This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Hey, real quick. Let's. Let's pause it. Johnny, I can really hear you sipping. Loud.
Not the same thing. Slurp.
Hello, and welcome to episode 132 of the erasable Podcast. This is Tim Wasem on hosting duties, and I am joined by my most punctual of co hosts Andy Welfle and Johnny Gamber. Greetings, fellas.
Hello. Hey.
Hey, Tim. Hey, guys. Tonight we also have Caitlin Elgin on the show to help us talk about organizing our lives with paper. Caitlin's been on the show numerous times, perhaps most notably as the host of episode 100. So. Hey, Caitlin, thanks for joining us.
Hey, Caitlin. So glad to be here.
Excited to have you back. It's been 32 episodes since you were here.
It's been a while. Yes.
Yeah, it was summer back then.
Oh, my gosh.
Now it's like dead of winter now instead of winter.
And I have to hide in my bathroom to record this so the radiator doesn't interrupt me.
Oh, no.
Yeah, we had like a 40 degree drop in the last two days here, so it's like 12 degrees outside, but. Oh, my God, a couple days ago I was like wearing shorts outside. Yeah. And so.
Yeah, it's pretty bad here too, guys.
Yeah,
it was like 52 to 55 degrees today.
Cloudy.
Yeah.
I love that kind of weather.
Yeah.
All righty. So before we get into our special topic, let's do our usual thing, get into tools of the trade. And Caitlin, our guest of honor, would you please get us started?
Sure, sure. Should I start with what I am writing with or what I'm consuming?
Go consuming.
Okay. Okay. Well, I've been a little bit busy lately, so I haven't really been reading very many books. I did reread the Time Traveler's Wife just to kind of get the ball rolling for my 2020 reading goals. I know. I love that book so much.
I'm sorry, have you read her Fearful Symmetry? The ghost one that she wrote?
No. I wonder if it's good, though.
I kind of like it better than the Time Traveler's Wife, but it's also very good.
Interesting. Yeah, interesting. I mean, the Time Traveler's Life is just, I think, really beautifully written. So I would totally be interested in her other books.
Agree.
But I just haven't really been reading as much as I used to. But this weekend I binged the Aaron Hernandez documentary on Netflix. Cause I'm kind of on a true crime streak right now. I don't know if you guys listen to the podcast My Favorite Murder, but I'm constantly listening to that and that's kind of gotten me into the world of true crime. And I saw the preview for the documentary and I don't really watch football and I didn't know anything about this dude's story. And it's crazy and convoluted and I mean, at the end of it, it just really made me sad for the NFL because of the concussion injuries that all of them face. And there was this whole thing in the documentary about Junior Seow and I was just like, what a horrible, sad, sad story. But really interesting.
Yeah.
Anyway, so I'm like kind of between shows besides that, but right now I am writing with a. A very, very nearly done Blackwing volume 33 and a third that Johnny actually gave to me. And it's served me very, very well. I'm trying to go through my stationary backlog. I have so, so, so many random pocket notebooks. So I've started kind of carrying them around with me and using them for different purposes. So I like right now have a Telegraph edition from Write Notepads that's just kind of my general scribbles notebook. And I have a field notes. I don't remember what the edition is called, but it's the lunar one that's black with the moon on it.
Oh, lunacy.
Yeah, yeah. That one I'm using to track my finances.
You're using a lunacy to track your finances?
Yes, yes.
Apt for me for sure.
Yes, absolutely.
That or the dime novel. Am I right?
Yes. Oh my God. I actually journal in the dime novel one and I love that, that size so much and I keep this big like it's really huge. I'm like trying to remember what size it actually is, but. It's a blue paket from Poketto. It's a project planner. It's got like all like the months in front of it and then it's got like a daily planner on the back of it and it's been sort of keeping me on task at work.
Nice. The Paquetto, I don't think I know the Poketto Planner.
They make a lot of really interesting stationery. Their designs are kind of minimalist and sort of mod. So you can kind of find things that have like really interesting patterns and really sort of like cool looking notebooks. I wouldn't say all of, I wouldn't say I like love their notebooks. But the, I mean the Project planner is one of the cooler ones I've come across. I actually love that it's sort of giant because you like Lay it all out on your desk and like it's sort of a thing, you know. And PA makes really cool post it notes that are good companions.
Nice.
Yeah.
Yay.
How about you, Johnny?
So my new goal for 2020 is to read 50 books for the year, which doesn't sound that hard, but, you know, one a week's hard sometimes. Sometimes you're reading a really big book. So I started off with Permanent Record by Edward Snowden. Have you guys. Are you guys Snowden fans?
I don't know if I would say a fan, but I mean, I feel
like everybody has a really strong opinion about him.
Yeah, I guess maybe I'm an exception because I don't really.
But yeah, I know, like, I certainly know who he is. But beyond that, I mean, it's weird
because it's like his sad doe eyed picture on the COVID and I kept like leaving it places and I'd look like, oh, it's Snowden staring at me. But like I was talking to my tattoo guy last week while I was getting a tattoo and I was like, hey, he's read the Snowden book, blah, blah. And he goes, oh, I think he's a traitor. Crap. Stepped in it.
Oh boy, oh boy.
Watch that tattoo closely.
Hunter's a reasonable guy. But moving on to another divisive person. I just finished the recent Nietzsche biography called I Am Dynamite, which is a quote from Eche Homo, Nietzsche's autobiography that he wrote like right as he was sort of losing his mind. I think the New Yorker did a piece on it recently and they had a funny picture of Nietzsche when he was a young professor wearing his glasses and they were made as 3D specs. And it was funny, but it was really good because I think the person who wrote it is a biographer, but she seemed like she really kind of understood Nietzsche really well, which is cool because, you know, his biography and his philosophy are so intertwined and all. And I just finished watching Frontline, America's Great Divide. They did a piece, I guess three years ago, they did something called the Divided States of America. It was like two hours plus two hours. So this was sort of along those lines. Two hours, another two hours, but you know, more contemporary. I think the first episode was up to the 2016 election and the second episode was after the 2016 election, up until impeachment. So it's super, super interesting as Frontline usually is. We're just like, oh, two hours just went by. But I think it's, you know, it's on the PBS app. It just came on, so it's pretty easy to get. And I am, of course, writing with our pencil of the month, the Tennessee Red from Musgrave, which I've got to a really nice length that's so balanced and beautiful and fragrant. Yeah. How about you, Andy?
Well, I have not been doing a lot of reading lately, only because I. Whenever I'm laying out a plumbago, I just can't, like, really read other things very much. So it's. I've been mostly just consuming the Internet when I'm not, like, you know, watching TV or whatever. So HBO has the new season of the Young Pope, which they have renamed into the New Pope.
No.
No spoilers. It's Jude Law is no longer the Pope. And now. Now there's. Now there's a new Pope, which.
So he's not young anymore.
Guess none. Guess not. No, there's.
That a. Was that a plot? I have no idea. Was that a plotline shift or was that, like, somebody left the show kind of thing, or was there some sort of drama or. He's.
Yeah, there's a. There's a kind of a big thing that happens the last episode, which is. Which is what happens to Jude Law and his character.
But he's.
He's still in the show, at least this. At least the first episode. He is of the. Of the new Pope, but he's just no longer the. The act of Pope. So. Yeah, so it's. It's really good so far. The first episode was, like, really strong. I. It's such a weird, quirky show, but I just love it. I'm not sure why. I do know why, actually, because, you know, it's kind of like, I don't know, celebrating some of the, like, grandeur and the, like, just, like, ancient. The ancient, like, you know, entity of the Catholic Church, but also, like, deeply, deeply criticizing it for, you know, just kind of like. Because it's like, you know, literally the patriarchy, right? So they did lots of critical. Lots of criticism of the Catholic Church, but also, like, it really showcases some of the, like, really beautiful costumes and buildings and history and stuff like that, so. And it's produced in Italy by Italians, so it's very unusual and different in the pacing than it is from a lot of US television. So I'm a big fan. I also watched last Night a movie with some friends that I really love, and it's just been forever since I've seen it last. Anybody here watch? I Heard of Huckabees. Do you remember that movie?
I love that movie. It's so weird.
So weird.
So, so weird.
Yeah, I was worried it wouldn't hold up, but it extremely holds up. So yeah, it's a really good movie. Just two Jude Law consummations. No two Jude Law. Things that I have consumed lately. And I'm also writing on a. With a Tennessee Red and just finishing up the last few pages of my field notes. Group 11 copper notebook. How about you, Tim?
Nice. I've been as far as reading goes, I've been reading mostly young adult novels. I was trying to do some things with my students and trying to encourage them to read kind of independently of what we're doing in class more than I usually do. And one thing that I have just like a weak spot in my reading is the stuff that'll grab their attention the most. Like the young adult stuff which I think I've talked about before. And so I was just trying to find some that kind of stuck out that I've been meaning to read for a while. And the one that I'd been like meaning to read was the Serpent King by Jeff Zentner. And he is a, he's a writer from Nashville and he was a musician. I think he put out like three or four kind of, you know, kind of mid level albums that just never really took off and like his music career was kind of coming to an end and he had never really written, he hadn't done any creative writing outside of songwriting and just decided to take a stab at the story that was in it that had been in his head for a while. And he wrote it. And that's the Serpent King and it did really well. And it's a, it's a really good story. I'm about halfway through that one right now. And it takes place in Forestville, Tennessee, which is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. And it's these kind of three high school kids rising, they're like starting their senior year and they're all outcasts in their own way. This one girl is sort of like Internet famous for fashion blogging and stuff that she does. And her family's pretty well off. Another one's from this really blue collar family, but he's a fantasy fanatic. And then the third kid, the main character, Dill is. His dad's in prison for some pretty icky stuff and he was a snake handling preacher. And so he is kind of living with that kind of hanging over his head all the time. And everybody sees him through what his dad did. And so these three friends are just trying to navigate their way through their, their senior year. And it's a. It's a really good book and it's, it's really. Yeah, it's really beautifully written. So I've. I've definitely recommend that and the other one even more so this book kind of blew me away. It's called All American Boys and it's co. Written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiley. And Jason Reynolds is a really good follow on Twitter. He's a really well known writer for young people these days. And so with that one, he was on tour for his previous book with Brendan Kiley because they have the same publisher and they had never met each other before and it was during the Michael Brown shooting. And so both of them, as they're getting to know each other, were both trying to like, sort it out in their head, like this whole thing that happened and all these issues that are swirling around with, you know, young African Americans, like unarmed African Americans getting killed by police officers and all that. And so about a year later, they decided they were going to write a book together. And so they wrote a book from two perspectives. So kind of switching back, back and forth, chapter by chapter. So one character finds himself kind of. He basically just. He gets brutalized by a police officer for not doing anything. And then the other character, the white character, his. The police officer that did it was like a father figure of his, his best friend's older brother who had been kind of looking after him since his dad died in the war in Afghanistan. And so the book takes place over a week and so you see these two characters trying to figure out what to do with this crazy scenario and their shared friends and all this, but they never actually meet until later in the book. It's really powerful and really a really fantastic story. So that's one that I really want to get it and teach it in class because it's just really well written and really dynamic and just really true to life and just good message. So.
Yeah. Yeah.
So those are two things I've. The last, last two things I've read. And the last thing is I talked about getting a. I think I talked about getting a Nintendo Switch at some point. Yeah. And so I have continued to have a Nintendo Switch and I have been continuing to play the Untitled Goose game which Andy gave me. Yes, Hong Kong. And have had just an incredible time and the other night finished it and was just kind of distraught and then found out that there's like this whole other half of the game that I didn't know was going to be there after the credits are done, and so I'm digging into that now. But it's been so much fun. And my son, who's 6, he loves it too, which is really funny because it's like. And I think, Andy, you were saying that it was something about, like, it's cathartic for little kids because they can just be horrible because you're just this goose that runs around and terrorizes people. I try to, like, describe it as. It's like, if you. It's like Grand Theft Auto, but instead of, like, a criminal with, like, stealing cars, you're this goose running, like, rampant around this little village.
And there's, like, no. There's no, like, consequences, and everything is repeatable. So if you need to, like, it's almost like a puzzle game more than it is, like, an action game. So you can, like. Yeah, that's really fun.
The worst thing is it true to
life and the geese are really terrifying.
Yeah. Well, yes, certain people are terrified by him, and then some are just, like, immediately chase you away. Just kind of.
What's amazing. What's amazing, Caitlin, is you are the goose so you can go around and terrify the villain.
Like, total role reversal there. I'm so afraid of geese.
This is a pretty horrible goose. I'd be scared of this one, too. I mean, just because you just. I mean, you can run around. Like, there's, like, a level where you have to, like, untie this kid's shoes and then honk and chase him. And so he trips. You have to steal his glasses and, like, carry him away and, like, give him the wrong glasses back so he can'. See. And it's like, you're just doing these. Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty incredible.
Yeah, I need it.
It is wonderful. So I had big thanks to Andy there, because when I got the switch, he's like, you must have this. And it was. It's paid dividends here in our house. So. So, yeah, so there's that. And I am writing with the Musgrave Tennessee Red, and I am using my. My. My Scribbler, my. My confidant right now. So, yeah, let's go on to some fresh points. Caitlin, do you have anything you wanted to share for fresh points?
You know, my stationary game has been a little bit lacking lately, even though I work literally around the corner from all three McNally Jacksons in SoHo.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's a little bit dangerous. I mean, it's. It's the joke around our office. That's our. Our favorite coffee shop. Is the McNally Jackson Bookstores. Best coffee in the neighborhood. Um, my only fresh point related for this though is I made my first big pencil splurge in a very, very long time. Um, at about 2:00 clock in the morning on Saturday. Um, I bought a two pack of the single barrel and a 12 pack of the Tennessee Reds. And I'm really looking forward to them arriving. I just so, so enamored with the story behind the Single Barrel. Pencil is so cool.
That was super cool. We were. Yeah, we were just sort of like flabbergasted when Nicole told us that they were going to be kind of like a reference of the show. So that was really, really exciting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so special.
Yeah,
Very cool. How about you, Johnny?
It's not a lot going on. Like, nothing's come out, but if you're not in our Facebook group, you might not be aware that Pencil Things closed or is.
Yeah.
So they're getting rid of all their stock so you can buy the orange, you know, n Dipped palomino. That was called the California stationary. California Republic stationers.
Yeah. Yeah.
These are like, it looks like from the boxes, the stocks from like 0607. It's pretty old. And 80 cents a piece, like SO2H through 2B.
Yeah, that was. That was really surprising. I was. I actually didn't realize they still had like, nice, you know, Japanese or graphite pencils on there. I thought they had moved entirely toward like, like novelty pencils and like Japanese erasers and things like that. Yeah.
Were they not on there? I can't believe that someone in the group hadn't realized they were up.
Well, they.
They kind of hid it under like. I feel like the category that they were in was kind of like hidden in the sidebar.
So, you know, I. Website closing.
Yeah, I mean, I.
Sorry.
I mean, I'm on the mobile version of it right now and it's.
Oh, it's awful.
Absolutely terrible. I'm so sorry.
The thing is, is that back. So I. For those of you who don't know, that was like the first Pencil things was the reason I got started in like, pencil blogging. I bought a sampler pack from them of, like, California Republic pencils and reviewed them on my, like, personal blog and sent it to Don Bell, who was the proprietor at the time. He was like. He was like, hey, do you want to like, you know, be a product reviewer for our Pencil Things blog? And I was like, yeah. So back then I was really intimately familiar with the website layout and it is Completely. It's the same lovely design but worse. Worse layout than it was before. So he eventually sold it to some people who I think are the current owners who are closing it down who just didn't want. They just weren't interested in like product reviews. So I kind of left and started Woodclinched. But yeah, they definitely. Their stock has really gone toward the direction of like novelty erasers and pencils and sharpeners. But yeah, I wonder if they just had like a warehouse with a bunch of those pencils and they're just like, eh. I'm just gonna put this, put these up on the site. But I definitely ordered some for the, for the closure.
Yeah, I got my bees came in that, like the cardboard wrap they used to put the dozens in. And my HBS came in those like really cool plastic boxes of six.
Did you get them already?
Yeah, I was like, you know, we. They're like, I got a shipping email like an hour later. I was like, nah, I bet this didn't ship that quickly. They came Thursday or Friday, something like that. Like it came like, oh way, these are real. I opened them up and like looking at them like, these are fake. These aren't real, but they're real.
Huh.
I think I'm kind of kicking myself
the slow boat because I have not. They have not showed up here yet.
Yeah. And that shipping was like, was it five bucks for flat rate shipping? That's not bad.
So if anybody connected to pencil things, either Don Bell or the new owners, listen to this podcast, get in touch because I really want to just hear from you and hear about the story of pencil things because it's a really. I remember it being a pretty special website to me.
Yeah. And they had the. God. All those years ago, the Pencil of the month club.
Yeah, they were the first to do it.
Yeah, the little shrink wrapped, couple singles every month. That was a nice treat.
Really put that together. Like he had a lot of thought put into that thing.
Did they? One month it was a. It was like a magnetic pencil holder like you would use for a music stand. It was black. I don't know if you remember that. I still have it on my fridge. It's like one of my favorite things.
Yeah, he did that. He had that like special tier of pencil of the month where you know you got like a vintage pencil as well. And he did like three Ticonderogas throughout the ages, which was really interesting.
Oh, neat.
Like like one from like the 60s and one from like the, you know, 90s and one from Modern Day, which was at that point in 2010ish. So yeah, that was, that was really great.
Sad.
Yeah.
Hopefully. Hopefully there's. There's not a sad reason behind the closure.
Yeah.
Folks are moving on.
Yeah.
So my only other fresh point is that I got like a bug up my butt this weekend because they were calling for bad weather to clean out my kids bedroom. So I was cleaning bookshelves and stuff. And like I literally have a bag of a couple hundred pencils to donate that I just got out of their room. So I think I'm like ruining my children or single handedly destroying the planet. But they'll get, you know, by this time of year, I'm sure that her math teacher could use a couple hundred pencils. So it'll work out.
I get the same feeling I was the other day. Henry came around the corner and I think, I think he's done this before. And I might have talked about, but he came around the corner and was like, I'm ready to go. And we were like, all right. And he had his coat on and everything. Like, that's weird. Why does he actually have his coat on before? We asked him to put his coat on and. But then he unzipped his coat and he had clipped probably 30 pens across the like neck of his T shirt. So when he opened up his.
Hey kid, do you want to buy a pen?
Yeah, exactly, like opened up his shirt and like his jacket and there was just a gig, just a huge number of pins, like all his collection, like wrapped around his neck. It's like, I'm so sorry, son. What have I done?
Did you get a picture?
Jane did, I think.
Yeah, I'd love to see the picture.
Yeah, it was like fountain pens and everything, like hanging off his neck.
Was his shirt like all hanging down?
Yeah, he was like sagging in the front and he had his pocket. He had pencils in his pocket with like all the. I got him some of those interlocking pencil caps for his. In his stocking this year for Christmas. And so he had like all these pencils clipped. I was like, man, yeah, I sold
your fancy Visconti to my friend for $3.
Yeah, go for it, kid. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. So I definitely, I definitely identify with feeling like you've ruined your children on stationary. Because Henry's like kind of. He makes us stop every time we're at like Target or something. We have to stop in the aisle. And he just like looks around and asks for 40 things.
Johnny, what. What were the bulk of those you said it was a few hundred pencils. Like was it mostly like crappy pencils or good pencils or like sort of a mix?
Like there were a lot of those. I don't know if they have them anymore. I don't really go to Target. Like when Target would have really interesting new pencils all the time. And we would all talk about how they were shockingly decent. Like to those like those color dipped
ones like those that the end dipped in the color. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Every time they came out, I would buy like 20 packs of them, which was in retrospect kind of stupid. And there were a lot of like Ticonderoga neons. I don't even remember buying this many of them.
Oh, I remember those. That was like 2015 maybe. There were so many like neon stuff. That's when Dade just went like bananas for all. He probably still has like several packs.
What else is.
There were a lot of those Bic extra fun that grown ups don't like. But kids legit do enjoy. Yeah. And I think the yikes are probably way better.
Agree.
Yeah.
Cool. How about you, Andy?
Nothing that isn't just updates of like, you know, show business. I thought it would be a good idea to just anybody who bought one of those erasable Squires, the erasable X Baron Fig number two. Squires. Just wanted to give you an update in that. There is no update yet. We're still waiting on manufacturing to happen. A couple weeks ago, maybe last week actually I messaged Andy Tallarico and she told me that surprisingly the Squire production queue is pretty busy, which I was interested and intrigued by. So we're just in the queue. We're waiting to get those made. We're still on track for the end of February, although she says it could be, excuse me, the end of January, but she says it could be the beginning of February. I'll update all of the buyers once I know more and have an idea of when to ship them out. It shouldn't be, shouldn't be that much longer. We're in the home stretch.
Cool.
Yes.
I can't wait to get my hands on those things.
They look so good. Every time I look back at the picture, show it to somebody, I'm like, wait, look who we made. Look at this thing. I just get so excited.
So good. And then also an update on Plamago 7. Last week we opened pre orders. It is the tiny issue. So we're printing them on like field note size booklets, which is pretty fun. I'm trying to figure out just how to like lay that out because I don't know quite how to do the typography and the margins and everything for something that small. So I'm just like doing some research and just printing out like, you know, mock ups and just seeing how readable they are and see how they look. So something really interesting from Tim's brother in law, John Harkey. He submitted. He's really into tiny poems. Like he wrote a dissertation about tiny poems and submitted a few of them and then also wrote this like tiny poem manifesto, which is really interesting.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I wonder if. Yeah, I would love to. I would love to get him on in the future or something and like talk about. Because I've. I have never given tiny, tiny poems this much thought.
I mean, that would have to be like a triple episode because that dude, I mean, he's got a lot to say about it. So.
Yeah. Yeah, maybe we'll do that as some like after Dark hunt or some like Patreon content or something.
Yeah, like a three hour Patreon episode. He is a. He's a pencil nut too. He's become like obsessed over the course of us doing this and. And we are swapping pencils all the time and he's. He uses them. Yeah, just. Just constantly. And he was. When he was in grad school getting his PhD, he studying tiny PO and he specialized or I guess most of his dissertation was about this poet named. I think her name was Laureen Niedecker or Nidecker, something like that. And she wrote. Yeah. So she worked in this, this format of like writing these really tiny poems. And one of his. He actually ended up getting tasked during grad school with the job of creating a facsimile, like a perfect facsimile of this like handmade poetry collection. Like this basically like ancient. Not ancient, but you know, like what we would call a chapbook, but like from way back. And it's super cool and you can buy, you can actually buy like a physical copy of it now. And it's really cool. Like it's a little handmade book, but it looks like the real thing, so that's really cool.
Yeah, I feel a little out of the loop. Is a tiny poem, a very short poem, or a poem that's written very small.
It's a, it's a very short, a very like fragmented poem. So.
Okay, so only like a couple lines.
Yeah. At least in the way he defines it. I think that like a haiku could be a tiny poem or you know, something like that. But we were taking poetry for this edition that's just very short, and his came in at, like, very, very, very short. Like, I'm. I think we're running a couple poems that have, like. Some of these have, like, five lines with, like, three words each. Like, they're really short. Mm.
There is a man who parks right outside the stairs of the F train that I take home every day who writes poems for people for free. And I feel like if I hadn't known about Humbago in advance and known this man, I could have gotten you some really good NYC subway poetry to contribute to that.
Oh, hell yeah. Well, I mean, if it. If it. If it comes up. Yeah, that'd be really.
Still time.
Yeah. So. Yeah, so I don't have a good. Sort of, like, when we're shipping update for Plumbago 7, and I'm hoping to do it before. Before I go to Baltimore, but we'll. We'll see about that. Yeah, February's gonna be coming up. It's coming up soon. Cool. So that is. That is all for me. How about you, Tim?
I only have one appropriately very tiny fresh point I'm gonna offer. It's just that I finally. I finally. Tiny points. I finally got Blackwing155. I got. I got a few of those. I got. Yeah, I got. I got some Black Wing 155s in Asheville at Malaprops, which is a bookstore I mentioned on here before. Like, I think I talked about it when we were. We were talking bookstores in the last episode, and. Yeah, was there and picked up some of those and was really excited to find those pencils. And they're in. Their Blackwing collection in their pencil section is just kind of growing in general. And of course, when I went up to the counter to buy them, I was like, I'm really glad you had these. I was looking forward to it. And. And I had talked to the person there before, actually, about the membership and about how, like, we wanted to see if they would do a live episode of the Membership because they have a big Wendell Berry section there at the pot. And I was like, yeah, I also have a podcast about pencils. And, like, her eyes just got really big, like, and she's like, wait, oh, that's. That's awesome. And then she was, like, asking these questions. She said, are there, like, other things besides black wings that aren't this expensive? And I was like, oh, come on, just sit down with me for a second.
I show you the world.
I was like, I got a Few suggestions maybe, you know, and gave her some websites to check out. But, like, I'm just super curious now. Next time I visit Mal Props to see if that section has grown quite a bit because they said the black wings are flying out of there. And then they've got. That's really all they have in pencils. They have black wings, then they have the blackwing colored pencils that they sell there. And then everything else is like microns and stuff like that, which is cool. But I'm hoping next time to go back and see some, I don't know, some Camels and Mitsubishis and stuff popping up there, because they were definitely. She was actively looking because she just happened to be the person who's in charge of that section of the store. And she's like, I've been looking for other things. Are there other things? Like, you have no idea, sister. Yeah, it's just like, just like anything. The hard. You look deep enough and there's like an infinite amount. So. But, yeah, but I like the. The 155. And it looks better in person to me than it did in pictures, so that I was happy about. I was. I wasn't sure if I was even going to get any. And then I got there and got to play around with a. They had one out as a sample. And I really like the. The kind of contrasting colors and the. And the, you know, whatever, the alternating shapes and stuff. And so I got really into it and I'm glad I got them. So. And it's. I mean, the core can't go wrong with that for me. So I'm. I. I thought I was going to skip an addition, and then I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't.
So now I'm having the fomos.
Oh, yeah.
So beautiful.
Yeah.
Yeah. Do they sell singles at the McNally Jackson stores?
I have caught them with single volumes. I bought the, like, four of the Mars one. I can't remember if it was at. You know, they have a couple different stores they've got. And then they have the goods for the study. That's like luxury notebooks and like tape dispensers and scissors and things like that. And then they have the writing implements store. And I think I bought. I've gotten singles of black wings at the bookstore. And I mean, I see that kind of thing and I'm always like, ooh, you're not supposed to do that.
Oh, Sarah McNally does not give an
F. Oh, I guarantee.
Yeah.
Someday I'm gonna have to tell you all about the time I met her.
Yeah. My favorite thing, though, there's a store in Chelsea Market. The company I work for has a booth in Chelsea Market, so I'm there pretty frequently. But there's a store in there called Higher Standards, which is all a marijuana themed store and they have a section for black wings.
Well, we need a volume 420.
I just think it's so funny that it's all these like, it's luxury smoking paraphernalia and then they have black wings. You gotta have the classy pencil, right.
With your classic type.
You see these potheads in the back, just like, you feel how smooth the MMX is. You can feel every grain of graphite hitting the paper. Yeah.
Have you ever really thought about your pencil? Like, have you ever thought about, you
know, it's not lead, right? Like, because you'd totally be dead if it was leading you. Yeah.
Pencil at the moment.
Does this get a theme song?
It should.
Needs one.
Yeah. Johnny, see what you can do about
getting us a theme song from all bass theme songs.
The pencil of the month. Just. Just a little jingle.
I could run my. My acoustic bass through something weird. Do something funny.
Oh, yeah.
Have you heard that song? Do you remember that song from One Hot Minute on the Chili Pepper or by the Chili Peppers on One Hot Minute where it's just Flea. The song's called Pee Like P. Like P. Like the. The vegetable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we are doing our pencil month is the Tennessee Red.
Oh, that was recording.
Okay.
Or that was.
Oh, is that part of it? I don't know.
I didn't.
I didn't know we started.
Yeah.
This is a real professional operation we have here.
Yeah. So here, I'll start fresh. Let's do it. Okay. For our pencil of the month, we are going to be talking about the Musgrave Tennessee Red, one of the new releases from Musgrave and they're these new collections they put out with their red cedar pencils and then the sort of ancient cedar pencils that they put out and. Yeah, so we've had these in our hands for a while at least. Johnny and Andy and. And I have. I know. Caitlin, you were just telling us that you had just ordered a box and had been looking forward to those. So, Johnny, I know you're crazy about these, so why don't you start us out and kind of set the tone on the pencil of the month?
Oh, man. The tone would be, this is the most awesome pencil that's come out in a long time. But like, I don't know. I feel, like, slightly biased because since we've been communicating with Musgrave, like, I really like the people that run it and the people that represent them, so I might be skewed, but this pencil is ridiculously amazing. Like, it's. It's beautiful. It writes nicely. I haven't found the quality control to be as bad as some people have. Like, I think it's a little better than Musgrave usually is, and we know that it's something they're working on, so that's good to know. But, like, it's just. It's so cool that they're making a pencil out of red cedar that no one else makes. And from what I understand, they have no plans to stop, even though they're having trouble with their slat manufacturer or. Because nobody makes them.
Yeah.
But, like, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Sharpen it. I'm like, this is what Thoreau smelled.
I love. Love the just sort of, like, darkness variations within the wood. Like, it's. It's definitely more pronounced than it is with a lot of the instance cedar. And. Yeah. So, like, I'm using one right now where one of the sides is all, like, a much. Is much darker than the other sides. And it doesn't really interrupt the quality or anything. It just looks really good.
And.
And I'm sure that when they sort of saw that we have to make this, you know, bare, we can't. We can't put paint over this, so.
God, no.
Yeah.
I mean, mine is the same way. Mine's like the two tone kind of. And it's. I. It's so cool. I wish all of them were like that, frankly. I mean, I know that would be impractical, but I wish all of mine were the kind of two tone, different shades of the wood.
And the box is pretty amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah. Caught a matchbox style situation. So cool. I might have gotten the cedar one for Christmas.
They. Oh, this. The cedar box.
I think it's made of pencil slats because all the pieces are exactly that width.
You got the. Because they're. They're different ones. Right. There's like, the cedar and then a red cedar box, isn't there?
There's a red cedar box that you can get with. You can get it with the red cedar. You can get it with Help Me, the harvest pro, or you can get it mixed, but I think the box is red cedar.
Yeah.
And then you can also get the red matchbox, like $9 for a dozen of really nice made in America. Pencils. Just bonkers.
Yeah. Somebody. Somebody in the group really wanted a Tennessee red T shirt. And Nicole responded and she was like, oh, that's a great idea. So I'm. Yeah, I'm really excited about that.
Yeah.
These are really fantastic pencils. Yeah.
And the typography is perfect. I'm a big fan of their graphics in general lately.
Yeah, I think it writes really amazing and I've really enjoyed having a new. You know, we've been talking since, like, the first episode of how much we love natural pencils. And to have a new natural pencil come out is always really exciting. And with this one, I really was. I was. I was pumped up and I. And I opened it and just based on the pictures that I was seeing on the website, I. And I guess maybe I wasn't paying attention in conversations and maybe on the, like, reading about it, I wasn't ready for it to be like the hard, full hex that it is, like the sharper, sharper hex body. And I guess I'm just a wuss because that just, like, bugs me sometimes. It's like my dainty academic fingers are just, like, can't handle it sometimes. And so I. That's my only beef with it is I just like. I like. I like the more rounded corners on it. And so I get a little annoyed or distracted or something or I'm just not really the. The thing is that I'm just not used to it because I haven't been using a full hex pencil at all in a really long time. That's like my. But that's my only beef. I mean, like, everything else about it is great. And even that part that I was just mentioning just to, like, have something to mention, I'll get used to and I. I will not think about anymore. So I. And I totally second the. The request for a. For a T shirt or a hat or something would be cool.
I want this as a tattoo. Like, I have no connection to Tennessee, but Tennessee Red looks so cool in the pencil. It would look cool, like, on your arm or your chest.
There you go.
You can choose this. The pencil you get.
And I think we know which one Tim's getting. Not a couple months.
Next month. Next month. Next month.
Yeah.
I'm still healing from the one I got last weekend. But if they, like, if they made this pencil over again or to do like a version 2, maybe if they did a round one with, like, the. The end cap they have on the single barrel and then didn't varnish it, that could be the perfect pencil. Even not round. This is pretty damn close to a perfect pencil.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Does it have the same sharpness on the hex as, like, the test scoring?
Yeah, it's a pretty sharp, sharp pencil.
It doesn't.
The wood is. Or the lacquer is thicker than the test scoring, though, so I feel like it doesn't quite feel as. As sharp because of that.
Yeah.
Oh, it does have a clear coating on it.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay.
Okay. I was really, really hoping it would be like the cedar point and just be natural finish.
Yeah. I wonder. I feel like red cedar would splinter if you didn't have that clear coating because it's a little bit more splintery of a wood. But maybe, maybe not. I don't know.
I think the smell would just knock you out. You would sit there all day, like,
in your closet to have
every time you sharpened it.
Oh, my God.
So did you guys use a. Like a burr sharpener and then pull the tray out and smell it?
No.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
I mean, what are you even doing? Do you even pencil, bro?
I don't. I apparently don't.
No. Tim, what are you doing with your life?
Jeez, man.
So sorry.
I don't even know if I want to hang out with you next month now,
Right.
I'm going to show up with just a big bag of Tennessee red shavings around my neck just to, like, attract Johnny to, like, come back and hang out with me.
That's how we'll find you at the airport.
Like, he's here.
Sniffing dogs are confused.
The cedar sniffing Johnny.
Cedar sniffing Johnny.
I've been called worse things.
All right, cool. Anything else you want to say about the pencil of the month?
I think so.
Thank you, Musgrave, for making this awesome pencil.
Yeah, thanks, Musgrave, for making something new and making something so awesome.
Can't wait for mine.
Yeah.
So just as a reminder, episode 133, the first episode of February, we will put our announcement for the newest pencil of the month. So if anybody has any ideas, you can just comment on this post and. Yeah. And then at the end of February, we'll talk about it.
Yeah. Alrighty. Well, let's get into our main topic. This episode, we're gonna be talking about organizing yourself for 2020, and Caitlin's gonna, like, help us through this because she's been. She's been thinking about it as well, as we've kind of continually seen all these options that are popping up in front of us about new planners or different options that you have and Sometimes it gets overwhelming because there's so many different ones, and when you have so many different ones, it feels like it's so hard to settle on one and to dedicate yourself to one method because there's always some new, shiny way of doing things popping up. So, yeah, so it's January. It's a good, perfect time to talk about this. So we want to talk about whether a planner system can help us sort of hack our way into a new year and get things on track. And let's just talk about some of the different options that we've got. So I guess how do we want to start this? We're going to start out by just talking about the different kind of formats of planners.
Yeah, sure, sure. So I was. I kind of was thinking about this topic a lot, as I've been. I am absolutely one of those people that buys into New Year resolutions and, you know, the idea of starting a year fresh. I mean, it helps that my birthday is in January, so it's literally a new year for me as well. So. Yeah. One of the things that I was kind of thinking of as a goal for my 2020 was to actually make use of the plethora of notebooks that I have. But to also maybe stick with a planner this year, because the last two years, I've bought the Midori Traveler, and as much as I just absolutely love them, I didn't even open the last six months of 2019. It's 100% blank and unused, and it just makes me so sad. So as I've been. I know I picked up a new job late last year, and it's kind of a fledgling business, and a lot of what I do tends to be pretty chaotic. As it happens with small businesses, you just wear a lot of hats. So I've been looking for a way to sort of organize my day, but also organize my coworkers a little bit and just kind of get me together. And obviously planner factors into that really strongly. And I've always kind of struggled with what's the right format. A weekly, a daily, a monthly. The Midori Traveler is kind of a weekly layout, but you do have a little bit of space for a monthly. The one I'm working with now, the project Planner. But Poketto is kind of a hybrid where it's got. It's got a year layout, a month layout, and a weekly sort of everyday layout. And that's been really helpful for me, but I have commitment issues. So what about you guys? What's your go to for a planner? What format?
I'll start.
Oh, go ahead.
I was going to start by saying that I don't have one. I've been, I'm an. I'm awful when it comes to planners. I, I have tried several different. And I just never end up sticking with it past a couple weeks. And that's, that's more about me than about the planners themselves. Just. And kind of like what I was alluding to in the. When I was introducing this just, I get so restless and then I want to try something else and I'm like, well, this isn't perfect, so I need to try something, something else, you know, like. Which is really unhealthy way of thinking about things. But I'm, I'm definitely on the hunt for this year though, because I want something that gives me a chance to organize myself but also give me a little bit of flexibility. I've talked before about that grow journal from Baron Fig, which is probably the closest I've gotten to something that I've stuck with because I use that for that. I've been using that for about four months. But that's not really about planning. That's more about giving you some tools for like organized reflection on your day. So it's kind of an. I guess it's kind of the opposite of a planner. It's kind of a reflector. So, so that's, that's the only thing that I've stuck with. And then I've, I've definitely been. I, I talked about the Monk Journal or the, the Monk manual on the last episode. And that's something that I'm, I'm waiting to get my hands on. But I'm going to give that a shot, which is it. It incorporates daily, monthly and weekly, but also doesn't do it like you don't get like a 2020 edition. And so you can kind of, if you miss a week, you can just pick up right where you left off. So, yeah, that's what I'm going to try next. And I could talk more about that later. Just as far as how that notebook is set up because it's seemingly a little complicated. But also there are some reasons why I think it might work for me just because I think the way it's complicated might help me because it just gives me lots of options for what I can do and what I can sort out and talk about.
I think to spin off of your point, an open date planner where you're not like committed to dates already, like set in the book. So if you accidentally skip A week. Or if you get lazy with your notebook, like, you don't have all these blank pages just staring at you and judging you. Like, I'm about that as well. I think an open date planner is really sort of helpful.
Yeah.
My, my favorite one. So, like, Tim, I feel like such a bad, a bad stationary podcaster, but I, I also do not use a paper planner. I, I, no, I didn't say I
was a bad stationary podcaster. On me, bro.
I don't keep a planner, Tim.
Fight.
Fight.
Fight. We're gonna have this out once and for all in, in Baltimore.
Oh, man. And I have to referee so many fights being a Baltimorean.
Pencil fight.
Yeah. So I, I love, loved when I had a paper planner. But like after, after a while my, my, like, I mostly kept it from my job and after a while I just couldn't like keep a calendar that wasn't electronic and therefore, like, I just, I just couldn't just handled keeping both. But my very, very favorite one that I, that I used when I, when I did keep a paper planner was the Moleskine Diary plus planner. And it was on one side, the left spread. It was your week. And the thing that was, the thing that was important to me was I really didn't want one with like time appointments, so I didn't want to put down like noon and 3pm and like that kind of stuff. I wanted something that was basically just like open day. So open concept, but specifically it's still kind of like organized out the days. And so that was on the left and then on the right was a. Just a blank grid. So you could like take a, you could scribble, you could have a to do list. I usually kept just kind of a running to do list. So I really like that one. And I used that for several years after Gallery Leather stopped making my favorite one. So it's less bullet journal. Bullet journaly and more plenary, I guess. But yeah, that was, that was a big one that I really liked.
I usually would get the Moleskine Daily Diaries. Daily Diaries. The, you know, page a day one, the pocket size. Because it's just such a really cool form factor.
Yeah.
But like, I, it's rare that I stick with it. But yeah, those are cool. I mean, moleskins are always good because there's so many damn formats and sizes and colors to pick from and you can just kind of walk in and narrow your choice down by what they actually have in the store. But this year I picked up one of those undated planners from Right. Notepads when they had their big sale. But I'm staring at it. I've written them it yet. But it's really nice. That's why I haven't written in it yet. But it's blue, there's lots of room. Delicious.
Do you guys ever dig deep into the world of like the Erin Condren type planners or I mean that's, I
don't think I'm familiar with those.
No, no, I mean I understand the question and I won't respond.
Sure, absolutely. A whole huge, huge, huge community. And I mean go on to Etsy, go to a Michaels, go. I don't know on Facebook. It's sort of not to sound like negative or anything. It's very like Midwestern mom type thing where it's caught like meal planning and fitness tracking and budgeting and like your kids schedules. But it's all really, really centered around like the stickers and like the accessories and sort of like this like really cute.
It's like, it's like a, like a little bit more of a like a homey like Franklin Covey it looks like.
Oh, I don't know what that is.
Franklin Covey was another like a very businessy one that had like a lot of, you could put different specialized pages in there and it had like. Yeah, I'm just on the Erin Condren site right now. Yeah, these are, these are interesting.
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. My co worker just showed up today with a very like an Erin Condren esque planner she got at Michael's that is this fat fat with a big piggy bank on the COVID Budgeting planner. And it's like, it's got like your monthly outlook and your daily outlook and like it's just, I don't know how people have time to go that deep into their planning. But I mean this I guess leads to a next question is what do you put in your planners?
Yeah, that's what I think with, with that all that previous conversation. One thing that I was kind of figuring out in my head about myself is that a lot of options is good for me. I'm not necessarily going to use a lot of options within it. Like I, I hate to be like pinned down to one like method for how to go through. But if there are a lot of different things going on, then I kind of feel at home because I can kind of pick and choose what, what I need at the moment. I guess that I don't know if that makes sense because I, I, and I'm Going to make a generalization now. But one thing that I don't. I don't think planners. I always end up failing with planners because I feel like I'm not as. And I always. I'm not as. Like, is it right brain? Is that like the super. Like the more organized. Yeah, like that's not so like I, I tend to think more like touchy feely or something like. And like when I'm. When I'm organizing my. When I'm working with a planner, if I'm just like making a record of like what's going to happen and what happens next, I usually do pretty fine with that stuff. That's not the stuff that I need help like keeping my head around. Usually the stuff I need to keep my head around is like making sure I'm healthy and like thinking, you know, like taking control of how I'm thinking about my day and sort of attitude stuff. So I think that's why I gravitate towards the grow Journal or that. That Grow journal or whatever it's called. But the Monk manual, which I was talking about like, so they. One thing about that, and I will say that the monk manual has. Which if you can't tell from the name of it, it has a little bit of like a spiritual bent to it. Just, just a little bit. But it, it along with being basically a planner mixed with something like the Baron Fig habit tracking journal. It's like those two mixed together. It also has these sections where it's like leading you through these things where it's like saying, here are your highlights of your day. I was at my best when I was doing this. I felt unrest when this happened. Here's something I can improve for tomorrow. Here's a moment where I noticed like I was having a aha moment about something about myself that like I need to remember tomorrow not to like forget that I had figured that out the day before, you know, and so it's much more, I don't know, just like philosophical thinking and like how to like gather just all the thoughts and all the chaos of a day rather than just making sure X, Y and Z
happens rather than just a to do list. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Of.
Are you all familiar with the notebook that Mike Hurley and CGP Grey created? The. What is it called? The theme system or the me system. I'll put a link in show notes here, but it's something I know that they talked a lot about on their show Cortex. And it has a lot of. It has three sections. It has these yearly themes they call them and then there's some journal pages and then they have like daily themes. So there's a lot of like daily checklists. And you like, you know, what are the 10 things that you need to do every day to feel happy? Brush your teeth, take a walk, read a chapter, et cetera, et cetera. There's.
Yeah.
Was that ugg for brushing your teeth or taking a walk?
No, no, that was me. No, no, that was actually me like having like a visceral reaction. Like, this sounds great. No, sorry, that, that came out, sounded strange, but I was actually like hearing you describe this as like. That was me like giving the, like snapping my fingers. I was just like, that sounds great. Sorry, keep going.
It's really good. It's one of, it's one of Mike's. One of Mike's other podcasts with CGP Grey, who's like a. I don't even. I don't really know what his job is. He's. His job is a. Is to be a podcaster. Yeah, they, they talk a lot about like, you know, neuroscience and just ways of thinking and how they, how they approach things and yeah, this is a pretty good theme. Systems are pretty good, a pretty good journal. I haven't gotten my hands on one, but I definitely eventually want to a little bit. So I'll put that in the show notes. The themesystem.com is Mike Harley's notebook.
It's $20.
Yeah. While we're talking about that, Caitlin, I think your question was like, what do you usually want to include in a planner? And I. Mine is at this point the thing I use it most for are just sort of like daily to do lists. It's either daily to do lists or to do lists around like a theme. So I do a lot of like, you know, kind of capturing, disparate to do's for work in my, in an app on my computer or on my phone. And then I'll, you know, take those and sort of like compile them per, per day into like a pocket notebook. So just a lot of. To do lists, I think. And then if I'm like, you know, putting together, I just make a lot of lists. Like I'm putting together Plumbago 7 and I'm making a list of the contributors to make sure I got like, I had all their bios and I really, I laid out their, you know, their contributions and stuff. So yeah, just a whole bunch of lists. Basically what I'm doing.
Yeah, I'm very, very similar in my, in my planner style but the thing that I struggle with the most is sort of the daily short term list, like what I think I'm going to accomplish in a day versus all of the things I think I want to do. And that list tends to be about 20 times longer than the things I can actually accomplish in a day. So the format I sort of started working myself into is writing in pencil the to do list that I think I'm gonna get done that day, and then keeping the longer, like, massive lists of all the things I want to accomplish sometime on Post it Notes and just moving the Post it notes from page to page.
Oh, yeah, migrating Post it Notes. That's definitely like post it notes of good intentions.
Absolutely.
Real quick on the. What you include. Like, I. Even when I had sort of a career for a little while before all my children were born, my planners would devolve into just like a mini diary of writing down stuff that I did already instead of stuff I had to do. So that's one of the reasons I switched to the diary format and one of the reasons I switched to a bullet journal.
What does that mean, Johnny? Like, how did, how did that, how did that go? So you would have like a meeting and you would like, write about how the meeting went or like, how did that turn into that?
It was sort of just like bullet points. Like there would be an entry like I'm saying like a lot tonight. Meeting with Anthony at 10:30. And then under that would be like, start at Bruce Chatwin book. Because, you know, I tend to be obsessed with when I read books and when I watched movies. Like, I haven't seen this in three years. I'm gonna watch this again.
Yeah, that's kind of bullet journaling, right? Like, yeah, free bujo.
When I heard about bullet journaling, this sounds like something interesting. And it took me a long time to stick with it. Yeah, that's another question.
Yeah. Is bullet journaling actually all it's cracked up to be? I've tried it in the past. I particularly was working using Baron Fig Vanguards, and I just. I don't know, I couldn't stick with the system. I think I'm a little bit too scattered to sort of like transfer it all from day to day, which is how I ended up with this migrating sticky note problem.
Yeah, I think Les had a really good point when she was on talking about it. She was like, you know, writer Carol has a product to sell.
Yes.
And so there's a lot about that that requires you to sort of be all in in order to get value of it. It's like the new version of that David Allen getting Things done method, the GTD method that was, like, really popular in the early 2000s. So I tend to think that, like, I use a very, very bastardized version of the Bujo method. Like, it's just, like, super sloppy compared to what writer Carol's doing. But I think it's a good sort of philosophy. But as a product, it's not like, to me, all that is cracked up to be.
So I started bullet journaling last January 1st and didn't quite stick with it because you can imagine being a pencil podcaster, you're like, hey, this pencil, this pencil, this notebook. And it's hard to just, you know, stick with something. I've used four different pencils today already, but in the fall, I didn't. I guess I hadn't put two, two, two and two together to realize that Writer Carol came up with this because he has adhd and it just works for someone with adhd. There's a really good video that we can put in the show notes where someone talks about how people with ADHD tend to get bored with planners. But, I mean, I think that's true of a lot of people, but that's
true of a lot of things for adhd.
The cool thing about bullet journaling is that, you know, there's a base system that writer Carol comes up with, and then you can just, you know, run with it and do what you want. And that doesn't mean you have to buy, like, reams of Washi tape and get very artistic, unless that's what you're into. But, you know, there's so much on social media and YouTube about how pretty bullet journals are. I think it gets discouraging, but there's a good Facebook group I belong to called Minimalist Bullet Journals, where if you post something like that, they were, you know, shame you like, you know, this is a system, not a sketchbook. So this year I bought a new, like, term book, and I just use whatever pen is around. I don't even use a lot of pencils in there, and I own one. Fineliner or mild liner? Sorry. So I'm finding sticking with one tool is helping to, you know, navigate the system that looks different. And you can do it every week. And, you know, I do it my way a little bit. But yeah, there's a lot roundabout way of saying if you just kind of run with it a little bit, it can be fun. But you've got to stick with it long enough to see what works for you, but not knowing what works for you makes it really hard to stick with it. So it's sort of like, I don't know, it's a leap of faith thing.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that leads into. Our next question is like, how do you, how do you manage to stick with it over the course of a year? Because I know for, for me, the reason I stuck with the Grow journal last year or for like a decent part of last year is because I got like a pretty. I guess it was like an instant gratification thing, but I immediately felt good doing it. You know, where it's like I was doing it and was like, this makes me feel good at the end of the day to reflect in this way or to think about things this way, whereas I get too wrapped up in the, the format of my, my planner. And then I end up like, not just selfishly not getting that same kind of like, reaction. So I don't know, how do you guys. What's. So that's me sounding like a, like a teenager who just is like fickle and can't handle structure. But yeah, how do you. How do you stick with something over the course of the year besides just the, like, I mean, the basic advice of just stick with it long enough to see if it's working. But, like, what other tips do you guys have?
I think I sort of fell victim to what Johnny was talking about, which was the cute bullet journaling. And that was what originally drew me to the Midori Traveler, because you see all of these, like, gorgeous layouts, the Washi tape and the stickers and the watercolors, and I sort of had this idea in my mind that it would incorporate a little bit of all of that for me because I'm sort of a hoarder of ephemera and, you know, like notes and things like that that I wanted to kind of keep together. So at the end of the year, my planner would not just be my to do list, but also sort of like a portrait of my year. And I found that that actually made it kind of unsatisfying and kind of impossible for me to keep up with because I'd find myself somewhere between needing to keep a to do list and wanting to make it cute and ending up somewhere in the middle where it just looks sort of sloppy and confusing and kind of turned me off of it, you know. So what's sort of helped me stick with it is, I mean, going a little easier on myself. And then like, the post it note thing has made me a Little bit. Feel a little bit less or sorry. Sort of like non committal. So if I'm like, okay, I don't like that to do list or that to do list is like, totally unattainable. I'll just pull the sticky note out.
Yeah. I'm trying to think of why, like, the intentions of people who are really making their, like, you know, their bujo layouts really intricate and pretty. And is it to just sort of like slow down and meditate about what they're planning and what they're doing, or is it more of like a, you know, I'm gonna Instagram this and keep myself held accountable for, you know, what I'm planning.
I. I'm sure those are the two. Yeah. I'm sure those are the two extremes that everything lands in between, you know, Like. Yeah, I think it's just. It's both. Right? Yeah.
I mean, it can be.
It can be fun. I mean, the idea is that you always have it with you.
Yeah.
So just doodle for a while and
some really beautiful layouts out there. But I. I'm.
Yeah.
And I guess one thing you mentioned, Johnny, is like, you. You see that and you're like, oh, man, I can't do that. So why even try, you know?
Yeah. That really discouraged me for a while. Mine's like a sloppy mess. And I love.
Makes me think of. Reminds me of Larry Grimaldi and like, his cool. Those like, notebooks that he makes where he like, does all the like, multimedia stuff and like attaches all these things that represent a, you know, a block of time or whatever. And like he makes his field notes look so cool by the end and it's.
Yeah.
I don't know. That's my, my. I just had a thought that it's something I might. I don't know, maybe. Maybe it's worth a try. But one. One problem I tend to have, I'm realizing, is that I criticize my. My son. Not criticized to, like, to him, but like, I think about my son, like, man, he just wants everything to be his way. Like all the time. He wants to have all his control. And yet I'm sitting there here like, none of these systems work for me.
So.
But the idea I had was like, I mean, I. Bull. I've had my own attempts with bullet journals and it didn't really work. But now I'm. I'm sitting here thinking about like, well, if I was going to lay out a notebook, if I just started a notebook that was dot, grid or whatever, and just like I'M going to use this, and I'm not going to adhere to any system. What would my system look like? And that's kind of got my. My mind worrying, like, what would. What would be useful to me? What would I need? And that gives you an opportunity to kind of pull, Pull from all these different systems and use what. What makes you feel good and what brings you joy and what makes you feel organized. And I don't. I don't have an answer for what mine would be at this point. But that's just what I'm. I'm thinking about now, with which I think, Andy, you said, like, you. When you use a bullet journaling system, you're using kind of a very adapted version of it. And I think a lot of people do that. But, yeah, even to break out of just bullet journal in general and just say, if I wanted to organize my week, what are the things that would help me do that? And then just kind of come up with a standard layout and then just kind of repeat that layout forever. And that also gives you an opportunity to change it. If you get halfway through, you know, you get halfway through the year and you're like, man, I've been missing this thing, or I haven't been paying attention to this. Like, maybe I could try this, and then you can change up your whole system.
Yeah. One of the tricks to the two sticking with a bullet journal, I think, is sort of riding that balance between giving something a chance and not giving up immediately. And also, you know, being like, this doesn't work. I'm going to do this, like, changing this next week. Like, mine sort of floats between stuff I have to do and journal entries and one week, it's very heavy one way, one, it's heavy the other. But yeah, like, if you, if you were just doing the Pure Writer Carol version, which there are Facebook groups for, you have to give it a chance. But then, like, if you don't like it, it's really hard to give it a chance. Like, how long should you do it for? Like, no, I don't want to do it this way. I want to put more of this or that in their draw more or whatever. But, yeah, I think the bullet journals are easier to stick with than a regular planner because you can just switch halfway. Like, I don't like weekly anymore. I'm going to do daily now instead of having to buy another moleskin, which I've done many times in the middle of the year. And also for me, I can stick with it because I have an easier time Sticking with it than I thought I would because I just forget things if I don't write them down and then I make a fool of myself. Or as someone prone to anxiety. If you don't make a list, then you know the list you have in your head is usually a lot bigger than the list, your actual list of things you have to do. So I think he talks about this in the book a lot, that it frees your brain up a little. Like you're like, I know I wrote this down and I'm going to do it. I don't have to stress out about it too much or let it occupy him a lot of my brain space. But yeah, I guess a long way of saying that what helps you stick with it is if you have something that works for you, and if it doesn't work, you're probably not going to stick with it anyway, move on to something else. The fun thing about bullet journals is you can just mess around and mess around and mess around until something works for you. Until it doesn't.
Yeah, there's a really good question here. You know, what accoutrement do you work in your planner? Do you use highlighters? Use color coding stickers? Caitlin, I know you said sticky notes.
Yes, I have a vast collection because I can't freaking help myself when it comes to post it notes and page flags and things like that. I also, I mean, I tend not to actually use these into my. In my actual planner because I can't decide on a color coding system. But I really, really love the stalogy washi tape dots to like, color code things and like flag dates and things like that. I have tons of them that I've sort of tried to use over the years to like flag things like meetings and appointments. Again, I have a hard time finding a color coding system that really, actually works for me. But I mean, I have multitudes of accoutrement for planners. Anybody else have anything?
Yeah, I, I, well, this isn't with planners because, like, I've already admitted that I don't really do a good job with that. But one thing that I do with pocket notebooks that if I get into this next year and start using a planner that I want to try to adapt is that lately as I'm working through a pocket notebook and I'm jotting things down, which can be like, totally mundane to like, really important stuff, is that I've started using a. I've got a yellow in a. What is it? I have a yellow and a green highlighter, but like I'll. If I write something on a page and I'm like, I know I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna need that. And I'll highlight it in yellow. I got those two colors in my bag. And then as I'm kind of functioning and I'm flipping back through my notebook as I do like a lot throughout the day, and I see those white or those yellow things, and as I finish them, I'll grab the green one and I'll. I'll highlight over the yellow and make it green. And so that's something that, like, as I'm thinking about how to adapt the bullet journal idea and move forward, because that's. That I always got hung up on that with bullet journaling, like, like transferring stuff to the next day and all that. And that was something that I started doing with my pocket notebooks just in the last couple of weeks that I've really enjoyed. So just highlighting things that are like, really. I can't forget that they're in there among all the stupid to do lists and like things that my 3 year old said that I thought were cute. So. Which I'll. Sometimes I highlight those too, so I don't forget them. But that's. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's one thing, but I don't. Besides that, I just kind of am using whatever I've got on hand as far as writing utensils. Just whatever I'm enjoying that day.
Does anybody. Does anybody do any goal tracking?
Sort of, yes.
I'm not even sure exactly what that might include. Like, do you have a goal and then, you know, like, like pieces, like things you need to do in order to achieve that goal, or is it more of a time timeline kind of a thing?
For one that I'm doing, it's just a daily entry with a statistic writer. And Carol talks about how, you know, your memory can be a little faulty and you look back like, oh, I've been, you know, I haven't been reading anything. And you look back and you're like, oh, I've actually been reading a lot. Or, you know, anything you want to track your memory is not going to work as well as if you just write it down every day.
Yeah.
Yeah, I suppose. Oh, go ahead.
Okay.
No, you're good.
Sorry.
I was gonna say, I suppose when I think of goal tracking, I mean, I kind of go back to the Erin Condren thing that I mentioned before, where they. I've seen on like Pinterest and different things like that, where they have all these methods to sort of keep track of anything from how much if you drink eight glasses of water in a day to if you're staying on track with your fitness goals or if you're, you know, your budgeting goals or like anything like that. Like, I've seen sort of a lot of different systems for people to kind of keep track of. Like actual, like smart, specific, measurable, attainable, whatever. The rest of the smart acronym is goal. And I was just wondering if any of you guys had any sort of system for that or if you worked with anything like that before. The silence isn't helpful.
We don't have goals.
I mean, I have a hard time with something so strictly time bound like that just because I, I feel like. I just feel like I have commitment issues. I don't know. So I, I don't really do goal tracking, but I'm kind of like loosely into the idea of it. Of like saying I'm gonna do something for 30 days and then keeping track of it for every day. I don't know, maybe I'm going to read a book every day.
I've done things like that with like, tracking my. Sorry, my coffee consumption, but not necessarily with a goal in mind. Just at the end of the month, like an accurate picture, like, how much coffee do I actually drink? Because, you know, people in your life are like, you're crazy, you're gonna die. And then, you know, at the end of the month, like, I don't actually drink that much. I mean, an inhuman amount of copy.
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that's sort of the kind of idea I'm getting at that. It's just, I don't know, the, the data I find really interesting, you know, sort of like being able to look back and say, see the progress in a statistical way.
Yeah,
yeah. Like, I don't know, it's supposed to be good for weight loss. Something that's, you know, strictly a number. Yeah, you can track. It was very good for NaNoWriMo.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Oh, I bet. Yeah.
So do you.
My life is, is too chaotic for goal tracking. At least my discipline is, is. Is un. Too undisciplined.
Yeah. When I think of goal tracking, I think of something really specific. Such as, like, if I'm going to read 50 books in a, in a year, what are the steps to get that? Do I have to make a list? What books do I pick? A lot of nitty gritty stuff that I wouldn't really be able to pay attention to. Loose data, like how many books I can handle.
Yeah. Shifting the topic just a little bit. Do any of you supplement your analog planners and to do lists and that sort of thing with digital system?
I bet Johnny does.
I only do for medicine because I literally can't take medicine. Even if my kids are on something for like an ear infection, if I don't set myself reminders, it doesn't happen. Poor Henry suffered repeated ear infections because of that.
I sort of go back and forth between using just the regular calendar app on my phone for reminders and doing a sort of brain dump in Trello. But I find when I do the brain dump in Trello I do that for like maybe two, three days and then I ignore it for about a month.
Yep, that sounds about right. I use, I use Trello for tracking with like plumbago submission tracking. You know, you can set that up. It's a, it's like a project management board where like each task is represented by like a little card and you can move it around between different columns. And what's cool about it is it like it connects to email. So if somebody like emails you at a certain address it can really like. Yeah, sorry. It can really like, you know, it just kind of dumps back in there and dumps in there and then you can fill it out with detail which is really great. So I like Trello a lot. I use things T H I N G S which is a really great kind of Mac and iOS based to do list. I usually like record kind of like ad hoc to do's in there or import something or something when I'm at my computer all day at work and then I kind of transfer that to paper per day. What else do I do? Any lists that Katie and I kind of keep collaboratively like you know our grocery lists or what we're going to get at Target or whatever. We have like a collaborative. Just the Mac Notes app lists.
Yeah, those are great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, that's, that's the only one I was going to mention that one using the notes app and some kind of organized ways for certain tasks I do that and then I've started in the last month using Google, just Google Calendar. I have to do that especially for anything that's recurring, you know. So that's where I store any. Anything that's going to be happening frequently. I don't go over the top with it. I'm not scheduling like when I'm going to work and all that stuff that's like super obvious. But I, I do use it because I Just my long term memory is not good. I do fine within a week and not missing deadlines of stuff. But that's, that's been, that's become really helpful to just get these scheduled reminders that I'll get, you know, next year same time for things like renewing our license plates and, and all that, all that kind of stuff. So that's. But that's, that's it for me. Okay, well, that's a lot to. A lot to chew on. A lot of ideas out there. And they're like we said at the beginning, there are, there are so many options. And so this has been really helpful at least for me for sorting out what to do with all these separate options and how to kind of make the best system that works for, for you. So thanks guys for talking through that and thanks Caitlin for coming on the show and sharing your ideas and your. Because you're kind of the inspiration for this topic. So we really appreciate you coming on.
Thank you, absolutely. For having me and being open to have this idea.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll have to put in our planners to have you on soup.
All right, well, if. Yeah, so I'll start out by saying if you have not taken a chance to check out our Patreon, it is@erasable US Patreon. If you enjoy the show and care to support us in any way, that's where you can do that. There's extra content that we're putting out on Patreon that is images and also kind of behind the scenes information. And we'll also post bonus episodes that are usually about 10 to 15 minutes that are just kind of some fun off the clock conversation about topics around stationary and not stationary sometimes as well. My name is Tim Wasem. You can find me on Instagram and at Timothy Wassman on Twitter Imwassum. Caitlin, why don't you tell us where we can find you on the Internet
Right now you can find me on my personal Instagram at Kate Elgin. I also am currently running the Instagram Port, the company that I work for. They're a cute little handbag label called Min and Mon. And I think some Erasable fans might already know them if they saw the collaboration that they did with CW Pencils.
That stuff is lovely. I love the little keychain.
Yeah, yeah. It's very, very adorable stuff. I wish I could say I had anything to do with it, but it came about before I was with the company, but it's. It's freaking cute.
Cool.
How about you, Andy?
I am @andy. WTF or Twitter and Instagram as wealthy.
Thanks Johnny.
I am@pencilrevolution.com and Twitter and Instagram Ensolution.
You can follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram raceablepodcast. You can find our show notes for this episode at erasable us 132 and our Facebook group. If you're not a member of that it is@facebook.com group erasable. And then our official Facebook page is facebook.com erasablepodcast that's where you can go and like our podcast. Please take a second and rate and review us on itunes or recommend us on overcast or whatever podcaster you use. That's very helpful to us. That's the only way to make us more visible to differentiate us from all the other pencil podcasts out there which are all of our friends. So yeah, please give us a review that also gives us some really helpful feedback for future for the future of this podcast we want to end our episode by thanking our producer level Patreon supporters and they include Alex, Jonathan Brown and Sipe, Bobby Lutzinger, Chris Jones, Chris Metzkus, Chris Ulrich, Dave McDonald, all the Chris Tubman fourth underscore letter gangster Hotline, Hans Noodleman, Jason Dill, Jane Newton, Joe Crace, John Bannon, Johnny Baker, Kathleen Rogers, Kelton Wiens, Larry Grimaldi, Leslie Tosette, Mary Collis, Measure Twice, Michael Hagen, Random Thanks Stuart Lennon, Tana Feliz, Think Travel, Eat and Thomas Erberg or sorry Thomas Ekberg Anderson. So thank you everybody to our our producer level supporters on Patreon and we will talk to everyone soon. Do you like our podcast? Most people like our podcast but if you like our podcast David will turn it off.