Editing The Pen Addict 369/transcript (section)

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'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, thanks for taking one for the team last week. Myke, you're a good guy. Well, one thing that we had planned on discussing last week was the feedback that we got when I happened to mention the word planners on a recent episode of the podcast. It was only a few episodes ago, you know, late June, a few weeks ago. And I talked about what I wanted in a planner and how I'm enjoying the Sumkin A5 agenda, which you've all heard me talk about a billion times this year, that it's been the one agenda slash planner system that I've been successful with in years. And I enjoyed the layout and I was just looking, you know, are there other options for me out there? And Myke, let me just tell you, we get a lot of feedback on this show and a lot of questions for Ask TPA. I have never, ever received as much feedback as I did when I said the word planner and got specific about it in that episode. It was unreal and awesome. Like, I'm not saying that in a negative way. It was fascinating the beliefs people have in their planner and how it works for them. And I found it, one, fascinating. I found it, two, lovely that everyone would share what they do and would try to find a solution for me. You know, maybe and maybe I don't need a solution. I was just bringing it up as like, is there something out there better? Like, this one works so well for me. Do I just keep going? Probably should do that. But you know us, Myke. You know, we have one pen. Why shouldn't we have two pens, right, Myke?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we need more. We need more planners. We need, there's always the next one. There's always something better. There's always something we're chasing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There is a thing, though, like, I feel like you can use pens simultaneously. I don't know how many planners you can use simultaneously.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, yeah, no. I'm not saying that from a, I would have multiple planners. I'm saying that, well, this one's been really good to me. So let's switch because that's what we do, right? Yep. Not that I would have two different planners for two different things. So I kind of wanted to break down some of this feedback because it was so deep and involved and the topic really resonated with a lot of people. We're going to have to devote a lot of time to planners when planner season comes up, which I usually denote as about September 1st. That's usually when Hobonichi releases their swarm of planners. And then it's just all systems go with every company seems to be like in that September timeframe. So we'll be talking about this a lot because we don't have all of the new planners and there's always, you know, split year planners and there's always randomness coming out throughout the year. But really planner season for the following year usually hits about September. So we'll be talking about it more. So just to recap without going into what we talked about in episode 366 too much. Um, I like a two page per week planner. So the left side has my seven days and each of those seven days has their own area to write in like a horizontal block. I'm about five grid lines deep, if you will. And this is a five size page. So that's the left side of the page. And then the right side of the page is just a grid layout blank, like no restrictions or guidance on those pages. So that's what's worked for me. So I said those types of things. And, you know, I would also like the issue I was having is I don't have the future planning available for like, um, one month per two page layout in that. And that's kind of something that would be, I would find helpful. The undeniable winner in my inbox of that layout is the Hobonichi weeks. So I knew it was pretty clear that that was going to be the winner when I would get, I got multiple emails that essentially said the answer to your planner question is the Hobonichi weeks. And that would be the entirety of the email. There were like three of those. The answer is the Hobonichi weeks for what you're explaining. The answer is the Hobonichi weeks just over and over. It was like, okay, okay. I get it. It's like, I knew that was probably one that would be interesting, but it actually does have the weekly layout that I want in the monthly layout that I want. So I put the link to the 2019 Hobonichi weeks page in here, Myke, and I wanted to bring out one thing that I very much like about this planner, which I didn't discuss that I like about my current planner. They call it the two dot timeline. Now what that is, is it's breaks out. So you have this weekly rectangle, right? For your day. So each day, so Monday has like a six grid red rectangle, six grid deep rectangle. And then on the vertical, there is a dot at the top and a dot at the bottom that will split that section into thirds. If you want, it stays out of the way if you don't want it. But the idea for Hobonichi was to split each day into morning, afternoon, and evening. Now I don't use that, but my Sumkin has something similar where I take the right most marker and I'll draw a line full down the week. So I'll have two thirds of Monday's block for what I need to do on Monday. And then the one third of Monday's block that I leave, I put my personal stuff in there. My wife's work schedule, my son's practice schedule, my daughter's school schedule, you know, any appointments I have, any of the non-work related, any of the like family life type stuff goes in the right third. So I create my own column every time. And this Hobonichi Weeks has that little dot there. I don't have to have the dot, but it's nice to know that I can just run my line down there and keep, you know, my family obligations in that one third section. And I still have the two third section available for my traditional Monday through Sunday planning. So it also has the calendar at the front of the book. So it has the two page per month calendar layout that I like. It even has more little indexes and things. And, you know, it's slim. It's like an A5 slim style, about the size of your traveler's notebook style planner. So, yeah, I'm kind of thinking this will be the way that I go for next year, just because it takes what I exact, I can move exactly to what I'm doing now. And I can move it into this notebook and get the extra calendar that I want.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we'd think like we could just end it right there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, of all of the Hobonichis, you never had a Weeks then?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, never had a Weeks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You had a Cousin, you had a original Techo.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Techo first, Techo twice, Cousin the third option, and then nothing. Right, like I stopped. So I've never used the Weeks, but the Weeks lovers were out in force saying that was it. So, but yeah, and honestly, I think it probably is. Like I'm pretty resolved to let's see what the 2020 looks like. They don't change the overall formats of their core styles, Weeks, Techo, Cousin. No, that'd be weird. Very much. Like it'll just, if there's anything different, they'll just do some little, you know, layout differentiation on the indexes or something. Like the change logs on the core products are very small and very generally insignificant to the main aspects of the planners, right? They're not changing layouts, things like that. But I got a bunch more feedback that I didn't think about, and I wanted to give them some time as well. So aside from the Weeks, the second biggest bucket, if you will, of feedback came in one specific system. And it's more of a general term as opposed to a specific system. But everyone that uses disk-bound systems, you know what I talk about when I say a disk-bound system, Myke? Like the Levenger one. Levenger Circa, Staples Arc. There's one by William Hanna, which we'll talk about in a minute. But that is very popular. Like as soon as I say something like, I want these very specific things for a planner, the disk-bound system pops up because it's probably the most customizable. It's infinitely customizable.