Editing The Pen Addict 301/transcript (section)

== Stationery Updates ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So, before we get into the nuts and bolts of this show, people were asking both you and I for an update on a couple of different things. One, they were asking about your journal and how it's going, what the setup was. And secondly, they were asking about my Hobonichi cousin that I had planned to use for the year. So, why don't you give a quick update on how your journal is going? I know you have some news.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think you should go first because mine is no quick update.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have some pretty serious updates. Okay. Mine is quicker. So, I still carry my Hobonichi cousin in a Notco Seed A5 case pretty much every day. Notice I didn't say I fill it out every day. It is with me at all times. I absolutely love this notebook. It's one of my favorite products ever. I love the case that it's in. I mean, I helped design it. So, there's no doubt that I love it. But the way it's functioning is everything I ever wanted in a notebook cover. However, I've stopped my daily ritualizing in my journal or my diary or my notebook, whatever you want to call this. And it's become more of just a catch-all, which I kind of thought was going to happen. So, I actually don't have entries on every day. But I'm really good with that. Like, that used to bug me with my Techo, the smaller format Techo. If I didn't fill in a day, I was like, it bothered me. Like, it weighed on me. And with this one, the larger format cousin, it doesn't bother me because I've gone back and used the pages are so large. They're A5 size pages. I go back and use them regularly. And just for anything, ink swabs, you know, I've done Kickstarter budgeting. You know, I've done NotCo project listing, you know, just on, you know, a page from two weeks ago that happens to be blank because I love using this notebook. So, I don't have, I had a pretty good daily routine through January where I did the same specific steps every day in my notebook. And I don't do that anymore. So, now I just use it as I want to use it. I have it with me at pretty much all times. I don't freak out if I don't use a specific day. Like, if I have a blank page for, you know, March 20th, that's okay. And I've been just real, real happy with this setup. And I hope to use it, you know, throughout the entire year. Right now, it's been going good. So, I'll try to keep it up. But I love it. Oh, real quick, the pens I'm using. I always have my Pilot High Tech C pen type B in my seed case. And then I'll usually pick a fountain pen to rotate into the second slot. Today, I'm using the Aurora Optima with the silver cap that I picked up in Arkansas. And it's filled with a really neat ink that I'm having trouble with. It's the Robert Oster Australian Opal Mauve. It's one of the prettiest inks I've ever seen. And I can't get it to be as special when I see it in a nib as when I see it on a swab. It's one of those where, you know, the swab tricks you in that wide swath of ink. You know, you get to see all the range of colors. And I'm actually even using a medium nib. And the colors are coming out better. But I want more from this ink. It's such a good-looking ink when you see it swabbed. But on the page, it's a little bit flatter. Even though I'm using a standard medium nib on here and getting as much ink as I can, I'm seeing a little bit of the character. But I want to see more. So, yeah. Interesting ink that I continually play with but can't always thoroughly enjoy. That's why it never makes any of my lists because it's just a little bit off sometimes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Are you ready for mine? This is pretty serious.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready. But let's hear it anyway.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. I had two problems that needed to be solved. So, problem number one, people that listen to Cortex on a regular basis may have heard me. Because basically, this topic right now is spanning across both of these shows because it hits in a couple of different ways. And we just read a book called Triggers. And in that book, there is this stuff called Active Daily Questions, which is like a small list of questions that you can ask yourself every day. And you can score them to kind of be like, yeah, I made work towards these today. I worked towards these today. So, like stuff like, for example, I'll just give you a couple of mine. So, like, did you generate revenue for your business today? Did you do something to make someone you love happy today? Like stuff like that. And the idea is you don't sit and write a whole thing about them. But, like, I'm going to give myself a score every day out of, like, five or something like that. And I couldn't in my setup with my Hipponoto, I couldn't work out a way to do this that didn't require me writing out every one of these five questions every day. And then I just want to rip it all up and start over. I couldn't work it out, right? So, that's been something that's been playing on my mind. Like, what is a good way to, like, create some kind of table or something like that? But in a way which isn't like me drawing out a table every time. Like, I don't want to draw out a table every couple of weeks because I fill it up, right? Like, I couldn't find an elegant way to do this. The second problem may be something that eagle observers of the show may have picked this up when I first spoke about the Hipponoto. And it has come to pass. Do you remember that I said, oh, I had to rip some pages out of my Hipponoto? Yeah. Yeah, that was a death knell for this notebook, unfortunately. The cover is coming off now, off of the front. Because I don't know what it is. I don't know what I've done. Like, you know, because it's one of those notebooks where it's lots of little notebooks sewn together. And it seems like I tore off enough of the first notebook that the cover is coming off. So that was a frustration for me. And I figured I'd have to replace it. The Hipponoto book that I want is, like, just not available, right? Like, I don't know what the situation is there. Like, I don't know when they're going to go back into stock or not. But so I've been like, I'm in. Yes. Okay. I'm assuming that they will. And I hope to buy another one because it's just a wonderful notebook. But the cover's coming off of mine. So, you know, I don't want to keep using it. Or I just basically was like, I need to prepare myself for this. So I thought, okay, what can I do that can get me a new notebook that I like, which has a lot of the qualities that I like from Hipponoto? And it also tried to give me something to solve this daily question thing I have going on. Can you imagine which brand I turned to when I was trying to fix this issue?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you want me to guess? Yeah, I want you to guess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Midori. Nope.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I turned to Hobonichi to solve this problem. Oh, nice. Yeah, so then two things happened. So I thought to myself, okay, let me finally get a Hobonichi. So I was looking around and they're not super easy to get in the UK, but there is a company called The Journal Shop, which I bought from before, and they have a small selection. And I was like, okay, I want, I think, so I was kind of like tossing this up, right? What I wanted was the cousin, right? Because I wanted the A5, yeah? So I was looking around and they had some cousins available, but I think it's in Japanese, their one. I don't know if they do one in English, but it's in Japanese. They do not. Sorry. So I didn't know this, right? So I'm poking around and looking on their website and like, oh, they have those covers and they have the covers that I want. The Earthbound, like the mother covers. Yeah, right. Because they're like this amazing SNES graphic, right? It's fantastic. So I saw one, I was like, oh, okay. They have the, this is Magicant, which is a 65 pounds and it's the Hobonichi and it's English inside. I contacted their customer support and asked them and it arrived today. Something I did not pay attention to. This is a Techo. This is an A6. So I was like, huh? Okay. So this isn't the size that I wanted. So I'm in this little situation right now where I'm, I'm weighing up my journal system because I think I need to sit down and plan this out and I haven't done it because this only arrived a couple of hours ago. But I believe that what I'm going to be able to do is on the individual monthly calendar pages, I will be able to write out my questions around the borders and then score myself on a daily basis. So I'm only writing out these questions once a month, right? And then every day on the calendar section, I can give myself my scores out of five. And then I thought like maybe I would add it up to a total and then that's my score of effectiveness for the day. But then on the pages, the pages are significantly smaller, right? So I'm going from an A5 to an A6 and from double page to single page, right? So it is like, I am basically a third probably of the overall page per day that I was using before. So I was thinking to myself, right? So my current journaling system consists of the following questions. Priorities, where I write down my priorities for today. Something good, something bad, something I'm looking forward to, something I've learned, things that are on my mind and the pens that I've used. So I was thinking like, okay, can I distill this a little bit to make it smaller? And I think that I've got an idea. So what I'm going to do, I'm now just going to do four sections on a daily basis. Good, bad, think slash feel and looking forward. So I'm going to remove the priorities thing because honestly, this was just me giving myself needless pats on the back. So like today, like the pen addict would be one of my priorities. I'm just tick it off. Well, I have a to-do system. Like, you know, like really it was just a way for me to be like, oh, look, I did my things. But my hope is that my daily questions will provide me with that instead, because it's like, well, they're the actual like overarching things that I'm working towards goal-wise. So that's going to fulfill that part. The learning, what I've learned and what's on my mind, I never completed those every single day in full. There was always just like maybe a little bit in one, a little bit in another, or I didn't complete one of those sections. So condensing that to one section works. And then I write what pens that I'm using on the top little right hand side of the pages, because it's like a little blank thing. So I actually think that I might be able to condense my entire journal down to this A6 size, because it has additional features to it. So I think I might have done it. I'm not sure. And then it's got like, you know, the cover. This is going to be an interesting project. Yeah, the cover has the two loops, right? For the two pens, like for the pens. I know it's like you're supposed to like put one pen through it or whatever to like lock the notebook up. So I can kind of pull one out when I'm done with my headings for the day. Yeah, I don't know. I think this might, I think this might do it. And it's in a smaller form factor. So it's easier to travel with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, well, we're definitely gonna need some follow up on this. Yeah. Because I think it's interesting. It's a huge change from what you were using. And you just started using one system and you had this whole layout thing going on. And now you're putting it down to a style that like I couldn't even deal with because it was so small last year. But I think it's, you know, if you set it up right, you know, I think it might work. So I'll be interested to see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I mean, basically, I had six headings where most of the day I was writing one sentence. So I might not need it that much. So this is kind of where I'm going for. So I think it could work. I mean, it's working today so far, at least. I'll let you know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool. But I'm pretty happy about the fact that I finally got Hobonichi.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is this your first one ever? It's my first one ever. I bought it at the wrong time of the year. They only have the January to January's. So like, sure. I have like January to February's as wasted. But yeah, we'll see.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just in a general sense, they do. Some of their models are April starts. Yeah, I saw those. I don't know why, but they do have a big batch of April starts. But I don't think in the Techo or the Cousin, not in the big, not in the large sizes, most of the smaller sizes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because April start would have been pretty great considering we're just about to go into April.