ones I think could work for this, using Tomoe River 52gms and 68gms papers, both white and cream. You can choose between plain, ruled, dot, or grid. I've got one of their A5 68gsm plain ones and I love it! Here's the shop URL: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GoodINKPressions

[olivermoss]

Another week, bought more stuff from local artists. I already used a few stickers for an upcoming layout and also cut up the sticker sheet so it would fit in the little folder in the back of my journal:



The event was my local comic shop putting on a mini comic con. I have a post about it here.

And next weekend is Pride PDX so, probably more stickers there. I am not doing a layout for this week yet because I am assuming I'll want to use stuff from the upcoming weekend.

[lunabee34]

Once again, those are awesome!

[feast_of_regrets]

LOVE these!

[annofowlshire]

Ooooh! Love the cryptid stickers!

[feast_of_regrets]

I had PLANS for July, which I have already discarded LOL.

I got a Jibun Techo Diary (the vertical planner) in A5 slim because I realized the Jibun actually scales its spreads up to a larger grid for the A5 (rather than just reprinting the smaller spread with more real estate the way Hobonichi does from the Techo to the Cousin). I just had to know if I could make it it work, and it was on sale. (It's such a pretty planner!) Anyway, that lasted like a week and a half. I think it is time for me to give up on the vertical weekly format completely.

Fortunately, I have really hit my stride with the Jibun T. Days in B6 slim. I added a Hobonichi weekly supplement to the front of it so I can have the next week preplanned and that seems to have filled the only hole I had in this system. (The supplement is a vertical weekly, but I'm only using it for reminding myself of the forecast and whether I have meetings first thing in the morning so I'm not late, which doesn't count as actual planning!) So this is my only planning planner now, and I'm trying to figure out what to do in my Hobonichi Weeks Mega for the rest of the year, besides my list keeping in the back. I'll think of something, I'm sure. (I am still using a Hobonichi Day Free for quarterly and monthly goals and reflections, and that's going well. I might plop a weekly reflection in the Weeks.)

I did move my Tarot/astronomy/precipitation journal from a Hobonichi Weeks into a different Weeks Mega so I would have more room, and I STILL want more room, so I'm looking at a Traveller's standard size planner for this next year.

The experiment with the A6 has been uneven. I tried health stuff briefly, but that's back in J. T. Days. (I like that my planner effectively has a name now LOL.) Then I tried 3 good things, but the format is too tiny and I don't really want to journal about that every day. (Gratitude practices CAN get repetitive, and also sometimes I only have two hours in the evening and I actually DO want to spend them scrolling Tumblr or playing a video game, thanks!) I ALSO briefly tried a reading journal in the A5 Cousin Avec, but I'm not reading enough/there's too much space.

I thought about combining the two, but THEN I saw a whole other thing. The Papertess Designs planner (not currently available; going on sale in September or October for 2024) has a horizontal weekly like the Hobonichi Weeks, but in a B6 size and with 7 blank pages for dailies after. That should be plenty to hold any gratitude and reading, plus a few other things. But if I get that, of course I can't get it until 2024 and it ships from Germany, so I kind of need to do something else to help me figure out if this will work. SO I ordered a B6 notebook from Wonderland 222 and I'm going to go back to drawing spreads for a bit, just for this specific notebook.

If this works, I think I have my planner system completely figured out for 2024 and no one is more shocked than me that it may only have one Hobonichi in it. (Of course, Hobonichi will start dropping their previews next month, so we'll see if that lasts!)

Oh and the pen test: I landed with the Uni Jetstream 4 in 0.38 largely due to most of the other ballpoints I tried being too narrow for a comfortable hold. (I did also really enjoy the Schaeffer Slider Rave, but it only comes in huge and I can't bring myself to use it in any of my tiny books.) And then I immediately discovered the Tombow Mono drawing pen in 0.1, which has the tiny footprint and the really dark ink and writes pretty comfortably AND I can safely highlight on it with both Sharpie highlighter and Tombow brush pens. So I'm using the Uni in the J. T. Days and the drawing pen in all my Tomoe River stuff. And I have not forgotten about photos of my test notebooks; I just haven't had time in a place with good light. I will try to get that done soon. I'm super happy with how the washi tests especially are helping me remember what I have.

[lunabee34]

So much experimentation! *admires*

I am so sad the Jibun Techo didn't work for me because it's so pretty and has so much functionality built in. I just need something way bigger. I cannot be contained! LOL

The Uni Jetstream is one of the most popular ballpoints for a reason.