Welcome to the Planner of Health podcast, a podcast hosted by two
true planner of house. I am Jess or Jessica in and.
My name is Mark, and I go by Mark your pages and welcome back
another great episode of the head for us, Jess, as we talk
about where we are currently finding inspiration inside of
this beautiful planner sphere, especially as we're getting into
the beginning of this year. And you know, you have an idea
for your journal or for your planners, and then you're
suddenly like, what else do I do here?
And as somebody who gives a lot of inspiration, Jess, I'm also
excited to hear where you're currently gathering your own
from. Yeah, it's, I mean getting into
the new year with your set up, your fleet of planners, maybe a
fleet definitely if you're me or maybe just your one and kind of
thinking like, oh, you know, I just I want this to be my year.
I want this to be the best year it can be.
So what can I do in my planner that's different to what I've
done previously? What can I do to make it the
best year it could be? So it doesn't necessarily need
to be in the span of kind of like, you know, productivity.
It doesn't just need to be for creativity, but we're really
looking at anything and anyone I suppose, who's giving us
inspiration at the moment. So Mark, where would your first
source of inspiration be? Well, I'm finding a little bit
more difficult more and more every single day.
Instagram still is a main source for inspiration from me, but not
in the same way that it used to be.
I think when I first got started, and maybe this is a
major differentiator now between where I am now and where I was
when I started. Instagram was everything to me.
It's kind of lived on Instagram. And I just saw so many more
posts about bullet journaling and ideas and things that are
going on. And right now I don't feel like
we see a lot. I see a lot of ads, that's for
sure. A whole lot of ads and
suggestions. But when I do see the people
that I'm looking up to, that is a common place to go to.
I kind of have three people on Instagram that I am always
seeing stuff from. And it's maybe because I'm
actively also searching them out very often as we go through with
it. I would say like my very first
one on Instagram was Stina from Super Massive Black Ink.
When I first started Bola journaling, she was one of the
first people that I came across and she just consistently just
had really cool spreads. Everything was done mostly in
black ink, which kind of makes sense for her name, I suppose.
But just seeing stuff from her early on made me feel like, oh,
you don't have to be this maximalist designer.
You don't have to be this maximalist bullet journaler to
still have really nice looking things.
So for me, she was a a major inspiration.
And then from like the totally opposite side of it, I have like
my creative inspiration person and that's Alexandra from adopt
pages. She just has really cool
creative. I was actually just before this
episode, I was going through and I'm bringing people down and I
came across like her things, her February cover page and I was
like, and This is why you are my inspiration because this is just
damn cool and artsy and she does it in a really nice way.
So Instagram again, but it's I'm like nitpicking and finding
specific people. I guess now that I actively
search out because Instagram doesn't do a good job of feeding
me a lot of inspiration maybe as much as it used to.
Yeah, no, I completely agree with that.
Because back back when I used to use Instagram more actively, I
know that I was saving. Saving is my big thing.
You know, I would save. I never, I never liked them.
I never put a heart on it. I don't know why.
I'm very liberal with my saves. I'm not very liberal with my
heart, but I would always be finding all of these different
ideas that I want to try in my journal, like, oh, that colour
palette looks great. I love the way that they've set
up XYZ or whatever. I just don't really do that
anymore. And it's probably something to
do with the way the algorithm has changed or whatever, or
developed or whatever. I actually hate it when people
say the algorithms changed. I'm like, yeah, no, no shit.
That's like what their job is. Their job is to make you stay on
the platform for longer. So they're gonna have to update
things so that it does that. But I think that because of
that, a lot of the stuff that I'm getting shown on Instagram
now isn't actually planned related, which feels kind of
weird because I pretty much spend the majority of my time on
my planner account on there, the stuff related to my journal and
all of that. So you'd think I'd see more
about that. But it's probably just because
anything that I share or like, you know, send to my story or
send to my friends or anything like that, it's just going to be
a meme, something about books or anything in that kind of space.
So it's like the algorithm's like, well, hey, you spent at
least three seconds looking at this thing about, I don't know,
throne of glass or whatever. So now we're just going to show
you that, which would be very dangerous when it comes to the
territory of spoilers and books, but that is a complete aside.
So yeah, not really seeing as much on the planner space in
Instagram anymore. Yeah.
You're totally right about the spoiler thing.
My daughter was recently rewatching Gossip Girl and she
was maybe like three seasons and and I would ask her like, oh,
who do you think it is? And then she watched a reel that
spoiled it and I was just like, so she was like, oh, it's not to
spoil it for anyone here. She was like, oh, I think it's
this person. And I was like, oh, OK.
And then like 2 weeks later she's like, I was watching
Instagram reels and it's someone spoiled it for me.
And there she was like, oh, it's this person.
I was like, well, you don't really know.
Like trying to, you know, fake it until I make it for her to
give it a little bit of that. But you're absolutely right.
It's kind of like if you're late to the journey or late to the
game or whatever that right saying is, you're going to miss
out. That was the same thing with
like Game of Thrones and stuff like that.
Like if you didn't watch it the night of, you were seeing all
the memes the next day. I'm also very curious too with
Instagram specifically if it's because reels have become even
more prominent and it's always feeding us stuff.
And I'm I'm very open with my heart, unlike you.
So I heart a lot of different things.
And so I feel like with the reels, it's such a mixed bag of
things. It's comedy, it's Mimi stuff,
it's TV show, a little tiny bit of bullet journaling, but like,
not a whole lot now that I really think about it, which is
kind of weird. Did you say maybe like that's
how you read the word meme or did you say maybe like MAMAY?
Yes, yes, Mimi. No, I don't say.
Mimi meme just like what was that?
No, I'm not that uncool, Jess. I definitely know a meme versus
yeah meme, apostrophe, dash, whatever EY i.e.
Oh my gosh. I was like really worried.
I'm like, can't sit with us, Mark.
You can't sit with us. Get off the Internet, You don't
belong here anymore. Go back to Facebook.
I can't even remember what your point was now because I was just
so caught up on the idea of like, what was that maybe?
My point was maybe we're not being fed content because
Instagram is so real heavy and they just throw everything at
you to keep you on the platform and it's not always necessarily
going to be planner stuff. I think that's the thing right?
Is that I feel like the algorithm almost knows my brain
better than I know it. So even if I go in with the
intention of like, Oh yeah, I want to see planner related
stuff. I want to see stuff that's
supposed to inspire me for my journal or whatever.
But you spent 3 seconds looking at that frog, so now we're just
going to show you frog content for the rest of your days.
I'm like, damn it, I love frogs. I rely a lot more on Instagram
Stories now than I used to back in the day, especially when
there weren't Reels and we could see all of that.
I do it also because even for myself and anyone who does
follow me on Instagram and looks at my stories knows it's kind of
it's my personality. It's going to be some meme
things, it's going to be some planner things, YouTube, kind of
a mix of everything going on. But that's honestly where I put
a lot. And I also, that's where I see
most of those stuff as well. I think back in the day, it was
almost like a faux pas to put things on your stories that you
were also posting about. But honestly now you just have
to do everything you can possibly do to get anyone to see
your content with everything else going on.
I think my favorite use of stories was always your Sunday
shares or whatever it was. It was a Sunday.
I can't remember. Yeah.
I loved that because it meant that, you know, you're getting
exposed to new accounts and people who are creating things
and stuff, things that the algorithm might not serve you
up. And it was just like a nice
little kind of no. It felt like a flip book, like a
coffee table book, like, oh, I could just peruse the art of the
week because Mark has collated it for me.
Well, that's The thing is that I used to do that, but then it
started to kind of run dry. But it wasn't anyone's fault.
It's not that people weren't posting it, it just wasn't
automatically feeding me the content anymore.
And so it became harder and, and harder.
Honestly, that's like a testament, true testament right
there. Is it?
I used to do it all the time because I would have no problem
collecting things. But then it really, it's like
the well dried up and I was like, well, now I have to do a
lot of hard work for this. I have to search things out.
And then it almost felt somewhat curated because I would only be
looking up certain hashtag things.
But then they changed hashtags on Instagram too.
I think I'm just gonna backpedal into Instagram is actually not a
good place to find any type of inspiration anymore because
they're taking it all away from us.
Yeah, kind of, hey, like I was thinking about in terms of where
I'm getting my inspiration the most nowadays, and Instagram has
definitely taken a backseat in that kind of aspect.
Previously it was my go to. It was the one that I could kind
of rely on to have things that would be inspiring for me.
But nowadays it's more so YouTube.
And I think it's also because I like to see the process and I'd
like to see the process in a format that is horizontal, not
vertical. I think you also get more of an
in depth look of it a lot of the time because it's usually longer
format videos and such, so that kind of helps.
So when you are looking for things on YouTube, because I
struggle here a little bit, I'd love to have you expand a bit
more on the inspiration you're finding.
Because for me personally, just as a quick little intro to what
you're doing and how you're finding it.
I sometimes find it to be a little too overwhelming and time
consuming because usually it's a video that's going to be 5 plus
minutes. And when I'm looking for
inspiration, I think I'm more personally looking for elements
of something that I like versus having to watch a video I do.
I appreciate the process, don't get me wrong.
But I kind of want to see the finished product to see whether
or not I'm going to actually want to watch the rest of this
video or be inspired by it. So curious to hear your
perspective on YouTube as an inspiration spot.
Now, I completely understand the idea of just wanting to take an
element of it and that's why when it comes to watching videos
on YouTube, I am much more drawn to the people who actually talk.
Not necessarily through what they're doing, but they talk in
their video because I use that as kind of an indication as to
when I should look up. A lot of the time when I'm quote
watching YouTube, not actually watching it, I'm doing something
else and it's kind of like playing in the background.
So I feel like I have company. Oh look, friends.
But by having that kind of like audio cue, I suppose to be like,
hey, Jess, you should probably pay attention to this because it
sounds like something you might be interested in.
I find that very helpful. So I don't watch any kind of
like music, only kind of content or ASMR content.
The heavy jeebies. I do not want it.
I don't want to hear you rustle the pages around and like
delicately RIP the paper. I know it's for some people,
it's just not for me. So when it comes to trying to
find these, like, you know, inspiration sources on YouTube
in particular, you've got about 8 seconds to hook anybody in a
video to start with. But if you start your 8 seconds
and you're not already talking, then I am already skeptical as
to whether this video is for me. I also like to be able to skip
to the end. Not always I will watch your
video, but I like to be able to skip to the end and see some
kind of a flip through. Because if I can, you know,
watch maybe about half a minute, maybe a minute of the video, I'm
like, I'm not too sure if this is actually gonna be for me,
then at least I could skip to the end, see if there's gonna be
something that's kind of like a payoff, I suppose.
And I'm like, alrighty, fine, you got me.
I'll go back and watch the rest. So your process here to fully
understand. So are you actively searching
out any certain terms or people or are you just coming in and
because YouTube knows you better than you know yourself, it just
already has it on that browsing page for you.
And then are you, this is like very like YouTube 101.
Like you said, you got 8 seconds to hook me, but what's grabbing
your attention first? I'm assuming that it's going to
be the visual thumbnail that's on there.
And like, what do you look for when you're like, OK, I need
some new inspiration. Like how are you going about
that? Yeah, I pretty much exclusively
watch like plan with me set up videos, whether that's a plan
with me set up in a bullet journal or a reading journal.
Sometimes I'll venture into the space of like other planners and
such, but because oftentimes those planners are, I don't want
to say that they're just stickering a page because I know
that's not all that it is. But it does seem to be very
leaning in that direction of like, here's how I decorate my
planner rather than here's how I'm utilizing my planner.
If anybody has any recommendations of planner
content that is in a pre structured planner that is
actually a quote, quote actually about the planning, I would love
to hear it because I'd be very curious to see how they're
getting utilized. A lot of the time if I'm
watching planner planner content, it's really just seeing
what the structure of their layouts are because oftentimes
it's just mainly about decoration and whatnot.
I feel bad saying it like this because I know that there must
be people out there who are actually sharing how they plan
in a pre printed planner and I don't want them to be sitting
there at home like, oh, OK, I'm just using stickers.
I've just decorated kind of a thing.
Decoration is important. The planet doesn't look nice,
I'm not going to use it. So I completely understand.
But I think that in terms of trying to find inspiration from
it, I'm not so much focused on the decorative element.
I'm really thinking about like, well, how are you using this?
How could I use it? How could I tweak it or change
it to make it my own? But I like to break things down
into their elements like that. I know that's not necessarily
something that comes super easily to everybody.
You asked about how I find it, though.
And that is kind of more so one, relying on the algorithm to know
me better than I know myself, like we talked about before.
Also, any kind of thumbnail that shows me kind of what the
finished product is in a way that it's like, OK, there's
enough visual appeal here that I think I'll get something out of
it because oftentimes you can't see the details.
You won't necessarily know whether it's going to be useful
in a functional way before you click on to the video.
That kind of makes sense. No, that makes complete sense on
it. One of the people that I know
that does kind of a predated planner, she does a mix of
everything is Julie from Julie's Plan, and I've always feel like
she does a really good job of breaking things down and how
she's using it. I know that she uses it for
work. I know she has her kind of a
creative planner. I know she plays around and
fiddles with a lot of different type of stuff and she's one
person that I think consistently she kind of delivers that.
She posts so many videos. It's absolutely amazing.
I mean, from a person who's consuming some planner content,
it's great to be able to go on and be like, oh, something new
versus, you know, other people who maybe are posting once a
month or whatever their cadence might be.
It's really cool to be able to see that.
But that's one person that I was thinking about.
And for me, you know, I've never really thought about utilizing
YouTube as a copilot Co worker kind of thing, because I always
feel like I have to visually watch a YouTube video to doing
it. I mean, there are times that
I'll listen to like maybe some like news or things like that,
or like The Daily Show is a good example where like I can turn it
on in the car. I can't watch it while I'm
driving, but I can listen to it for the most part, get a really
good piece. But I always feel like with
planar content, I want like full focus on it because, you know, I
know that that's a visual piece. I need to see it versus hearing
them talk about it. But maybe it depends on the the
content itself. Yeah, I find monotasking in that
way very difficult, like just sitting down and actually
watching a YouTube video. I'm like, like even just sitting
here while we're talking, I'm like fiddling around with my
tweezers, which is a very safe fidget tool.
We talked about this before we started, but the idea of just
doing one thing and not having something else on the go very
difficult. It's like I'm watching a movie.
I'm also on my phone. If I'm watching watching a
YouTube video, I'm probably also working in my planner or I'm
editing a video or something at the same time, which is why I
need there to be that audio or like audio in a way that it can
be relied on that you as the creator are going to tell me
when I need to actually look at the screen.
Now that makes a lot of sense, and that thing is important.
I'll make sure that I say and give you cues as you watch my
videos moving forward to make sure that you know when to look
at what I'm doing. Thank you for thinking of me.
I appreciate your consideration. So while social media does make
for a great spot to find inspiration, and we've kind of
touched on Instagram and YouTube in particular, we're not even
going to touch Pinterest with a 10 foot pole because Oh my gosh,
like neck. It should be, could be, should
be an entire conversation by itself.
But where else are you trying to find inspiration for your
planning and journaling? So having a back on the design,
I've always been a big fan of packaging design.
So I actually will find inspiration in very odd and
weird places. So of course I will find it from
packaging that I'm getting in the stationary space.
Sometimes there's really cool pens like Baron Fig always does
a great job with their packaging design on their pens and their
notebooks and things like that. And sometimes they'll just be
elements of that that I'm like, oh, that's really cool, I like
that and kind of bring that in. I think maybe one of the
weirdest places I ever got it was from a shampoo bottle.
And it was like, forget what brand it was, but it had all
these like little hexagons on. It was probably trying to build
out like molecules of whatever type of stuff that's in the
shampoo. And I really like that hexagon
shape and like the interconnectivity of it.
And I remember taking that and taking a picture of a lot of
pictures in my camera roll of like weird things.
But it's all because I liked the packaging itself or something
from there drew me in. And so I remember taking that
and then that week for the bullet journal, I went ahead and
I just drew out like a lot of hexagons onto my spread.
It's like one of my favorite shapes to use in my bullet
journal too. I don't know why.
Something about it is a lot of fun, but just taking a look at
what's around you as you're walking through, maybe not
everyone does this. I feel like as a designer, I'm
kind of trained to kind of look at those things because either
you are designing those or you're looking at the world
around you to either get inspiration or see how other
people are doing that. So my eye is just always going
on. So if I see really cool
packaging, I will pay attention to it.
Also, when my wife takes me to Home goods, it's a lot of the
times I will take pictures of a lot of things, especially like
during the holiday season, I'll take pictures of the bags, like
different type of gift bags because usually those have like
very simplistic, kind of more geometric or like I'll say like
not super detailed icons or images on it.
So if you want to set up like a Santa spread or something on the
holidays, sometimes I will actually take pictures of bags
and stuff like that and kind of duplicate or replicate what was
on the package of that bag because it's easy enough to do.
Now it's cool way to think about it in terms of like the design
elements in particular, because obviously the people who are
producing these products, like they've done their reps, they've
got their trading in and they're going to capture the audience
type of a thing like because packaging and you know, it is
kind of like a type of branding and such.
So the development in behind that you can kind of rely on
somebody else's hard work to be like, OK, cool, I'm going to
like, you know, what is it called scrap lift?
I'm going to scrap lift your design and then put it into my
own journal, which is kind of nifty.
Oftentimes when I'm thinking about trying to find inspiration
for my journal, I'm usually not actually looking for decorative
inspiration. It's more so thinking about like
structures and functional things.
So one source of inspiration that I used to kind of rely on
was the idea of graphic organizers, which is something
that we used in teaching, which was more about like how you can
kind of like layout information, connect ideas together so that
you can kind of deepen your understanding about stuff.
And I really want to go through my folder of graphic organizers
and try and translate all of those into bullet journal
layouts at some point. Haven't gotten there.
It's very much on the back burner, very future me problem,
but I always thought that was kind of cool.
I also find that a lot of the time inspiration finding comes
from problem solving. So I'll try and, you know,
develop something in my journal for XYZ of a problem like, oh
gosh, I need to organize, insert kind of topic of information
here. Like how can I do that?
What do I need from it? Trying to kind of like unpack
the problem and consider how those elements can fit together
to make a layout for my notebook or for by kind of like planner
space that I'm using for that. That's really smart.
That's how I go about building out my bullet journals as well.
It's always about the functionality first and kind of
adding the layer over top of it. I think that it's something that
I've learned over time. I think we've talked about on
the past episodes where we had like our most failed spreads.
Those always were the ones where I was trying to duplicate or
kind of copy a style of someone else that was doing something
much more creative. And so it was like the
creativity came first and then the functionality for me came
afterwards because I was so focused on the design or the
theme that I completely forgot about what I was doing on that
page. So it was just like, you would
get to the end and you'd be like, oh, I need a box that has
10 lines in it. And I'm like, oh, I didn't leave
myself 10 lines. I was too focused on using the
marker and like doing this design that was on there as
well. So I think it's a really good
tip. Also just super helpful too.
I did it this week also just in mind.
It's very basic kind of layout for me, but I was actually using
a ruler that had a bunch of different stencils in it have
like the curved edges and stuff like that.
And I was just like, oh, this could be cool to use some of
these shapes. I haven't done that in a while.
Yeah, I think when it comes to decoration, oftentimes I'm
inspired by the piece of decoration itself.
I'm thinking more so in terms of like stickers and washi and
things like that. Because oftentimes nowadays when
it comes to building out a theme for a monthly setup or whatnot,
I do just rely heavily on the materials itself.
So like this month I'm using this kind of like purple combo
pet tape thing. So beautiful, absolutely
gorgeous. But I just stuck with the two
tapes that come in the set and then picked colors that match
that and just ran with that that.
So it's like I didn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms
of figuring out a theme or design because the decorative
elements are really doing that for me.
So I didn't have to put in a whole bunch of like time, effort
and energy going and finding inspiration for that.
That being said, when it came to using those tapes, I was just
like, oh, do these actually go together?
Like I know they were part of the same set, but I don't think
that the decorative style is quite the same on both of them.
So I was humming and arring a bit.
I just went back to where the tape was from, which was the
Washi tape shop, and they actually, with a lot of their
new releases, put some inspiration pictures together
for how you can use it. And that was really great
because I can say like, oh, so these are some of the different
ways that I could utilize those things.
I don't know who's on their team making their layouts, but they
do an absolutely awesome job by combining different elements of
different types. They're like fussy, cutting out
around individual elements and like layering together and stuff
and it's just really impressive. That's really smart of them to
do on a washi tape website to then provide inspiration because
I think that's the hardest part why I probably so many of us
have so much washi tape in our collection is we like the way
that it looks, but we're never really quite sure how to execute
anything with it. I had to grab one of my favorite
washi tapes when you were saying that because it has a Eric small
things design on it and it just has a lot of like little
stationary items. And when you mentioned that and
I was like, Oh no, I totally do that too.
Like utilizing your washi as a really good starting point
because in a way, and not all of them are this way, right?
But like it's kind of a theme on its own.
And then usually what I tend to do, especially when I use use
this one as I have a lot of the clear stamps with a lot of the
similar designs. So it's like in a way I'm
pulling together themes. But it was inspired totally by
just like the tape that I grabbed first and then I kind of
built around it. So that's actually really
awesome. I never thought about that in
that perspective. I was like, actually I totally
get inspiration from these as I'm using them all the time.
Yeah, You kind of just use it as the central kind of element for
the theme and then build everything else around it.
So if we're thinking about like, I don't know, a washi or a PT
tape, like what kind of colors are used in there, what kind of
line work is used in there? Because you can build those into
other aspects of your setup to kind of continue the theme
through. At least that's what I like to
do. No, it's really smart.
It actually reminds me a bit of where I've also pulled
inspiration from as well. Anytime do I go to an Art
Museum, I'm also doing very similar things.
I take a lot of screenshots and pictures of stuff.
I'm realizing as I'm sharing this all with the intention of
reusing it later on if you inspire me for something.
A few years ago we actually went to DC and one of the museums had
an architectural installation. And I before I moved into design
and broadcasting all of that, I really wanted to be an
architect. I have a very sweet spot for it
in my heart, just out of appreciation.
And I remember taking so many pictures of everything, all of
the blueprints. One of my favorite things
actually, architectural handwriting is one of my
favorite types of handwriting. I in a way kind of modeled mine
after it a little tiny bit, but I've just always really
appreciated it. And there was one where it like
was breaking down a part of the building.
I forget what it was, took a picture of it.
And then I actually brought it back and in my bullet journal
for that week, like just created a lot of it was all like lines
and shapes and kind of interconnectivity pieces, but it
was just one of those things too where I was like, oh, this is
like really inspirational. So I think also if you're
looking for that, you know, drop the phone for a little bit on
Instagram or Pinterest or anything else, and then just
head to a Art Museum if you want to and just kind of walk around.
And again, look at it from the perspective of trying to find
inspiration or things that you can pull into your journal or
your planners. Like walking around a sculpture
garden might not always be the same, but if you go to an Art
Museum, you might get something a bit different.
But then you do have to be specific.
I love modern art museums. I think those usually tend to
give me a lot because there's a lot of like minimalism in there.
Or even with some of the more eccentric pieces that might be
in there, you can find cool stuff.
Full cool fonts, colors, all that kind of fun stuff.
Yeah, I do like the idea of using traditional art as an
inspiration source. Obviously, like nowadays we have
a lot of companies coming out with like the Van Gogh inspired
washi tape sets and all of that kind of thing.
So it's like, oh look, I can have Van Gogh in my planner and
I didn't have to paint a thing, which is my personal preference
because painting and Jess are like not like the best of
friends. Not really.
I just don't like the dry time. I'm lazy and I just want to be
able to close my book when I'm finished.
Yeah, that's definitely A1 page at a time.
Or you get a little heat gun or like a fan and you're like dry
as fast as you can. My friend.
I do not have the patience for this.
I just had the patience to paint this thing on this page.
I need to be done now. Exactly.
And it's like as soon as I get any kind of mess on my hands,
I'm like, no, it's over. I'm finished.
I'm like, do people paint with gloves?
I feel like that would be very uncomfortable.
But in terms of inspiration, like, you know, we said, you can
use traditional art, you can use social media, all of this kind
of thing. Another really great inspiration
source is just stuff you like. It's you're already enthusiastic
about it. It's got like a proven track
record. So if you're like really into
frogs, I don't know why I keep coming back to frogs.
Actually, I know exactly why I keep coming back to frogs.
Frogs. But anyway, if you're really
into frogs. Explain it though.
You can't leave us haggard like that, Jess.
I can and I OK, No, fine. So I was flicking through
Instagram the other day and I just like scrolling through,
minding my business and then a little a Mimi.
Is that what we call them now? A Mimi came up, a little picture
came up that was effectively saying like, you know, lingered
on a frog picture for three seconds.
The algorithm's like, yeah, you little freak, I know you like
that. I'm just going to show you frogs
for the rest of forever now. I just appreciated it so much
because I'm like, that is exactly how the algorithm works.
As soon as you linger on a picture or a post or anything,
even if it's something completely outside of the realm
of stuff you usually like, the algorithm's like, I, I noticed
that. I got you, Don't you worry.
It's like MTV Cribs or whatever it was.
No Pimp My Ride. Hey dog, I heard you like
horses, so I put a horse in your horse so you can ride while you
ride kind of a thing. That's what it's.
Like the more and more we're talking about, I think Instagram
really just is not the place anymore for it.
I mean, I live on there. Like I feel like that's home for
me. But now I'm worried like, are
people even really seeing our stuff?
You know, unless we're really forcing it out there in
different ways, it's, it's just different.
I don't know why. Yeah, just shove it down their
throats and they like also we're just going to change the square
ratio to a rectangle so haha your aesthetic feet isn't
aesthetic anymore. Suck it, creators.
I think we go about finding things that we like, though to
your exact point, I think we tend to gravitate towards them a
little bit more. You know, like I said, I've
always loved stationary as an individual from being a kid.
So yeah, when I find washi tape that has stationary on it, I'm
going to grab it when I find stamps or collections that have
it. I think that's why I like Eric
Small Things so much as that she's always using some type of
stationary or office item or something inside of her stamps
and her tapes. And that's why I like it a lot
because I feel like it's very just neutral and it's something
that everyone kind of likes. So that's why I collect.
That's my excuse of why I like her so much.
But it's the truth. Like just having those little
elements or something like that just make me want to use it more
versus maybe some of the more like decorated stamps that I
might have or like a lot of like trees and birds.
No frogs yet though. But now I'm intrigued to see if
I can find any. But those are like cool to have
if you can find a way to kind of sneak them in.
But it's not something that I feel like I could necessarily
build like a whole theme around in my journal.
Yeah, as soon as you said that you had a washi tape to show,
I'm like, it's an Eric small things one.
I just know, I know it in my soul.
And then you said I'm like vindication.
But I I do appreciate that, you know, you have certain brands,
creators or whatnot that they do very much have their own style
and it's very evident throughout their work, which I think can
also be very inspiring. It's also nice to see like the
match matchy same, same see of it in a way that's like not
necessarily exactly the same thing every single time, but
it's something that you can kind of rely on throughout all of
their pieces of work. I'm kind of thinking about like,
you know, Coffee Monsters Co Helen and her little emojis.
They're so damn cute kind of a thing.
And if I had the patience to draw them, I would put them in
my planner. And if I utilized stickers in
that way, they would be all over my planner.
But in terms of other inspiration sources, I think the
one that is actually probably the best from me personally, and
it's going to come off as Tooting in my own horn, but I
don't care because it's the one that I actually get the most out
of, would be the community. Like specifically my community
on Discord, mainly because we have all of these different
spaces and channels that kind of help me to sort through the
inspiration pieces a little more.
So it's like we've got our space for everyday journaling.
We have our space for long term collections for reading
journals, for media journals, for gaming journals or like
anything like that. And just scrolling through what
people are talking about, the pictures they've been taking,
sometimes they have little flip through videos or whatever.
So it's just really cool to see what I'm gonna say quote
everyday people are doing or like people who aren't content
creators are doing in their planners to make their planners
work for them. That is always really inspiring
to see. I also love that when the
community asks a question to try to help you solve it, it's like
that problem based creation that you mentioned before.
That's one of my favorite things where someone's like, I'm trying
to do this in my journal but I can't figure it out.
And a lot of the sometimes that'll inspire me because I'm
already working it out. My brain starts, you know, the
gears start moving. I'm like, oh, OK, here's how I
would kind of lay out the page. Reminds me of that, that Mimi of
I forget which one it is, the Sciency 1 where it's like you're
thinking and all the, like, elements and equations are kind
of going around. Yeah, that's exactly what
happens to me whenever someone asks me.
I hate that we're calling it a Mimi now that I called on.
So awful little frogs and their freaky little Mimis.
I can't. But that is always just a fun
thing for me. I remember I was working on an
Instagram tracker one time and I actually brought like community
friends in. I was like, OK, I it actually
involved hexagons and I was like, OK, I'm trying to do this
interconnected hexagon web essentially that had different
types of like tracking on it. And I remember kind of sketching
out the idea. And at this time it was plans
that blossom. I messaged her and I was like,
hey, I need your help here because you're a designer and
like we're all kind of the same vibe.
And I was showing her some ideas and Nicole was like, Oh yeah,
well, maybe you would like shift it this way or do something
different with. It was like a design collab
almost. It was really cool and by the
time I was done, I had something I was really proud of.
I've actually used it several times because after spending
that much time trying to figure it out, I was like, I'm using
this sucker a lot. But it was a lot of fun to do
that. I think sometimes just kind of
expressing the idea, not necessarily to know the
solution, but to get that from in the community is kind of a
weird way to get inspiration. But if you're just like, hey, my
brain has something it wants to do, I just don't know what to do
with it. That could even be a cool thing
just to go online and like read some people's problems.
I feel like, oh, here's how I would solve that.
And in a way, you have an idea for the future.
Well, maybe an idea. Yeah, I like this idea of like
collaborative based inspiration I suppose.
And it's, you know, even if you don't have the solution, by
voicing the problem, you can either give other people
inspiration because like, I didn't even think about how to
use a journal for that. They go off and, you know, their
own creativity can shine and such.
And then you get to be like reinspired by what they've kind
of produced from it. I had that happen with myself
and Tori have created mine coffee grinds.
So I had been previously making these kind of like project plans
for setting up my journal, I guess where effectively I had
like little swatches for the colors.
I had some notes about the decoration I was going to use.
I had a list of the layouts I was going to use and such.
And so I kind of fell away with using them.
But she thought it was going to be really helpful for her.
So she picked it up and started using it in her journal, which I
always very much appreciated. She'd always give me credit for.
And I'm like, you've used it for like 6 months now.
I don't think you need to tell people that it was from me
anymore because this is like your own thing.
But then with her using it and tweaking it to fit her personal
style and the things that she needed to organize, I'm like,
hey, that's a great idea. I love that.
I'm just like re inspired by this so that I started using it
in my journal again. So it's this kind of like little
inspiration cycle, which was kind of nice.
It's another thing I think about while we said like reels and
tick tock and all of that, like fast content isn't always great.
Sometimes though it does definitely help inspire you.
I just did a video last week where I redid this whole section
over here of pens and everything.
And it was cool to get some of the comments where people were
sharing like how they store and organize stuff.
But the people were like, you totally inspired me to like
clean out my stuff and edit down my stuff too.
And I don't always think about that as like being inspired by,
but it is like other creators that are just doing things.
I think it may be a good example of that because I guess it, I
don't see this inspiration, but I guess it kind of is by
definition is for me when I see people doing ink swatches on
Instagram and stuff like that. You know, Julia here does
amazing ones. I love her so much.
Alexa writes is another one. I talk about her a lot on this
podcast because her egg swatches are artwork.
I don't care how you put it. Someone could be like, she's
just put an egg on a page. But no, the photography is on
point. The the images are on point.
They're so good. But I was actually very much
inspired by her to do it. I actually asked her.
I was like, look, I've loved your swatches for a long time.
Is this like a proprietary Swatch mechanism that you have
for this? She's like, it's a plastic bag.
I was like, OK, She's like, yeah, you just put the ink on
your paper. You grab a piece of Saran wrap
or you grab a plastic baggie and you sit it over top.
Yeah. And then you finger the bag.
Oh my God why Why that way? Like of all the ways to worth
it, finger tap would have been fine.
Like just switch switch. All right, so you finger tap the
bag. Great.
Next time that your ink's watching, think of me.
Yeah, Oh my God, this is not the only fan to count Mark.
We don't have an HR department, do we?
No, no. Should we get one?
We might need one after this episode.
Yeah, after the bad blood about the Mimi.
Yeah, but but that was just a really good example where I was
just like, this is really cool. She was kind enough to share it.
You know, I think there are some people that don't like to share
that because they have a niche thing that they're doing.
And I respect that. There's been a few people in my
past, not necessarily Ebola journaling, but especially in
like photography, Photoshop and things like that.
I was like, hey, how do you do this?
They're like, oh, I'm not telling you that.
Like this is my little secret sauce.
And I was like, OK, like I was like, I share all the time.
What do you mean you're not going to tell me about that?
I probably depends on what it is.
But I feel like especially though in the planner space,
though, we're all about sharing tips and tricks and how to do
things like that. So we don't see it as much here,
but it's definitely something where, I don't know, I would say
for someone else, if you see something online that you really
like, like, you know, as a creator, I love when people ask
me questions about it and I'm always like, oh, sure, XYZ like
this is how you do it. Like definitely ask somebody.
I don't think there's any shame in that.
Again, you're doing it as a way to learn.
You're showing appreciation. Don't be like, hey, how'd you do
that without any type of, you know, give some of that
sweetness up front and tell us how much you love us.
But the idea of I want to try that out because I think it
might benefit me is something that just brings me a lot of
joy. So that's also why I like to
reach out to people to show appreciation.
But also we talked about this last episode too, like being a
constant learner, always be learning new things or else you
just kind of go brain dead and stagnate.
You get bored. Yeah, boredom in my journal is
always something I'm on the lookout for, because when I
start getting bored, I don't use it.
When I don't use it, then I'm a scatterbrained mess.
And if I'm a scatterbrained mess, things aren't getting
done, which means that the whole system kind of falls apart.
I don't want that to happen. So constantly looking for new
things to try, constantly looking for new ideas, trying to
come up with my own new ideas and such with that, like
problems solving kind of aspect of planning that I like.
But I'd love to hear from the Planner Pals.
Where are you getting your inspiration from other
particular creators or the particular spaces that you're
looking at? You just kind of like, I know
hunting around in the back of your cabinet trying to find cool
packaging. Let us know either by leaving us
a comment here on YouTube or you can e-mail us at
plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com. Of course, you could also hit us
up on Instagram at Planner Pals Podcast.
Regardless of where you hit us up, we want to hear from you.
100% and let's continue this topic for next times episode.
I want to talk more about creativity and the planner
space. You and I have both talked about
it and dabbled it in a little bit throughout last year's
episodes and talking about it, but let's spend a little bit
more time on that next episode. You know, we can share all kinds
of things like while we're getting inspiration online.
Then how are you then executed with that?
What type of things are you using to be creative?
And I think most importantly, what is that creativity doing
for you? Yes, it looks pretty, but I
think there's a lot behind that. So I'm excited to get more into
that next time, Jess. And hopefully with less
fingering bags. We'll see what happens.
I mean, it's a, it's an integral tool to your process mark, so it
must come up. Oh, it comes up.
Oh my God, thank you so much Plan of House for watching.
Hopefully you enjoyed this episode and we will see you next
time. Oh, my phone's ringing.
It's our HR department.