Editing The Pen Addict 297/transcript (section)

== Hippo Noto Notebook ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' week now uh seven days and i'm using my hippo noto which is a a notebook that i've mostly kept for a special occasion i've written in it every now and then uh i committed the cardinal sin of tearing pages out of the notebook um because i didn't want i'm okay with that and a bit it can mess things up luckily this this notebook's made in such a way that it's not gonna it hasn't had a huge effect but i've torn some pages out so i just have my daily journal stuff in there um i use two pens every day for this and uh i vary up the pens that i use like i mix my my kind of inner guide for myself is to never use two pens in two days in a row right so every day i have to use two pens that were different to the day before um which is now the the knock-on effect of this is i now want more ink because i have too many pens that have the same ink in them yeah you've uh you've been a good boy

'''Brad Dowdy:''' and avoided the ink problems that many of us have well that's about i think that might be starting to

'''Myke Hurley:''' change so i did this for a couple of reasons uh one of them is a handful of reasons actually one of them is um i want to use my pens more i have lots of lovely pens and i want to use them more than i currently do um and kind of have it be more of a focal point in my life uh i'm very busy i'm a busy man i have a lot of things going on and i have a task system but i want to be able to spend some time every day to just focus on some of the things that i've got going on and also to just reflect on a few things so would you like to know what my system includes absolutely all right so this is a double page every day so new two pages every day um i have i write down the pens that i'm using and the ink that i'm using um i have my priorities which is an unfixed amount of things just it can be whatever things are going on in that day that like they're the most important things of the day so it can differ from it actually does differ from my task list quite significantly so i never have as many priorities as i have tasks right um i write down one good thing that happened in the day uh i write down one bad thing that happened in the day if there is a bad thing there isn't always a bad thing every day but there are bad things most days and i when i was thinking about this i didn't want this to just be just this thing where i'm supposed to pretend that everything's amazing and happy all the time because sure that's not life um i write down just a heading what did i learn today and that can be anything and this comes from a question that adina asks me most days and has done this for a very long time she says what do you what did you learn and i never know what to say so i decided to start writing it down um then i write down something that i'm looking forward to and i also have a rule which is i can never write the same thing in this box two days in a row either and that's my system

'''Brad Dowdy:''' i love it i think that's fantastic like i really really like that system my question and you may have said it and i may have missed it do you have a scheduled writing time to fill this or do you just kind of as you go through your day is it or is it like a fixed morning thing fixed night thing fixed afternoon thing what what do you have for as far as the time set aside to answer these questions i

'''Myke Hurley:''' have a daily returning recurring task in todoist for me to complete this and i'm currently just completing it at any point in the day whenever i want to but what what usually happens is i start

'''Brad Dowdy:''' at some point and finish it later on in the day okay right so like because you are combining tasks

'''Myke Hurley:''' with also reflections so like there is in theory a morning part and an evening part and it happens at two different times in a day sometimes it's afternoon and evening sometimes it's morning and afternoon right but like there will be at least two times in a day where i'll sit down to to put something into the

'''Brad Dowdy:''' notebook right man that's awesome i i really like it i like the setup that you have you know and it's also like one of the challenges for someone who's never done this or never written a journal or diary it can be intimidating right the you don't have to write a lot to get value out of putting a few words down on the page every day right and i think that's kind of what you're doing with your essentially different boxes that you're filling in um you know you know you have guidelines for that it helps you get over the hurdle of putting the pen to the paper and actually becomes an enjoyable experience because you're not only getting that thoughtfulness and reflecting on your day hey you're also getting to use cool pens and cool paper right yeah so it's kind of a winning all the way around i also just

'''Myke Hurley:''' realized that like you know i've looked at existing systems and stuff like that and they just don't work for me right like i the only reason that i'm that this is sticking so far is because i came up with the system that works for me so you know you know what i mean i'm not saying that that's like a thing that everyone needs to think about but that was my problem i think is that the rigidity or even the defined flexibility of systems that exist currently just don't work with my mind i guess in the long term so i decided that if i wanted to do this which i did maybe the best thing to do was to create a system of my own that makes sense for what i want to accomplish out of a task like this so that's what i went ahead and did and it's not a complex system by any means and like i've added a couple of things to it so like the what i'm looking forward to and the what pens am i using didn't exist for the first couple of days and i expect that to also change and adapt uh as time goes on that like i will think like oh maybe i should add this or maybe i should add that because it adapts to my changing uh needs right so yeah or like there might be a period of time where i have something that comes in that isn't here for the rest of the time because there's like something specific going on so i want to focus on it it with a new little heading but yeah and and but so i'm leaving i'm leaving it like flexible to meet whatever my needs are at the time yeah and i mentioned a little bit in

'''Brad Dowdy:''' our the pen addict members newsletter this weekend that i haven't been doing daily writing in my cousin and i'm okay with that like in the past i would not be okay with that like if i had a hobonichi techo um that's date based like your hippo noto is not date based like if i missed a day i would it would like freak me out like i don't know why yeah i really did for some reason a dated book either yeah but for that for some reason the cousin works for me i think because the size i have no problem going back and using previous days pages to do things that i want to do on them so i've i've thoroughly enjoyed it i'm actually using it for show notes today so um yeah i think that's great i want to hear more from this down the line and uh you know maybe in a few months we'll check in on both of our both of our systems and setups see how things have changed you know as we use them because it as we use them because it's always open to you know change and modification and tweaking and and get it down but the the best thing you said and which is why we get along so well is the you know the best system is the one that works for you you know if no system works for you make your own and if you don't need a system that's even better like you just do some some of us need some guidelines uh but and some of us need like fierce you know gtd level structure and then some of us can uh you know just brain dump into things and uh you know go from there so i think it's wonderful yeah i really i know this is kind of a

'''Myke Hurley:''' dumb thing to say i guess but like i really hope that i keep doing this which i know that seems that's kind of a stupid thing to say because it's like well if that's what i want then i'll just do it but i think we all understand that i think that there is a certain strand of people that completely understand what i'm getting at when i say it like i have question mike today hopes that mike in the future will continue mike in the future's life may change may change in a way that he doesn't feel like he needs this anymore but i hope that i do it's it's kind of a weird thing to wish that upon myself

'''Brad Dowdy:''' in the future but that's kind of how i feel about it all right well i think we've we've prattled on long enough mike but i do want to get one reader mail okay and if you will and i'm going to hold so february the last day is today has been inco rimo the international correspondence writing month and i've gotten a ton of letters to the po box here and keep those coming year round send them all the time anytime but you know i get a lot more during february so i have a bunch of ask tpa i've collected from the letters so we'll cover those i don't know maybe next week maybe the week after something like that um so we'll hold on ask tpa but i do want to get one reader mail in and this is from steve and i think it's because we can all relate and i've actually been getting a lot more of these recently so i don't know if we've had a uh an uptick of of new listeners or what but i want to i want to start this off with what steve writes dear brad and mike this is a true story at the end of november 2017 i was having trouble getting to sleep this so this is like three months ago i mean this is recent i found myself looking for some audio to listen to that would help me get to bed yeah not sure what's happening here steve i couldn't find any suitable music but i heard about the pen addict and thought if there's anything that can bore me to unconsciousness it's a podcast about pens thanks so much for listening to this week's episode it can bore you to death so it worked like a charm oh come on until where's the upswing on this until mike about episode nine when instead of drifting off to sleep i started listening to the episodes in their entirety instead of this pen podcast getting me dreaming i found myself dreaming about pens i was hooked and now i'm a fledgling pen addict i purchased my first pen from jet pens a twisbee eco in december nice choice two more at the philly pen show he's already been to a show like a twisbee diamond mini in the caveco al sport and a pilot prera also in january as if that weren't bad enough i have also completed the insane task of listening to every episode of the podcast we got you you are screwed who's the fool now steve i started in early december by re-listening to episodes one through nine and just finishing finished listening to episode 296 a few minutes ago it's been quite the obsession and it's been driving my family nuts my wife is relieved that she'll only hear you guys talking about pens every two weeks now i no longer have trouble sleeping that past but now i have an exciting new hobby thanks for this wonderful podcast in the case of pen addiction regards steve wow well that was awesome who's the winner who's the real winner of this i think it's me and you that's right i think it's us steve we always win in the end so i'm glad you made it all the way to episode 296 and now 297 you know we will uh we will talk about you and you will be surprised and i bet your white wife won't have to wait long to listen to this episode so tell her we say hi i'm sorry apologize a child apologize for your bank account status and tell her there's no end in

'''Myke Hurley:''' sight so this is what she's stuck with i like the idea of binging a show like a multi-year 100 episode show and by the time you've finished it your name gets read out on the show

'''Brad Dowdy:''' there's something kind of funny about that that is funny but you can get on the show anybody out there

'''Myke Hurley:''' there's a great way to do it you can email brad brad how do they email you uh hello at penaddict.com or you can send in your questions uh over twitter with the hashtag ask tpa um and that you can even as we mentioned like during certain times of the year we we accept mail-in versions and brad has a stack of those uh that we're going to get to over the next few weeks um so we've got some there too uh if you want to go and find out more about this episode find our links if you don't see them in a podcast app that you use the easy way to do that is to go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 297 um i want to thank again squarespace pen chalet and curvecase for their support of this week's show please go support our sponsors because it helps us be able to do this show for you every single week um if you want to find brad online he's at knock.co and penaddict.com he's dowdyism on instagram d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m and he is penaddict on instagram i am imike i-m-y-k-e uh this show is a part of relay fm we have a lot of shows at relay.fm slash shows there may be something else uh in our roster that would appeal to you we cover a wide range of topics including pens but you already knew that um thanks so much for listening thank you again if you've backed the kickstarter campaign as well remember one more week one more week uh we are up to 600 now so congratulations to that person who got the 600 thing during the show uh and we'll be back next week until then say goodbye brad and oh oh by the way uh go say hi to brad if you're at the baltimore pen show so goodbye brad hi brad oh no that's the wrong one you don't say hi goodbye brad goodbye brad

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]