Editing The Pen Addict 469/transcript (section)

== Smand Case Discussion ==


'''Brad:''' That's why I can't get all the way there, Myke. Smart stand? Small stand? Smart... Smart... Smand. Smand. Smand. Smand. Hmm. Smand. Some star smand. Smart... Smart stand? You think it's smart stand? Maybe. We're going to go with smand for, like, Bennifer here. Like, smart stand. Smand.

'''Myke:''' Smart phone stand.

'''Brad:''' Smart phone stand. Smand.

'''Myke:''' That's what I think it is.

'''Brad:''' That's what's happening in the meeting. They're all going around the room, and someone, like, this is how the room, right? So there's, like, a conference room, right? You all know the meeting, and there's, like, eight people sitting around there, and this case is up on the board, and everyone's, like, locked in. Like, all right, we're going to figure out what to call this. This triangular pen case, and it holds your phone up. And they're going around the room, and everyone's going out, you know, saying, like, all these classic names, and, like, oh, it's the triangular-thon mecca pen case deal. And Bob's back there with a powdered donut. He just looks at it and goes, smand. And everyone goes, oh, Bob, that's it. Happy day again, Bob. Bob. And Bob's like, what? I was just enjoying my powdered donut.

'''Brad:''' Like, that's how I think this happened. And that's how I vision this anyway.

'''Myke:''' I found the product page from Dell Day. But, of course, it's all in Japanese. But it says, well, it says, introducing the pen case, smand, that allows you to place your smartphone horizontally or vertically. So I really think it's smartphone stand.

'''Brad:''' It's got to be smartphone. Smartphone stand. Smand.

'''Brad:''' I'm just going to stick with smand, because it's just a great word. This is a legit good pen case. This pen case now lives on my stream desk, because as I'm recording this, my phone's sitting on it.

'''Myke:''' Oh, Brett, do you know why they made this? This is so friggin' smart. In recent years, there have been increasing opportunities to study while using online classes with smartphones. So it's like you're reading, or you're on your Zoom call or whatever, on your phone, and you're still doing your schoolwork. It's all in one.

'''Brad:''' And all your pens and pencils are right there in the case. It's awesome.

'''Myke:''' Great product design. I love this case.

'''Brad:''' Like I said, I'm staring at my phone on this case while I'm talking to you right now. It is going to stay on my desk.

'''Myke:''' Super good. Yep, it's good.

'''Brad:''' It's good. Smand.

'''Myke:''' Smand. Let me tell you about another nice product. Nice. Hello. Hello. Hello make incredibly comfortable buckwheat pillows. My favorite pillow. My very favorite pillow. I've slept on a hollow pillow every single night for years for many reasons. One, because I get great support. It supports your head and neck, unlike a regular fluffy pillow. Because it's made with the buckwheat, the buckwheat hulls. They're kind of like, I don't know, it's close to like a bean from a bean bag kind of idea. Like it's an individual little thing and you have loads of them. But because they're all these little individual buckwheat holes. I really struggle to try and explain. But they're like little individual pellets, let's just say, for the sake of trying to allow you to envision something. It means you can remove and add them. So you can make the pillow the exact size that you want it. Exact size that you want it. Because you can just change it however you want. But also, it doesn't compress down. It can only compress down so much, right? Because it's like a physical thing. It's not smushy like a foam or like a feather or something. So you really get that support. Also, it allows for air to flow through the pillow more easily. So it doesn't get warm and humid. You don't have to do that flipping to the cool side of the pillow anymore. Because the pillow always remains cool. People have been sleeping on buckwheat pillows for many years. They're popular in many countries in the world, including Japan. They can sometimes feature on a pillow menu at fancy hotels. I have yet to find a hotel that has a pillow menu, but it is a life goal of mine now. So I can say, hey, bring me the buckwheat pillow. Because then I know I'm going to get a good night's sleep. Because we just slept in a hotel last weekend when we did something for our anniversary. We stayed in London. And I had two regular pillows. And it was like sleeping on an envelope. Right? Because I'm so used to my hollow now. I have one pillow and it's nice and thick. And it stays that size. And it doesn't squish down or anything. And I think it's super comfortable. Hollow pillows are made in the USA with quality construction and materials. They have a certified organic cotton case, which is cut and sewn for durability. And the buckwheat is grown and milled in the United States as well. I'm sure you're pretty curious to try one of these out. You can. You can sleep on a hollow pillow for 60 nights. And if it isn't right for you, you can just send it back for a refund. Go to hollowpillow.com slash penaddict right now to get your very own buckwheat pillow. That's H-U-L-L-O-P-I-L-L-O-W dot com slash penaddict. And if you buy more than one, they have a special discount of up to $20 off depending on the size you opt for. Hollow have fast free shipping of every order. And 1% of all profits are donated to the Nature Conservancy. So give it a try. And if you like it, keep it. If you don't, just send it back. Go to hollowpillow.com slash penaddict. A thanks to Hollow for their support of this show. And Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' The best products are the ones that ruin all the traditional products for you. And this is one for me. It is ruined pillows for me. I like it that much. I almost wish there was a hollow pen so I'd stop buying all the pens. Yes. But then we probably wouldn't have 469 nice episodes of this podcast. Nice. All right, Myke. I want to talk about my planner again, but not really. Okay. You know, we'll talk about my planner more. My planner changes more. Like, you know, give me a month or two as I get into it and figure out the pros and cons of my new format. If you want to hear about that, you can listen to last week's episode. But I want to talk about the additional tools I am using in my planner, which was honestly one of the underlying reasons why I switched. Now, I switched my layout because what wasn't working for me, my existing planner wasn't working for me, so I needed a new layout.

'''Brad:''' But the bonus of this new layout, Myke, is not only do I get to use a pen, I get to use other stationary items with this, and I want to talk about them. So the way I use my planner is I pick a single pen, and that's the planner pen for the week. Right? It could be a fountain pen. You know, this week is the Domeki Milky Way, which I use a lot. And I try to only use that pen to plan the days, right? This is one of the ways. This is going to come up later in STPA if we get to it today or even next week of how I rotate my pens and make sure I'm using as many things as possible. So it could be a...

'''Myke:''' Is the planner pen physically attached to the planner?

'''Brad:''' Never.

'''Myke:''' Okay. You just keep them around near each other? Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I usually carry like a pen case and the planner kind of move together. Yeah. Makes sense. So they'll stay together. And there's other pens in there, but I still only pick the one for the planner. So, you know, last week it was the Procyon because I was in the middle of reviewing it and, you know, working on getting my thoughts down on that. So I just use it and use it and use it. And before that, it was in a Johto pen, you know, where it could be, you know, a rollerball. It could be a gel pen. It could be a pencil. Whatever. I try to stick with one, but then I have like the notes section in the planner and then that section I can use whatever I want, right? I'm not saying I'm only using one pen per week. I'm saying like the planner, like the dates and time stuff that I try to use the same pen for a week. In addition now, with the way I'm planning, I get to use a highlighter because I want to keep family stuff doesn't necessarily make the schedule breakdown, right? So like when I talked about my planner, I now have like a breakdown every 30 minutes, you know, 8 a.m., 8.30, 9, 9.30. So like all those little spots are for my work or my day, how my day is going to go. So and then on the kind of the right edge of those time slots, I'll highlight, say if my wife is working from 8 to 8, I'll run a highlighter down the edge, the right edge of that. And I'll write in the highlighter, highlighted area, you know, Mary Beth work 8 to 8, right? And then like if, you know, my son or my daughter has something, those are different highlight colors and different lines as well. So I'm able to see my day a little bit better. It's a better visual in this layout than what I was using before. So I'm using the Pentel Fitline double-sided highlighter in pastel colors. I've really gotten into these pastel color highlighters as opposed to the traditional like highly fluorescent highlighters. I like the little bit lighter colors that the Zebra Mildliner has made so popular, right? They're really, really good. Just accent colors, right? They're not, I'm not highlighting a textbook to come back and make sure I don't miss that. I'm accenting a note that I want to have a good visual on just in general. So I bought the eight color set of the highlighters. I'm kind of like in the, like the minty green one so far has been the move. In that highlighter space, I use a pencil. So this, I don't know if you can tell, Myke, this is how excited I get about all this little stuff that I get to use for my planner and stationery. This is why like I do the pen addict, right? Because I get obsessed about, okay, I just made a highlighter mark. What is the writing instrument? I am now going to write the information inside the highlighter mark in. So I do it backwards because I'll put the highlighter mark down first and then write on top of it because I might be using some pen that may not do as well if you're running a highlighter over it. So I decided for now I'm using a pencil. I'm using the Pentel Graph 1000. It's a limited edition Pentel Graph. This is the, this is the little brother to the Pentel Graph gear, the famous Pentel Graph gear drafting pencil, which a lot of people know. This is the more, I won't say subdued because these are really bright and bold colors, but it's a plastic barrel as opposed to a full aluminum barrel for the full graph gear and the grip is a little bit different. And I just really like the colors. Like I have the red one, which is a red and pink gradient. And that is now the pencil that goes with the planner and the highlighter. And, you know, I'll mix that up sometimes. Maybe I'll use a pen there, but right now I'm using the pencil. I like the option of having a pen, a highlighter, and a pencil so far. My challenge, Myke, I know, I know you cannot wait for this section. The challenge I'm having is I want my highlighters to be in a straight line. And I'm, I, my kids have stolen all my good rulers. So this is what I was talking about on stream the other day. I have this, one of those triangular like architect or engineer rulers, you know, the triangle ones that have like the vertical part to them, you know, you just turn them around and they like, it's basically like a six sided ruler. I don't want that for my planner. I want a flat ruler, right? So I went shopping for rulers because my highlighter line, I want it straight. I want it straight in my planner.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. This is like, you're a step away from Bujo country.

'''Brad:''' I'm, I'm there.