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Transcript
Just let it hang low.
All right.
How about now? Hello and welcome to the real episode 110 of the erasable Podcast. I'm Tim Wasem, bringing in the new Year with my two co hosts, Andy Welfle and Johnny Gamer. Hey, guys. Hello. Happy New Year. Yeah, it's good to talk to you guys. It's been a while. Yeah, it's a good way to. Good way to ring in the New Year. Absolutely. I've been looking forward to this all day. Even as I was. I just got done putting my kids to bed, and I was walking into the kitchen, and my wife just, like, looked at my face. She said, you should just go to bed. I was like, podcasting tonight. She goes, oh, okay. Do you think you're up for that? I'm like, yeah, I'm up for it. I'm excited. Waiting for this. So it's a new year, and that means that you or I, we might be resolved to try and organize ourselves better for the next, you know, three or four weeks. It's the second week of the year, though, and maybe you're looking for something new already. And we are here to help. We're going to give you some of our ideas or at least give you some insight into how we're planning to organize ourselves in the upcoming year to keep things from falling apart or maybe to help us forget 2018 in certain ways.
I'm ready to forget 2019, too.
Yeah. I'm ready to prep for 2020. So before. Before we get into that, let's do our tools, the trade. And, Johnny, why don't you start us out?
Sure. So it's been a while, so I have a big list. I'm not just, like, watching TV all the time, I swear. So I finally saw the RBG documentary that Andy was talking about and splatted the Black Wing. I got really excited. And so over the break, we were sick for, like, half the break. So I got a good bunch of movies coming there viewed rather, but I'm not gonna list them all, but there's a really good one called the Kindergarten Teacher that's on Netflix. I think it's a Netflix original.
Have you guys seen Maggie Gyllenhaal?
Yeah. Yeah, it looks really good.
I haven't watched it yet, but it's in my list.
Yeah, I didn't want to like it,
but I really enjoyed it, like, a lot.
And I've been spending a lot of time on my Headspace app that I've been subscribed to for a long time.
That's a Great app.
Yeah. That's how they make money. Everyone subscribes and no one uses it. It's like pressure. Like, oh, man.
What do you think of it when you do use it?
Does it help?
Yeah. I mean, not to get like, you know, tmi, but after using it for a week at therapy, I was like, man, I feel a lot better. Like, what's different? Like, well, this is different. Like, that's great.
Cool.
Yeah.
So there's a sort of a companion book. I don't remember what it's called. It's called the Headspace Guide to Mindfulness and Meditation or something. It's got like two titles. They released it twice that I've been reading. But you miss Andy Puddicombs accent when you read his book. Like, just talk. But yeah, so I also read. We'll talk about this later. More. The Bullet Journal Method, which I think lots and lots and lots of people who do podcasts and blogs have recently read. And I read Pops by Michael Chabon, which was disappointingly short, but really good.
I agree on both counts. I had pre ordered that when I was so excited when it came out and showed up on my Kindle the day of. And I started reading like that evening. And then I. By the time I was going to bed, it said that I was like 35% done. I was like, hey, wait a second. Paid full price for this.
How many kids does he have?
4.
Is that right? Yeah, Yeah, a lot.
Only about half as much as Johnny does.
Yeah, he's beaten me so far.
Yeah.
Watch your back, Sean.
Yeah, I pulled that out while Rosie was napping and finished it and I thought that I forgot to get my kids. I was like, oh, crap. Like, surely three hours have gone by. But no, it was like an hour and a half. But totally worth it. He's so funny. And my other recent obsession is a band called the Birthday Massacre, which is like not as violent as their name sounds. Their imagery is like really cute. It's a lot of purple and bunnies, so.
A lot of purple and bunnies.
Yeah.
Some of these bunnies are bloody. Sure. Yeah. If you have Spotify, check them out. They're, you know, it's free. If you have that delicious Spotify premium or I guess, you know, it's not free, but it's free. Yeah, it's like unlimited, non illegal pirated music in your pocket all the time.
I thought about doing it with. Because they've got that deal where if you bundle it with Hulu, it's like two bucks or something.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, there's some kind of criteria for how to do it. Or maybe it's just for students now that I say that out loud. But yeah, there's some kind of deal out there where if you bundle it with hulu, it's like $13 to get both.
Oh. Oh, man. Because I pay for both Spotify premium and for Hulu separately. So yeah, I'll see if I can combine them. Some.
There might be some kind of caveat about that as far as who's allowed to do it or if you have to be like a first time.
Yeah.
Subscriber. But you can just use a different email address or something.
Yeah, yeah, we have the family plan, but they're so weird about saying that you have to live in the same house. That I'm paranoid that they're tracking the phones. So I haven't shared it with anyone that doesn't live with me.
Don't be paranoid about Johnny. They are tracking phones. Just assume that they are.
They're sending Facebook messages.
Oh, yeah, we got one of those.
Those are fun. It's really good and lazy. Like I'm changing Rosie's diaper and she's screaming and I want to put a song on. Just a yell and the British voice
says, okay, Google play Baby shark.
Awesome. So I misspoke. Last time we recorded, in addition to the fact that I screwed up what episode it was, it was one or nine.
Fake news, Johnny.
Fake news, the Volume four. I wasn't so wild about the grit, but I've been using it constantly and like, man, I like, really, really like this pencil. So bought another box as an apology to Blackwing for saying it was too gritty in the paint. I hope you guys felt it because I'm sure that you didn't sell like
a million boxes of them in the last month.
Yeah,
I'm definitely buying a backup for this one. Yeah,
they're so soft. They go really quickly too.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm. I am writing in a field notes pitch black pocket notebook, the newer one with the double covers, which is so nice. Cool.
Yeah.
How about you, Andy?
Oh, man. We started watching at the beginning of this week that new show that's on Netflix called Tidying up with Marie Kondo. The show version of that book, the Life Changing Magic of Tidying up, which I think we may have talked about on the show before, because it's something that I think kind of goes hand in hand with collecting and acquiring a lot of stationary items and just like, you know, stuff in general.
And it was Wopex bring you joy.
No, Throw it away.
Thank it and throw it away.
Yeah, no, it's a. It's a really good show. Have either of you seen this?
I watched the first episode.
Okay, it's. It's interesting because in the same way that people really like Bake off, like the British baking show, because it's very like, feel good and everybody's supporting each other. This one feels the same way though, like, compared to like hoarders or something. Because. Yeah, somebody, somebody on the show mentioned, like, she does not, she does not shame you for all the stuff you have in your house. Like, people had like floor to ceiling piles of like baseball cards, for example. And she was just like, really friendly. She didn't judge and she didn't even. She wasn't even like, oh, no, maybe you should think about getting rid of some of that stuff. You know, she basically teaches her method, which is like, hold this in your hand and if you find that it sparks joy, you should keep it. And it was. It's really good. She's. She's much younger than I thought she would be. Marie Kondo. She's in her. I think she's in her 30s. She's. She's very small and she's very Japanese. Her English is not great, so she has an interpreter with her during the whole thing. But it's, it's. It's pretty fun though. The one I like, I like best so far is this. This couple in la. It's two guys who moved in together and one of his parents are like coming to visit and he's talking about how, you know, papers, like sentimental papers from his youth are the hardest thing to throw away because they all spark joy. And I just like, really connected with that. I have so much crap from when I was a kid. Yeah. So it's a.
Be great if he had. If she had an episode where. Or if like SNL did a spoof of it where it's like a hoarder. But the person, like, legitimately with everything was like, yes, this brings me joy. Like, this brings me joy. It's like, what about this old burrito?
Bring lots of joy. Yeah, it's. We were talking about how it would be a really funny, like, SNL mashup of like, you know, Marie Kondo and like one of those really mean people on HGTV that's like the, you know, love it or list it people. I think that's like, who. It's like, just sell it.
My favorite moment of that first episode is where like the couple and they have like two little kids and they've, they've started to like do the cleaning or the, the purging process or whatever. She comes to visit and the wife says something like, yeah, it's starting to like we're feeling like it's, it's almost like kind of sexy that we're doing all this. And then Marie Kondo looks at her and says, oh, that's so American. Like, that's such an American thing to say. Like, I just cracked me up.
Were those the people who kept calling you their babe all the time? Babe. Hey, babe.
There's like fighting. Okay, babe. Yeah, yeah, but just put your stuff away, babe.
There's one, a few episodes in where it's a couple with two kids who just moved from Michigan to la and they moved from like a big house to a two bedroom apartment. And Johnny, if you're gonna watch this show, you should definitely watch that because I'm sure you can relate. Living in a tiny apartment with kids and like trying to manage all your stuff.
I usually just go nuts and get rid of it. Yeah, feels good.
Yeah. So, so really good show so far. We're about halfway through.
Awesome.
The other thing I was going to mention is a former colleague of mine, a coworker from Facebook, Hazel Jennings, just started a podcast called the Hardest Part. And I think it's weekly, but each episode's about 17 minutes long. And she just interviews a lot of people about like, you know, a hard thing that they've done or like the hardest part of a part of their life or something. So she, yeah, she talks to people about the hardest part of something they've experienced, like training for a half marathon or having cancer as a teenager or photographing naked men. And then she edits. She edits it down into a like just a conversation like thing. So there's a few interesting episodes in here. Like going BALD in your 20s, for example. Yeah.
In your teens. Does she have one of those yet?
No. She should interview you. Starting your first business at age 57, leaving the Mormon church, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's really great. Super little bite sized consumable episodes. Be sure to listen to that. And then as far as podcasts go, I also listened to one episode of it, but I've started to dig into more. Uh, it's an episode on called Gastropod and it is basically about. It's the kind of stuff I really love, which is food through the lens of science and history. So they talk about A lot of things. Um, my favorite so far is this one where they, like, talked about last September. Um, and it's something that's been bugging me for a long time is, which is that mangoes in the United States are horrible compared to mangoes that you can get in other countries. And I thought it was because of, like, their relatively small shelf life and that. And no, it's because of politics and import, like, issues. So we just get really crappy mangoes in the US if you go to the Philippines or if you go to Peru, which is where I had them, or India, apparently, they're just, like, exponentially better.
So.
Really interesting episode.
One of my best friends growing up was from the Philippines. Like, or his family is from the Philippines. And I remember going to his house growing up, and whenever his grandparents would come back from a trip to the Philippines, they would bring, like, huge boxes of mangoes back with them.
Yeah, you have to, like, go jump. Jump through all sorts of bureaucratic hoops to, like, get them. Get them here. But, yeah, I. I have had mangoes both in the Philippines and in Peru, and they were just amazing. And then all the ones in the United States are just, like, the worst compared to it.
So.
Yeah, and there's. There's an episode about espresso, and there's an episode just, like, about soda, and it's really good. The Gastropod podcast. I'll link to those in show notes. And I am writing, actually, just this morning, I chopped about 2 inches off of a Camelin Supreme HD pencil, which is that, like, metallic blue with red and white cap just to make it kind of like pre Steinbeck stage. And I've been writing with that in my clandestine field notes. How about you, Tim?
Nice. I was. Let's see, this is towards the end of last semester, once the semester was ending before Christmas break, and things were really heating up and I was getting stressed out and I needed something new to watch, and I needed something that it was, like, feel good, but made me laugh and wasn't cheesy. And I ended up landing back on Cheers, which I haven't watched in a very, very, very long time. Have you guys ever actually watched Cheers? Like.
Oh, yeah.
Besides just, like, random reruns, I watched
it when it was on.
Yeah, well, yeah, so I haven't watched it since. It was, like, on, like, maybe towards the end or, like, with. Well, no, it couldn't have been that. Not that old. Sorry, Johnny.
I mean, I was a little. I was a little kid, but.
Yeah. Yeah, but I had just Seen it, like, in reruns. But I just started the beginning and just watched straight through. And I think what it sparked it is I had heard someone. I was listening to Dax Shepard's podcast, the Armchair Expert, and he had mentioned something about how he was interviewing. Gosh, what's the main, Main guy in Cheers who's in the good place? Ted Danson.
Yeah.
Was interviewing Ted Danson. And Ted Danson, they ended up talking about how Cheers, the. The pilot for Cheers is considered the gold standard of a comedy pilot in Hollywood. And so people who are writing a comedy pilot, they always go to Cheers. And, you know, that's one way to learn is they look like you got to make sure that you do all the things the Cheers pulled off in that first one, which is pretty. Pretty cool, you know, and then. And then just the whole fact that you watch. I watched the whole first season, had such a good time, and then realized that the entire first season never leaves the bar, which is, yeah, pretty amazing. You know, in episode one of season two, they're in Diane's apartment. What in the world? Like, what's. Something happened. Don't change. You know, the show's totally changing, but I've really been enjoying that. So I'm like, halfway through season two now. So if you haven't watched that, it's on Netflix. It's really.
I watched it in its later seasons when it was on, but then I remember watching some episodes in syndication once. You know, once it was over. And I really liked it, mostly because I love Frasier so much. And Cheers, of course, is the, like, Frasier is a sequel to Cheers.
So, yeah, I haven't gotten to the point where Kelsey Grammer shows up, and I can't wait until he's gonna be so young. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm really enjoying Cheers movie wise. We just saw. We saw two movies last week, which I think is the first time we've seen two movies in the theater in one week since we had kids. And we saw A Star Is Born and we saw Mary Poppins Returns. I'm very glad that we chose Mary Poppins Returns for our anniversary and not A Star Is Born, because that would have made for a very different evening.
Happy anniversary. Yay.
Addiction and Suicide. Let's go get some appetizers after this. So A Star Is Born was very good. I really like. I enjoyed it, but it's one of those times where you see a movie and you're like, that was good. Music was good. Never gonna watch it again. You know, like, you Feel that, like, sureness where you're like, I enjoyed that, but not putting myself through that again, because it was pretty. It had some pretty dark and heavy moments. So I listened to the soundtrack a little bit because I've talked about Jason Isbell on this podcast, and he was involved in the writing of the songs for that. For that movie.
So Katie's a really big Brandi Carlisle fan. And it's funny because Brandy Carlisle shows up in just, like, this really small cameo appearance, and I don't even think they say who she is.
Yeah.
And it's at one point when he's on stage with. Shoot. I don't remember who he's like, what the performance is, but it's like a big deal. And he kind of, like, falls over. He collapses.
Yeah, it's on, like, the Grammys.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's Brandy Carlisle up there, which is interesting.
And I wouldn't have. I wouldn't.
Yeah, Katie was. Katie made a little sound in the theater, and it was exciting.
That's cool. But, yeah, so I enjoyed that. I think the songs are worth it. And I thought Bradley Cooper did a really good job.
Yeah.
But Mary Poppins Returns was fantastic. We had the best time at that movie. And we saw it at this, like, crazy big theater with, like, you know, ceiling to floor screen, and it just felt like, if you're a fan of the old Mary Poppins, it definitely did it justice. But it's almost like I can't imagine how the people who made the first Mary Poppins, if they're still around, if those people wouldn't look at this one and say, man, that's what we were trying to do back then. That's what we were trying to pull off as far as. With the special effects and all the stuff they're able to do now. That would have been way too difficult back then. But they still. Yeah, I didn't mean that as, like, a dig against the old one, but I was meaning, like, the special effects mostly, but they. They definitely did justice to the old one and kept some cool elements of it. Like the old Disney animation style. Yeah, they incorporated that, which is pretty neat.
And I understand that Dick Van Dyke and. And Julie Andrews both made cameos in this, which is exciting.
Yes. Wait, Julie Andrews? Where was she?
I don't know. I haven't seen it, but I remember that. Yeah.
Okay.
That'd be embarrassing if I missed that one. They made a big deal of the. The Dick Van Dyke one. Like, it was super.
Yeah.
Super obvious, but, yeah.
Anyways, you know, Mary Poppins was my favorite movie for, like, years of my childhood. There would be, like weeks where I would just watch it every day. Yeah, my mom tells me I had a little sport coat and a little umbrella that I would do the chimney sweep dance along with. Along with the.
Oh, yes. It's amazing. That's amazing. That reminds me of. I saw a thing on Twitter where this person had a four year old kid who was just bizarrely obsessed with David Byrne. And so they asked what he wanted for Christmas, and all he wanted, he said was it was a Stop Making Sense suit in an electric guitar. And there's videos out there of this kid, like, lip syncing to, you know, like psycho killer or something or. And he's. He's dressed up in his little gray suit with his sneakers on. Oh, man.
Well, you got. You got Henry Gamber and Marilyn Manson. So
I just found. I just found an article that said why Julie Andrews does not make a cameo Mary Poppins, but does, man. So apparently she makes a cameo in Aquaman, but not in Mary Poppins.
She was busy filming Aquaman.
How about that? She's like, no, come on. Why'd I already sign up for this? So last thing is, I am reading Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak, who is the author of the book Thief, which I know I've talked about before. It's one of my favorite books. That's like one of those books I go back to as a writer that just charges me up and makes me want to write like crazy because I love how he plays around with language. I love the shape of his stories and the way that he organizes his ideas. And this is his new novel that he'd been working on for 13 years that is about a group of five brothers who are. They've lost their mother, their father's out of the picture, they're just kind of trying to hold it all together. And one of the brothers especially takes kind of a big risk to keep the family together. And it's a really beautifully written book and I highly recommend it. Nice. Yeah. And I am writing because it's a special occasion. I'm back. I'm writing with the Blaisdell 600 special grade calculator pencil.
Dang. I was going to say, I think, I think you win the award of, like, most rare expensive pencil used in tools of the trade. I can't verify that, but.
Well, there you go. And just flaunting it. My American identity. Just being a little cocky. I am writing with that and I'm using A field notes. Clandestine as well, which John Pattison, my co host of membership sent me. He sent me one of them. I don't have the decoder ring or whatever, so I don't know what it's supposed to say, but it's. Yeah, I kind of like not knowing. In some ways that's me.
Makes it extra clandestine.
Exactly. Exactly. All right, so let's jump into freshpoints. Johnny, take it away. Sure.
So I already said my first one and I'm going to repeat that. I take back my small insult with Blackwing Volume 4. Sorry. The grid's awesome. So did you guys get pencils for Christmas?
Yeah, I did.
I mean I got three.
Three individual three packs.
No, I got that three dozen.
Three gross three pencils.
That Viking set where the ferals are painted on. Oh yeah, that was. Those are the only pencils I got for Christmas this year. It's kind of sad, huh? I mean, I got a lot of other really cool presents and I bought myself some more black wings. But you know, sad face.
See, my mother always gets me pencils for Christmas, but they're always like souvenir advertising pencils from my hometown. And they're always like the same businesses. It's like the place where she used to work and the public library and then like these other things. I'm like, I really don't want these, but thanks.
I hope you say that like as you're opening.
I do, I do. No, I do not. I always get like a couple good ones mixed in. And this year I got one for the Jello center in Rochester, New York that I think I'm gonna send to Chris Jones.
Cool.
Jello is in like the jello dessert.
Yeah, Yep.
Jello.
Oh boy. Don't even go there.
All right, so moving on. I got no, but I got some. I got a box of Blackwing mmx. So I was really, really excited about that because I've never. I had never gotten a set since they changed the stamp on the side. So I was excited to have one of the new. New generation of the mmx.
That's.
That's it. Me and stationary wise. But I was happy. I was excited about that.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So.
So speaking of winter and stationary, did you guys follow the field notes? Clandestine. Like worldwide puzzle or series of puzzles.
I watched it. I even joined the agents of field slack. But I did not participate because I was hella busy and then out of town. But yes, I watched the video.
Yeah, so you saw the ending where they stole the spring edition plans.
So we should. Real quick, if anybody doesn't want to be spoiled, follow the link in, show notes, and go watch the video. Then come back and listen to the rest of this.
I was gonna say I might need to go watch it because I was about to say I don't understand the question. I won't respond.
Yes. Do you want to give some background, Johnny?
I didn't follow the puzzles very well, but apparently there were, like, online puzzles and things that people had to go pick up in various cities throughout the entire world.
Yeah, there was a decode, but I did not. I did not do it, so.
And then I don't actually know how that tied in with the video, but the upshot of the video is that you had until yesterday to send field notes an email with two points. One, your suggestion for what they should do for spring, and two, how you
use your field notes.
So I was wondering if you guys did this, but I don't think it sounds like you did. Now I feel like a nerd.
No, you're delightfully nerdy. No, I followed that, and I just. Like, I realized at one point I have no. Just, like, good. Good suggestion for field notes. Like, I don't. I can't think of a good, like, thing to suggest. Yeah. So I did not participate specifically because, like, I feel like there's. As a. As a person who co hosts a stationary podcast, I felt an extra pressure to, like, have a really, really good suggestion. So I did not.
Yeah, so I was. I suggested trains, but I'm sure that everybody. Or lots of. Lots of people did that. So then I had the idea for American philosophers. Like, what's more American or field notes than Pragmat? Three figures. James, Purse, and Dewey. That would be really awesome. Like, kind of esoteric, but, you know, not as esoteric as some other stuff.
If done, that would be really.
You don't.
You would need a code wheel. You know, they're on Wikipedia.
Would it just be made out of, like, I assume, like, cigarettes and. I have no idea.
These would be, like, brown. Three kinds of brown. Maybe like corduroy browns. Actually, they could do it corrugated. Like American tradesmen, but three different browns. Oh, yeah, that would be cool.
Yeah.
Ooh.
See, this is proof. So when they do that. It was my idea.
I'm sure they won't hear this.
I was thinking of. It'd be cool if they did. I mean, they did the. What was it called? The one that had all the different crops that are grown.
Oh, yeah. National crop. They did that like a railroad.
I was Gonna say if they did. I was. I was thinking that would be cool. But I was thinking if they did one with, like, those are the natural things that are grown. If they did. Did the same thing, but with the, like, products that are made or like, steel and, you know, that would be really cool. Sort of like the hard equivalent to. To those, like, all the industries that America has been known for over the years or something. Slavery.
Current industries. Okay, 50 years ago industries.
Yeah, exactly. All the industries that Japan is known for. That's what we're gonna do now.
We'd basically be like Amazon,
The Internet edition.
All right, so in the group recently, Christopher McCann offered up some. Well, they're really wopecs, but Staedtler has branded them as the Norris Eco Pencils. So I don't know if you guys remember, they used to do 2B, 2H and HB, but they were all kind of the same. But now they have a 2B that is like 2B. It's awesome. All the people that hate Wopex, if they wrote with this to be. They would eat their feet and feel silly because it's so good. So thank you, Christopher. I'm just, like, really happy to get this package. And my last fresh point is, if you are in Baltimore or if you live on the northeast corridor of Amtrak, because it's really close to the train station, come see my band play February 20th at the Auto Bar, which was just listed by Rolling Stone as one of the 10 best places in the country to see live music. So we're excited. We're excited for this. And if you show up, I'll bring you some kind of cool pencil if you let me know ahead of time. Like 2:11.
Did you hear that, everybody in the world? Go see Johnny perform, and you will get a 211.
You'll get a dozen two elevens, the first three people.
Yeah.
It'll offset the cost of your Amtrak ticket and, you know, protection for walking around Baltimore. Not funny. All right, I'm gonna shut up now. Pass the baton to Andy.
Hello. I'm here to talk to you today about Bill Cosby in Baltimore. No. In something maybe more controversial than both of those things. I was on the 1857 podcast, the latest episode. So, as you all know, TJ Cosgrove has a very dirty mouth now. We. It was great. We recorded at noon my time, which is like 8pm TJ's time, and 10pm Stuart Lennon's time. Stuart is great. He's. He's the CO. TJ's CO host. In 1857. And he is, he owns Nero's Notes, which is a big reseller of like stationary and like retailers of stationary notebooks in the uk and he runs that business in the uk, but he lives pretty full time, I think in Cyprus now. He's really great. I think I've talked about this podcast a little bit on here before, but yeah, they're just, their dynamic is really fantastic. So I was a guest, we talked a little bit about Erasable, a little bit about pencils, but actually the conversation kind of naturally evolved to talking about online like social communities and especially like niche communities like Erasable and RSVP and the Field nuts. That was really interesting just to, you know, talk about the balance between, you know, a lot of people aren't using Facebook for, you know, various reasons, but a lot of people are using Facebook specifically to be in the erasable group. We discussed that a little bit. So Lincoln Show Notes. If you want to hear me talk to a British guy and an Irish guy, I sound just like extremely non educated. I first tried to talk like John Wayne so I could sound like extra American, but well, you gotta get your black wing on. That was going to the Show Notes as an intro anyhow. Second thing I'll mention is I have a pretty big announcement actually. Just, just kind of like shared this online today. I have a contract that I signed in December to write a book.
So awesome.
Me and Michael Metz, who is a friend of the show and fellow pencil enthusiast, he's in our group, we every year do a workshop at a conference in Minneapolis and this is kind of the book version of that workshop. It's all about people who write, who work on design teams and write for software interfaces. Basically like what the two of us do. This is kind of arguing that this is, you know, this, this kind of writing is a form of design and we talk about how to like integrate it into your design practice. So it's a little bit about writing, a little bit about design and like very specifically about the intersection of those. So it's called Designing with Words, how to Write for Interfaces. And it'll be coming out in late 2019 through Rosenfeld Media. And you best know that I'm going to like pimp that all over the place once, once that happens.
So you bet you better.
It's pre. Specifically for a niche industry. It's a publisher that publishes a lot of like UX and UX design, like, like stuff and they do conferences, but definitely in my circles it's, it's a big deal. So I'm excited and proud and I usually don't talk about this stuff in advance of having actually something to show for it. But we're going to be doing a lot of like kind of writing in the open and, and discussion and you know, discussion among like the community about like what we're writing as we're writing it just very collaboratively. So we wanted to kind of like talk about it sooner rather than later and hopefully don't jinx ourselves by talking about it and not having something by the end of 2018, 2019. But yeah, I'm excited about that. I'll be a little later talking about how to like integrate this into my day because it's pretty hard. I'm not a particularly disciplined writer. So. Speaking of books, Plumbago 5 is just about to go to the printer I think. I don't know when this episode's coming out, but if it comes out on Thursday it will have gone to the printer today. It is shorter than issues three and four have been, which I think is a good thing. I think it's going to be a really good, tight, tight issue. But also it looks incredible. I think. I think we've talked about the COVID here before which was designed by Meredith from CW Pencils. Actually Meredith is leaving CW Pencils. She announced to full, full time concentrate on illustrations. So yeah, she has been getting lots of gigs presumably that pay way better than the Club Muggle gig does. But yeah, she's fantastic cover, fantastic insides. It's going to be really good. Thank you Harry Marks for co editing again with me this time around he's really focused a lot on the actual editing of it and I focused a lot on the layout and the logistics of it. So I think we worked good together there. So if anybody wants to come to San Francisco and help me fold and staple next week
there.
Yeah, just take it. Take a train. If you get on the train now, you might be here in time.
Well I can just like pick them up and do them on the train right back.
Oh perfect. That's great. Cool. Last thing I'll mention is. Oh actually Plumbago real quick, I'll mention again you have another, another good week or so to get your pre orders in before. Before they switch over to regular orders. So if you want to save 2 bucks $2 on your issue, buy them now. Erasable.com plumbago but once we start shipping it goes up to the full $10 in price. And finally, this is something I don't want to. I'm not going to steal Tim's. Tim's thunder by talking about his Obama related freshpoint, but just made a trade with somebody in the Field Nuts group about something I sort of tangentially been aware of, but I've never really been thinking about, like how to get one. It's a pack of Obama field notes, which is something. Yeah, again, I didn't really realize, but it's from one of his campaigns and I really don't want to tell the story of it too much because I'm probably. I just don't really know the story quite yet. But it's through obama.org, which is his foundation. And it's a pack of field notes. There's three of them. They're various, various colors of gray. And at the bottom there's like some little colored squares, little rainbow squares. And the pack is called together and they're dot grid, or excuse me, not regular grid. And they look really delightful. So there's something better than pocket notebooks. It's Obama. So I can't wait to try these out.
If anyone has another pack of these. Yes, I will pay you handsomely for it.
Tim has some fancy black wings, so
I got some Black Wing 211 Black Wing 24s. I'm willing to part with those. Not all of them, but a reasonable amount of them for those of anybody knows how to get in touch with us when you sent us that and text the other day, and I had no idea that these existed. Zero. So it's. Those look really cool.
It's the advantage of. The. One advantage of being in the Field Nuts group is you find you just like, see these things a little bit. But, you know, it just goes to show, I think I mentioned it here before, after I went to Chicago to the Field Nuts headquarters. I like just was standing around with Michael Hagan and we were talking to Jim Kudal and Brian Bedell, and I asked him like, how many additions, like custom editions are out there that just have not, you know, been like entered the Field Nuts consciousness. And Jim looks at me like, and just like, there's lots. So many of them, just tons of them. So that's kind of fun, I think.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cool. Tim. That's. That's my fresh points. How about you?
Yeah, well, I'll start with. You're talking about the Obama field notes. My little Obama note that I was going to share and I actually should have mentioned this when we were talking about what we're consuming is that I'm finishing up the world as it is by Ben Rhodes, who was his senior, I think his last title was something like Senior Foreign Policy Advisor or something. But he was like one of the right hand people to Obama and a close friend of his. And he wrote a really fantastic memoir about his time with Obama, which started before he was elected and went all the way until he left office. So he was one of the few people who stayed with him that entire time. And it's really a fantastic book. And so he's talking, he was also a speechwriter. He did speech writing for him a lot, especially when it was about foreign policy. And there's a section in that book where he's talking about Obama writing Dreams of My Father, his memoir. And how that book he felt like was a Rosetta Stone for writing, helping write speeches for him. And he said that he just dropped in this little note that he had heard that Obama had written that book by hand because it helped him think and it helped him focus and it helped him pace himself. I thought that was just like a cool little anecdote that people might like to hear. We always like to talk about people who are writing by hand these days. And I thought that was a really cool example.
How do we find out what he used to write it?
Yeah, don't think I haven't googled it, but I also for Christmas, Jane got me a book called To Obama that is a sampling of. So while he was in office he would have, he had a special assistant give him like hand pick him 10 letters. They're both like supportive or not supportive that he was going to respond to in writing. And so it's like a sampling of those letters and his response responses. And it's, it's, it's unbelievable. There's such a cool book. But you can see he has the most amazing handwriting. I love his like crazy like straight up and down sort of meticulous script that he writes in. And he's definitely writing in pen.
There was an interview with that, that the woman who run, who ran that office, like the official correspondence office. And she talked about that and it was so interesting and she talked about all of these considerations that like you wouldn't even think about like how, how much they have to vet these and how they respond to them. And she. I'll try to think of what podcast it was on that I heard this, but it was so good.
Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar. I wonder if I came across that at some point. Like what it was at the. You ever listen to the Slate working podcast?
I have not. I don't Think it was on there, but I would be willing to bet it was either 99% invisible or on the media.
Okay, then I could have been 99% invisible because I haven't listened to the other. But that sounds familiar. I think I might have come across that at some point. Just forgotten about it. But excellent. It's a really cool book. So that was just a fun little note about him handwriting the book that I thought you guys would enjoy. And.
Oh, real quick, let me quickly jump in. It's a 99% invisible episode called 10 Letters for the President. We'll put it in show notes.
Awesome. Just a quick update with memberships we've released at this point. We're recording now. We've released four episodes, which is really funny that it's episode 0, episode 1, episode 2A, and episode 2B. So we've released four episodes, but we haven't even made it to episode 3 yet, which I'll be working on editing tonight and getting that out by tomorrow.
How's the. How's the reception been so far with it so far?
It's been good. Yeah, it's been just going really well. We've got some really cool messages from people reaching out with tips on people to talk to or even people who are reaching out and saying like, hey, I'd love to come on and talk to you at some point. One of them being the Window Bear, actually person. Well, no, not yet, but we. John did interview his daughter who runs his foundation, like the very center. And that's going to be episode four on the podcast. So that's coming up. So that's. That'll be really cool. So he knows the podcast exists. We know that.
What's a podcast?
Yeah, that's might be possible, but one of the people is actually. I could tell it was. Or no, it was a person who knew the people who all these characters were talking about were based on. So it's like we always talk about this book called Jaybrook Rowe. And he's like, oh, Jaybrook Row is based on the barber. His name was this and he lived down the street from me. And I can tell you all about him. So. So we're getting some pretty cool insights into some stuff. And we've recorded, I think, six episodes, seven episodes. And then we're about to release the fourth one. So we're kind of trying to stay ahead of it because we all. Nothing makes me appreciate you, Andy, more than having to edit a podcast, because you've been doing that for us forever. And I suck at it, it takes a long time and it's hard work.
I will say the more you do it, the better you will get at it. The first few episodes of Erasable, I mean first of all they were terrible quality, the editing, but they took me forever and it was just basically trying stuff out. It's still, I mean I'm not like super quick at it and not the best editor in the world, but definitely goes faster after a while.
Yeah, well. Well, I appreciate you nonetheless. It's a lot of, A lot of episodes. And yeah, I got two more that I wanted to mention. Two more pressure points. One is I saw a tweet the other day from the fellows at Take Note and I'm going to assume this was Ted who posted this because I've heard him talk about Ebbets Field flannels before. Which is a company that remakes old vintage baseball uniforms and hats like from all over the world and like Negro leagues and old versions of baseball teams. Gear that's not available anymore. But also like Japanese teams, Korean teams, minor league teams, college teams and all this. But he posted a hat that we'll put in the show notes that is the hat for a team called the Tombow Unions. And there's a team in Japan that's called the Unions that for one, just for one year, For one year was owned by the Tombow Pencil Company.
Wow.
Which is really cool. And so it's. And then they, you know, move it moved into the hands of somebody else. But they recreated this hat and the hat is just black and then has the. If you have any Tombow pencils or most Tombow pencils have, especially like the mono pencils have that dragonfly logo on it. And so it's got a yellow version of that dragonfly logo on the front of it and it's very cool. So I ordered myself one of those and I can't wait to get it and wear it out. So that's a cool little piece of worlds colliding pencils and baseball.
For me this website is really interesting. They have, they have so many weird things like, like the, like the San Francisco Seals, which was a 1940s team.
That was the team Joe DiMaggio played for I think before to the Yankees, if I, if I remember right.
Yeah, yeah, it's somebody named Lefty o'. Tool. Well, no, nevermind. It's the left, the Lefty o'd model, which is the best name.
Lefty o'. Tool.
Lefty o'. Tool.
That's cool. Yeah, I can't wait for that to come in. So if you want a baseball themed or a pencil themed sort of baseball hat,
they have something called the Kansas City Cats. I'm going to get this for you, Johnny. It's just a picture of a house cat. I'm going to put that in show notes so you can see it.
Send me a box of Benadryl with it.
And the last thing is, I got a new pencil case that I was going to share about. It's the Global Art Supply pencil case, which I first saw when I met up when we recorded Episode zero in Nashville. And John Pattison, my co host, had come and we sat down at a table to kind of like work out some plans and he busted out this thing and I just had, you know, one of those like total nerd out moments where. What is that? Like what is that thing in front of you? Tell me what it is. And it's basically, it's a zip up case that's hardback but covered in canvas. And on the inside it holds 24 pencils on some really like well made elastic fabric that you can just slide in pencils or pens or whatever you want to put in there. And then it closes pretty slim. So you can slide it into a messenger bag really neatly. And also a really cool little feature is that the zipper, when you zip it all the way closed, when you get to the top, there's a button on the back of it so you can snap it to the. To like the binding part of it so that it doesn't dangle around and make noise, which is just a cool little, cool little feature. They're cheap. The one you can get the 24. The one that holds 24, you can get on Amazon for like 12 bucks.
Hold an unsharpened Blackwing.
No, it definitely will not. So you probably have to like. The only pencil I was able to fit in that had freshly been sharpened is a one that doesn't have a ferrule. Like a. It was. The Viking element was the only one that I was able to put right in as soon as I had sharpened it. Other ones need like two rounds of sharpening and then they can fit in. A black wing takes a little more, but I just love it. It's really compact and it holds a ton of stuff. So you're in the. If you're. If you're looking for something to hold a bunch of pencils, then this is a cool option. I have a picture in my Instagram feed if you follow me at TimothyWassom, there's a picture of, like, my journal. And it's sitting up there in the corner of the picture. And you can see all my pencils and my. I have one Keras Customs pen stuffed in there as well.
It's not as cool as a burrito pencil roll, but.
No, it's not. Yeah, we were talking about that before we recorded. I saw that in Facebook. Somebody, I think it posted it in their erasable group. And I actually had a student that had that last year, beginning of last year, kid walked up and she just blew me away. She unrolled. It was full of colored pencils. And I was just like, you just got an A for the day. Your daily grade is. Nate, this is amazing. So, yeah.
Cool.
So that's all for me. I think I'm finally ready to shut up. We're caught up. Let's move on to our main topic. We're going to talk about planning and organization strategies for the new year, or spoiler alert, lack thereof. In some ways, but not. But I. Not totally. I'm just saying that. Jest, but yeah. And, Johnny, do you want to start us out again on this?
Sure. So, as I mentioned earlier, I picked up the bullet journal book, but it came out right before National Novel Writing Month, so I didn't use it. And then I had to use again or wait another month because of the new year. Dah, dah, dah, dah. So anyway, I finally started it, and I am doing it, like, super minimalist, like, by the book, with a black Bic pen. Because, you know, if you host a podcast about pencils and you want to use a pencil pencil, like, oh, shit, this pencil's better. Like, this one's smeared. Ah, this doesn't match, et cetera. So, yeah, but it's so minimalist that I'm really bored already and disappointed in the Leuchtturm 1917's paper that everyone says is so awesome, it's like, you know, the same as Moleskine paper, which is fine.
But yeah, like, I wonder because. Because, you know, sometimes Moleskins can be a little inconsistent with their stock. I wonder if, like, this is. I can't imagine this is the case, but maybe we just get different Moleskins out here because the Leuchtturm compared to the Moles, the Moleskine paper is so different from, for me, for what I see.
Yeah.
I read online that they have batch differences like Moleskine does. So that's disappointing because, you know, if you're buying a brand, you want to get the same damn paper. Yeah, but I mean, the book itself is gorgeous. I bought the one that has the. The blacked out edges from the gift set. Why not? It's so pretty.
Yeah.
I don't know what to do with all these bookmarks. This is like the land of plenty. I don't know what to do with more than one, let alone three. They're just kind of like, hanging out. Yeah, Looking weird.
Hanging out. Looking weird.
So I pulled out the calendar pencil from Generals today because, like, really, if you want to get bored, pull out a black pencil pen and writing a black notebook with black edges for like a week. Like, Jesus,
just get like a hello Kitty notebook after this.
Yeah, I mean, it. It's a cool notebook. I like it. It's definitely no distractions. And there's something about that paper and a fine bit crystal that makes my handwriting look like complete garbage. Like, you know, I'm not a calligrapher, but I usually write legibly, so that's disappointing. Thank you. So I haven't been doing anything for planning lately. Like, we have a kitchen calendar. It's one of those cow things with the folk art. And I have various attempts at planners and, like, Moleskine daily diaries and a hard time sticking with it because you'll skip a week and instead of just picking up like, oh, I've got to catch up, and then suddenly five weeks go by and you have to catch up for five weeks because you're like, the hell with it. I'm never going to do it again. I'll save 20 bucks next year and not buy this damn thing.
So, Johnny, for, like the. For like, the one person who listens to this podcast who doesn't know what the bullet journal method is,
how would
you, like, really concisely sum up the philosophy?
So I think on the back cover, they call it mindfulness disguise as a planner, which is probably a good definition of it. It's basically this, like, a tracking method that you can put in any book and customize to, you know, whatever you're interested in or you want to track and stuff like that. But then, you know, with that freedom comes, man. Holy crap. This is complicated because if you do a search on Instagram, you know, everybody's got these pretty notebooks, and then they're like, you know, people fight online about being orthodox to the method and, like, being minimalist. Is this minimalist? Why are we using all these mild liners?
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, jesus, it turned into, like, I never touched.
Turned into, like a meninist movement kind of a Thing like, oh, women are being too girly with these.
These are. It's like the fountain pen world, I guess if you're not like fountain pens, you're just like, there's so much. And everybody, everybody's like so passionate about their silly opinion about a thing that they bought on the Internet like anyone else could buy. Not like pencil people.
You know, we're completely different.
We're open minded as af.
Open minded af.
Yeah. No one ever made fun of anybody for using a wopex in our Facebook group. Sons and Punks.
There's an episode title.
Put that in right now.
Yeah. Have you guys tried this endeavor?
Several times.
Yeah.
And it just sucks the soul right out of me and makes me gouge my eyeballs out. I hate it so much.
So, you know, for a time, probably like 2013ish, right before we started recording this, I was like super into the idea of the GTD method, the Getting Things Done method by David Allen. We talked about this a little bit. I think Les and I talked a little bit about it too when she was on not too long ago. And I, I think that like writer Carol's method is kind of following suit and that he's not. He's turning this into like, not just an organization system, but also just like a lifestyle. Right. Like it's, it's all encompassing. It's about how you run your life. It's not just about how you like, you know, record things and stay organized. And there's just something in me that just automatically like rebels against that. So I kind of. Yeah, I kind of do this thing that's maybe like 30% as detailed as the GTD method on, like on my computer. And I do this thing that's kind of maybe like 30% of the getting or. Excuse me, the bullet journal method, like in my notebook. And so I kind of think that maybe. Yeah, this is just sort of like the analog extension of how I. How I'm GTD ing. Right? Like, yeah, how, how, how orthodox, like, what is the balance you found, Johnny? Like with, with your. Your bullet journal?
So starting out, I'm totally by the book. I'm not doing weeklies. I do the. What do you call it, the future log, the monthly and then rapid logging. But I've noticed that in rapid logging, I have nothing to write about in my journal anymore. So I'm like, huh, like this kind of suck on the funhead of like writing about your life, but also taking off the pressure. So I don't know how I feel about that. Yet and you know, I don't have a job in the traditional sense. So my to do lists aren't things that I generally write down like, you know, don't leave my kids at school, remember to get them. But so I'm trying to write some of those things down to make it remind myself that I don't actually just sit around playing on my phone all day and changing diapers. I'm not putting diapers in there. But you know, other stuff just keep, that's awful.
Keep a poop diary.
Yeah boy, like stay at home. That would be an interesting tracker. Maybe use brown pen. But you know, not having a job with projects, it's hard to remember that you're actually doing something all day. So that part's been a good confidence boost.
Buy giant cookie at Starbucks for Rosie.
Yes. That's always her second or third breakfast. She's a morning eater. She loves cookies all the time. Like cookies for breakfast. Like go to hell. Also look at that face and tell me you wouldn't give her a cookie
if she had 100%. When I was in Florida in early December visiting my sister and her, her daughter, we went to Starbucks and I, I got Elissa, who's, who's four, I got her a giant snowman cookie and
oh, those things are good.
Immediately thought of, of Rosie and her like I really wish that I could eat a cookie the size of my face. Like that's like that doesn't scale up very well.
We do go to one coffee shop where the cookies are the size of a grown up space and like an inch thick and they're homemade, they're like legit really good. But you know, I can't order that.
I'm a grown up.
So Rosie gets one and then I eat it
there. Yeah,
yeah, but so I don't know how it's going to go. You know, they recommend that you do it for a month and no other planner system that I've had is there, you know, a place to put like a dedicated tracker for like, you know, your mental health or how much coffee did I have every day for a week? Just sort of look at that and like, oh, I don't drink as much coffee as everybody says I do. I'm still human. But yeah, that's, that's interesting. So you know, everybody says they adopt or adapt this for their life and their interests and what works for them. So maybe in a month I can check in and see if it's still going and how it's going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like to hear what you think, because, I mean, I feel like we're similar in a lot of ways. And I just wonder if some of the things. The problems that I end up having with Bullet Journals, I wonder if they come up for you because, I don't know, it just makes me.
I'm bored. Like, really bored.
Yeah.
I refuse to get out markers and start going nuts with it for Instagram purposes.
Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like. And this is. I might be like. As far as. I feel like, Bullet Journal is really good for people who maybe. And this is, like, a total assumption, but just, like, people who need to work hard to focus on things, like, to, like, keep your attention aimed at the right stuff at the right time, which maybe, like, I. It's not something I've had a lot of problems with. And so sometimes I feel like I'm just keeping, like, a pointless bullet list of things that I've already done that I'm like, why do I. Why am I doing this? Why am I gonna move on to the next thing?
Well, I think I read and, like, the.
I don't have time to sit down for 15 minutes and shift things over to the next day and, like, do all this stuff. Like, not 15 minutes, it'd be less than that. But, like, it's just. That's not how I want to spend my time. I tend to work more in, like, a chaos method with, like, a field notes in my pocket where I'm constantly jotting stuff down and work through it and then move on. And it's Tim.
Tim's Chaotic neutral, as far as his character type.
Chaotic neutral.
Oh, it's a Dungeons and Dragons concept. It's like you have these. Oh, I'm really going to get this wrong. You have these like. Like, character motivation. Let me look this up.
So isn't it, like, chaotic and lawful is your relation to, like, outward laws and. Yeah, good or evil is sort of like a moral or ethical thing?
I think so. And I think it has to do with, like, the, like. Like philosophies, but I know they use it a lot for, like, Dungeons and Dragons and, you know, RPGs like that. It's. It's your alignment. You can be lawful good, Neutral good, and chaotic good. You can be lawful neutral, neutral neutral, and chaotic neutral. And you can be lawful evil, Neutral evil, or chaotic evil. So Tim's Chaotic Good.
All right, good to know.
All right, well, I do think, going back to bullet journaling, I think that probably somebody like me is, like, exactly their kind of, like, target Audience Because I have, like, I have the kind of job where there are a lot of, like, projects and to dos and like, specific things I have to get done not on a particular deadline, but just like, in a certain amount of time. And I also have a lot of different, like, aspects and context of my life. Like, I have work and I have, you know, pencil stuff and I have home stuff. And then of course now have like, you know, like book stuff. So I think that especially something like gtd, but then also the bullet journal method, that's like something that it's supposed to try to help with. Right. And I think, like, Tim, though, I don't think that I can just like, sit down and just like transfer this stuff over for like minutes on end every day. Um, which I think the point of it is, like, you will slow down and like, think about it and that's what will help you do it. But I just. I can't do it.
Yeah. I have not been doing that part at all. I keep forgetting to look at the damn thing.
Yeah.
I have to, like, leave it where I'm gonna sit on it and then I look at it.
Yeah.
Not kidding.
One of my problems with one of the other ways, another problem with it for me is that I feel like it's made for people who are visual. And I'm a pretty visual person, but like, in a different way where, like, I want to see things, like, sprawled out in front of me. So like, usually how I end up planning a week is that I'll make a Google Doc and create a table that's got like, boxes for each day for the different things I've got to take care of. And I can like, throw things over here and over there and kind of set it all lining up for the whole week and that just with the bullet journal, it's.
It's a.
It's almost like too wordy. I like to draw. Draw little pictures and like make it, you know, and like just be able to see the whole week at a glance just so that go to the same place. Which I guess from what you said, from what you said, there's, I guess some way to do that in bullet journaling that I just had never come across. But I'm still not going to do it.
Yeah.
So.
Yeah.
So Johnny or Andy, you said in the notes that you're going to be going more digital. And I. I am as well. And I'm curious to see what you're going to say about. Say about that. So what does that mean to you? That you're gonna be going more digital.
Yeah, it's. It stinks. But I think. I think the reason I just sort of realized I need to do this is because the, the volume of output that I will be held accountable for or need to. Need to create is higher than it used to be. Like, it's. There's. I'm gonna have to write like a, Well, I guess half a book length thing, but also like, you know, going through and collaborating on Michael sections too. But I. What. The big thing I'm trying to do is just establish a daily writing habit. And this is something that, like, you know, for all of my life, I have never really been able to do. Like, I've. I don't know how many times I've like, tried to just establish a. Just a daily journaling habit. And I, I journal now like, every, like once in a while, especially when there's something big, I have to just sort of like, think out in my life. I have day one, which is, you know, we've talked about here before. It's a Mac app that's just really gorgeous. And I also have a, like a little field notes and a confidant that I. I can journal into if I want to do it longhand. But I'm. I'm trying to realize, like, I'm setting daily writing goals for myself and, you know, trying to get through this, this book. And I'm. It's something that, like somebody like Les. Les Harper, who just finished NaNoWriMo this year, she was very. We talked about this in that episode, but she was super transparent and really disciplined about like, writing every day and posting her word counts and doing all this stuff. And that's something I really, really admire. So it's something I want to try to figure out my version of that.
Right.
And I think mostly, like, it's really hard to do that on paper. I'm sure as hell not going to count up the number of words that I would write every day on a paper page.
I did that all for NaNoWriMo.
It's. You're a better, better, more patient man than me for that. Yeah. So I'm kind of trying to figure out how to do this. I. And a long time ago, I sort of like conceded to just keeping a planner, like a, like a weekly planner digitally because my calendar is at the mercy of others so much that there's just no way I can easily keep that in sync with like, you know, a paper calendar. Some people do, like, they write down at the beginning of the week kind of all of their appointments, but I feel like I'm just not organized enough to make that happen. But yeah, so I'm mostly doing that. I have so far journaled every day in 20, 20, 19. That's only eight days. But I'm going to try to keep that up in the mornings. And I also realized that, like, the time. The time that I need to carve out for myself to write happens in the mornings. Like the. Like early mornings around 7:45, 7:30, when I get to work and will probably be about an hour before I actually start doing actual proper work. So it's my. It's my time to like, start caffeinating up and to write this stuff down. So to kind of like kickstart my brain, I gave myself just like, you know, 150, 200 words of just like stream of consciousness writing in day one. And then I switch over to Ulysses, which is a really nice kind of like, markdown editor, kind of plain text editor, similar to IA Writer, which. Tim, you use IA Writer, right?
Yeah, Yeah, I do.
Yep.
Yeah, that's good.
Yeah. Ulysses is a very similar thing to that. So trying to. Trying to keep up with those. I really do believe that, like, you know, with some exceptions, some people are just like, really, really, really busy and they're overly busy and they need to, you know, figure out how to tone that down or just are just really busy. But I really think that most people out there who complain about how busy they are just like to complain about how busy they are. It's, you know, time is fluid, Especially time that you carve out for stuff is fluid. And I really knew going into this that, like, if I'm going to take on this big project, I'm going to have to, like, scale back some other things. It's really hard finding those other things to scale back. I'm probably not going to be as involved in sort of the beginning and sourcing of content for the next issue of Plumbago. But, yeah, I'm trying really hard not to be just that guy who's like, complaining, bragging about how busy he is, because I hate those people and I work with a bunch of those people. So, yeah, going to. Yeah, going to probably be doing more digital productivity things. There hasn't been a really good. And I don't think there needs to
be a really good
online version or computer version of. Of bullet journaling. I'm. I'm sure something out there exists and I just don't even know about it, but I think just a combination of like a to do list app, which is for me an app called Things combined with my calendar app. I think that's kind of how I'm going to try to stay, stay organized and keep my tasks on track. I am really like keeping though, you know, keep on using my pocket notebook and a pencil for like, you know, kind of quick on the go ideas involving something I want to put in the book though. So I do. I'm not going to like abandoned abandon any of that.
But
how, how do you two do like that quipped that quick capture stuff for stuff you're working on.
Pocket notebook.
Yeah, yeah. What do you mean by like quick cast?
Oh, if you're writing a book or like a, like a story or something like you like oh, here's an idea for this character or hey, I really think that this is a plot point that could get me to the next thing and just like being able to capture it quickly instead of just trying to remember it and then just like letting it blow into the wind.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely bog a notebook too. But I also, I live in Google Docs these days and so I use Google Docs every day, all day especially. I mean and that was already the case before I got my Chromebook that I'm working on now. But I just use Google Drive for everything and I've got it on my phone and so I'll often pull that up and I have documents where I can just kind of use it as like a brain dump place or if I need to drop something in. I do that a whole bunch. And I was going to actually tell you about. Have you guys ever heard of Wavemaker?
Wavemaker?
So Wavemaker is. I just found it about a month ago and it's basically a free. It's a free web based version of like Scrivener. Huh something. And so it's a, it's a novel writing app that is all browser based and so you can create projects that then live in your live in your Google Drive account, but then you can open them back up on this website. It's pretty, pretty amazing. And I think it's in some sort of, it's in some sort of trial period right now. It's a beta. So it's really cool.
That is really cool.
So you guys, I mean if you're interested in that kind of thing, check it out and just play around with it because it's really cool. It's like Scrivener, but it's like a handsomely stripped down version of Scrivener. Where it's simpler, but it kind of has all the essentials of it. You can still do the organizing of chapter headings or ideas on the left and then add, like. Because you made me think of it with. When you were talking about Ulysses, but also when you said about quick grab things. Because you can also make. Just like in Scrivener, you can make index cards, cards, basically, that have ideas on it within it, that can be bundled with a chapter where you can like, jot down little ideas and stuff on the side.
That's super cool. I will try this out. Yes. Scrivener, I've always kind of, like, avoided because it's so darn expensive.
Yeah, I got it for Christmas at some point, and that's the only way.
Yeah. Interesting.
Yeah.
I'll play around with this because I am working. Michael and I wrote a pretty detailed outline as part of the book proposal process. And so I am using the outline to try to, like, write this, like, write all the rest of the stuff out. And I think that that is something that Scrivener would do really well with. Right. Like taking this outline and turning it into a novel. So I'll try this with Wavemaker. That's really fun.
Yeah. Yeah. Take. Take it for a spin. I've enjoyed it. I had an idea this year a couple weeks ago when I was thinking about New Year's resolutions and kind of like getting organized and stuff, because I'm definitely. I can just kind of say ditto on some things. Like, I want to journal more. And I have been journaling more already in my Baron fig, the Excel confidant. And I've really been enjoying that because it just really. The times when I'm journaling are happier than the times when I'm not. Because that's as, like, a pretty heavy duty introvert who, like, spends a lot of time in my own head. That's the only way to kind of clear the cobwebs out on a daily basis. And so I really. I have to do that if I want to feel sane, you know? And I think you guys are pretty similar, but, like, it charges me up when I do that, so I've got to stay with it. But the one idea I had was I was thinking, thinking about resolutions, or I actually heard an interview with somebody who said, I don't like the word resolutions because it sounds like you've got one shot at it. I like the word intentions. Like, to have it to live a year with, like, intentions instead of resolutions. And so the idea I had is I took a ambition field notes, the graph paper one and what I'm doing. And I actually stupidly don't have it with me. I've got it. It's at school, but I'm going through and just on the 48 pages of that notebook or no, what is it? It's a. It's 48 front and back. So it's 24 pages, right? Or no, it's 48 front back. Yeah, yeah, 48 front, back. So on the first side of them, I am writing one thing on each page that's basically just like a little reminder for myself of something that would probably be a good idea for me to do. So some of them are like,
you
know, text something nice to your wife or you should probably drink a glass of water. You know, like stuff like that. Just like I'm just filling it all up and then I'm carrying it in my, my, my messenger bag. And so like throughout the year I can just kind of pull that out at any point and just like open up to a random page and there will be something there that is probably something that I usually neglect or something that I like, need to think about more often. Something like that. So that's something I'm trying to do this year to keep myself kind of. For me, that's like keeping myself motivated. And some of it's like organizational, you know, like, make sure you take care of this or whatever. Because I do get strung out at certain times, so. And so far I feel like really positive about. I haven't really used it that much because it's so early in the year, but I think it's going to be something nice to just have on hand where I can open it up and it'll say something like, put your phone away and read a book or whatever, stuff like that. So yeah, that's one idea I had.
That's a neat idea
because I keep. I don't. I use Google, Google Docs and I like. I was just saying I create. Most of my planning takes place in like tables that I made on a Google Docs file that I can just keep copy and pasting and adding to throughout the year and then look back over and it creates kind of like a big calendar of my year and I can print them off if I need to. If I need to post them on the wall or something. That's cool. So I don't forget something.
What are some of the things that you track in Google Docs? Like in Google sheets?
That's where I do all, all My. Well, this is just. This is in docs I do, I create a table. And so that's how I do all my lesson planning. Like my school. And this goes like, is where I do just stuff I take care of at school too. But I'll make a table where there's a row, a row for each course that I teach and then like a bonus one for like just notes on the bottom. And then I do columns for each day of the week so that I can like map out kind of a bullet point. This is where we're doing this day. This. This isn't this. And then I can drop in links to of stuff that I've got to use that just kind of sit in the bottom that I can click in to a YouTube video or whatever when I need it. And then also on the bottom in the notes section, that's where I can put more like administrative stuff. Like this day I need to make sure I take care of this. This day I need to plan out this thing for next week or I need to check in with this person about that. And so basically my entire week, most of the time, by the time it's all filled in, it can live on just two pages of like a landscape oriented Google Doc sheet.
That's cool.
Yeah, yeah, it works for me.
Yeah, yeah. And do you, Tim, do you have a journaling habit? Do you like, journal on a regular basis?
Yeah, I journal almost every day. Sometimes, like usually the longest times are the ones when everybody, everybody's managed to go to bed before me and I can sit down 30 minutes and write, but usually once or twice a day on, you know, maybe five days a week or something, I'll sit down long enough to write like half a page or something.
And you're doing it long. You're doing a longhand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah. I use that confidant that I was just talking about, that Excel, the big. Yeah. Confidant with blank pages.
That's a good one.
That's been the best fit for me.
So are you using pencil on that paper?
Yes. Yeah.
Sweet.
Yeah, I mostly use like since the least. I just switched back to that notebook because I had been trying out a different like Amazon Basics Moleskine knockoff for a little while, but I switched over to this because I wanted a bigger format. And so I've been using basically a 602 or the lake Tahoe.
Tim's a pencil podcaster. Why would he use a pen in his journaling?
Come on.
Or why would I do strange things in January.
Why would I admit it if I wasn't
Cool.
Yeah, that's how it was. So it's pretty. It's been pretty regular recently and of course there are always periods of time where I like it's not. But usually more often than not, it is cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nice.
Well, yeah, this has been, this has been great.
Yeah.
Been good talking to you. I'm good hearing your plans for how to keep your together in the upcoming year. We could all use a little bit more of that. So. Yeah, let's. Let's close this thing up.
Actually, before we do that, I'm really interested in making just a call out to listeners whether you're in the group or if you're on Twitter or whatever. I'm really interested in seeing other people's sort of like planning and productivity setups if it, if it is indeed something that's like you're A, you're willing to share and B, that you think might be of interest because it might be, you know, different than, than other stuff. Because I'm. I'm annoyed at myself for how much I like just like reading and learning about productivity as many people do. So yeah, I'd be interested to see what listeners do out there.
Yeah, absolutely. I would too. I'm the same way. I like finding those little hacks and tricks that people figure out that you might feel like they're idiosyncratic or something or something that wouldn't work for somebody else. But you probably be surprised. So I definitely like your as well.
Nice.
Cool. Well, Andy, where can people find you on the Internet?
Well, I have been working on updating my personal website because our publisher said that we should have good websites. So you can find out what I'm up to and a link to all of my crap@andy WTF?
Andy Crap?
Yes, Andy Crap. Andy WTF. And then you can find me on Twitter and Instagram as wellfli. How about you Johnny?
You could find me on Internet@pencilrevolution.com and on social media @pensolution. How about you, Tim? We could get you another blog.
Yeah, I do sometimes. But you can find me TimWassom on Twitter, you can find me on TimothyWassom on Instagram and you can find me and my co host of the membership podcast at membershippod on everything. And membershippod.com the show notes for this episode can be found at erasable us110. If you haven't joined our Facebook group, please do. It's facebook.com groups and also while you're there. Go ahead and like our Facebook page, which is facebook.com erasablepodcast you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram raceablepodcast. And thank you for joining us tonight and we will talk to you soon.
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