Welcome to the Planner of Hells podcast, a podcast hosted by two
true planner pals. My name is Jess or Jessie
Curran. And I'm Mark and I go by Mark
your pages and today's episode I've been so excited for for so
long. It's all about community Q&A
questions. We got questions from you, our
planner pals. And Jess and I are going to be
answering these questions today. And Jess, we got so many
questions. It's, it's amazing.
I'm so excited to get into today's episode.
Yeah, I know, right. I was very impressed to see how
much people wanted to know and also maybe just is a little bit
intimidated. I can't say that I've gone
through all the questions. So we're going to be having some
very off the cuff answers here. But hey, you know, that's,
that's the thing, right? We're giving you our true
unfiltered opinions. Hopefully it doesn't come out
too rambly, especially for editing.
Mark, Fingers crossed. All right.
So let's go ahead and get right into the question.
So our first question is actually from 2 individuals.
They ask kind of a similar question here.
Jess, if you had the chance to start over with bull of
journaling, knowing what you know now, is there anything you
would do differently? And then the second question is
close, but if you would change anything about your YouTube or
your bullet journal channel, is there anything you would change
and why? So I'll let you go with that
answer first. All righty.
Let's start with the bullet journal question first, OK?
The one thing that I would change probably if I had to just
kind of confine it to one thing, I would just start in a notebook
that had what I'm going to call better quality paper.
Now, that's not to say that the Lt. 1917 is not a quality
notebook, because it is. It's just that with the way that
I like to plan, I prefer a thicker paper notebook and I
feel like I would have had a lot more kind of like joy in my
starting kind of bullet journal journey if I was just using a
notebook that had thicker paper. I know that in the community it
wasn't as popular back then, so that's probably why I went with
the Lt. 1917, but that would be the major change.
What would be your one for bullet journaling?
For bullet journaling, I think what I would have done
differently is I would have tried to explore my own style
first. I feel like my first bullet
journal was just kind of mimicking when I was already
seen online, which wasn't completely useful for me, and I
just felt like that's what we had to do.
So I would have spent a lot more time kind of just using my
bullet journal for what I needed versus what I thought I needed.
No, that's a great point. I know that my first bullet
journal is effectively like, is this just boho Berry from New
Zealand? Oh dear.
What would be your change about your what YouTube content
creating esque kind of side of things?
So I think what I would have changed about that is I would
have brought myself to my YouTube channel earlier.
So when I first started YouTube for the first year, year and a
half, it was strictly just my bullet journal because I was one
a bit nervous about being on camera because I had never been
in front of a camera before. My background has always been in
radio and radio production. So I could talk all day long,
but the face and showing and talking was totally different.
But once I did that, I realized that it was super fun to do.
It was a really just a learning curve, but I learned about it
and got better as I went along. And I think a lot of those
insecurities and uncertainties early on, that's what helped me
back. But once I just started doing
it, I haven't turned back. For better or for worse.
How about yourself? Oh gosh, I think it was just
being able to like tell past Jess, like you can take a
breath. You don't have to the entire
thing out. Like we have the editing ability
to like cut pieces out. You can say things multiple
times if you want. I still do.
But I found that like trying to do the voice overs and the
recording of my voice and stuff, I sounded so timid and so shy
and I just wanted to get everything right.
And like, I'm, I still want to get things right.
And that's why I record things multiple times.
But listening back to the way that past Jess used to talk, she
used to take these like really big pauses and she wouldn't take
them out. And she made this little, like,
rabid noise, I swear, like at the end of all of our sentences.
And it's so frustrating to listen to.
But I think that, yeah, that's just one of the things that you
get over time, like as you build up confidence, like camera
confidence or whatever. But I like your point about
bringing yourself to your channel because that's how you
build community, and that's how you connect with people too.
So that's cool. And it's funny that you
mentioned about doing those takes and taking your time.
I still if I get through a video and mess up, especially like my
intro, I get to a point I'll re record the whole thing And I'm
and I've gotten to the end of videos before too where I was
like, I don't know if I love that.
And then I just re record the whole thing again like once
through because I basically already practice it at this
point. So even I did that way early on
and I honestly I still even do it now.
Just it's just a part of my process I guess.
It's always such a pain though when that re recording kind of
thing isn't like by choice. It's because like, oh, I forgot
to like turn my light on properly or things are
misaligned or the microphone wasn't on.
Just it's like, like you said, you got the practice in.
So it usually goes smoother the second time, but you miss all of
those like really kind of natural discovery moments and
stuff. And it's like, let's just put it
on for the camera because I have to do it again.
Yeah, there's a lot of movie magic that happens when we make
these YouTube videos, that for sure.
We had a couple of questions about fountain pens, so I
figured we'd put one here at the start, and we had one question
in particular about the best kind of way to start with
fountain pens. Fountain pen for a newbie, What
would be your like snippet advice to a fountain pen
starter? All right, so I will first of
all say that I'm so excited. First of all, she came to us,
your planner pals, to ask that question.
I would say that if you're just getting into fountain pens, the
best thing for you to do is to find like a good medium starter
pen. And I would say that's in a
budget, anywhere between 15 to say like $50.
Let's put it in there because there aren't really good pens
that are a lot less expensive that write really nicely, but
find yourself a nice extra fine or fine pen.
Those are probably a very common one to find and pick out one
standard ink, go black. Just just start with black ink
and use that pen for a little bit and get used to filling that
pen and practicing with that pen, getting messy with that pen
because that's what's going to give you that practice and that
confidence to start exploring a little bit more to find out what
you like. So I always recommend the extra
fine or fine because that kind of falls into that .35
millimeter .5mm is kind of almost like find a medium inside
of there, but that's what we're used to.
So don't get into like anything extra fancy or far away from
that just yet and just find a pen that you think is
interesting looking, maybe a color that you like, but don't
go crazy and buy a really expensive one at first.
I think that's really where you start to find what you like and
start to play around with a little bit.
I would say some really great recommendations, even if you
don't want to like get into anything you have to fill, like
the Pilot Kokunos are really cool.
They're just a little plastic pen.
It comes with a cartridge. You pop it in, but it is is a
fountain pen that you get to use.
So that gets you kind of right into it.
We talked in our previous episode about fountain pens.
Twisby makes a really good just kind of like medium sized pen.
There's nothing to take apart. You just stick your pen in it
and it has a little twist on the end and it sucks the ink up
inside of it and it's just very kind of like low maintenance and
then go and use it. So find something easy, then
start to build out your collection from there.
I actually just got three pens today, Jess, that I'm very
excited about. So I'm not going to talk about
them now though. Well, what I don't get to have
any two cents in this, but if I was allowed to have two cents in
Fountain Pendam, it would be Get your friend to buy it for you.
Get your best planner pal to buy you your first.
Fountain pen. That's right.
And I liked your pen so much that I actually got it in this
really cool blue color. So yeah, get a friend to buy it.
Ask a friend if you don't know, find a friend.
Or you always have us. We're always here for you if you
have any questions about fountain pens.
Mark more than Jess because she doesn't know what she's doing.
You know what? I'm just happy that you still
have it and that you use it sometimes.
That's, that's, that just makes me happy.
Yes, it has a pride spot in my pencil case, which means that
it's obviously very special because not everything gets to
be in the everyday pencil case. Even though I like don't use it
very often because it's got like green ink in it, I don't really
use that in my planner. I like writing with it, getting
it out, admiring it, putting it back.
Like that's the main the main kind of gist of it being in my
pencil case. Well, we have to get you to
clean out that ink. Just it's been a few months and
I think it's time if you just get some black ink and fill it
up so you'd actually use it. Yeah, but then you gave me the
platinum black one and everyone's like, it's gonna stay
in your pen, don't put it in there.
And I'm just like, I'm so worried now.
I just cleaned out my pen that had the platinum black in it for
months. It did not stay in my pen.
So you'll be OK or buy another black ink.
I have 100,000. I can send you more samples if
you want. I don't even know where to keep
my regular samples. We also had some questions about
like how to store supplies. And I'm just like, I am not your
person because because I swear my system is very flawed.
We'll figure it out. I've got 1000 different ways to
do the same thing because I keep finding new ideas too.
All right, so let's go ahead and ask this next question.
This is 1 I feel like we hear all the time, Jess and I'll let
you answer this one first. The question is Nate, the top
reason why you think people have tried the bullet journal method
say that it doesn't actually work for them?
I think that probably one of the big reasons for people would
probably be because they're trying to like mimic what they
see online without putting in the thought of like whether it
is actually something that's going to work with them or
resonate with them. Like if you're kind of going
into bullet journaling just thinking like it's all about the
artistry of it and making beautiful layouts and all of
that. That's not to say that your
journal can't look that way. But if you're going in with like
this is how it has to look, then that can kind of lead to like
bullet journal burnout, almost just feeling like, oh, what's
the point? Like spending all of this time,
effort, energy setting up these beautiful and elaborate spreads
and they're not using them. So I think that my big one would
probably be people not necessarily setting up their
journal in a way that works for them.
That kind of makes sense. What would be your thought on
that one? I don't know if I made this up.
I feel like I did, but maybe someone else said it before I
did. This idea of working in your
planner and making it work for you versus you feeling like you
have to work for your planner or in this case, a bullet journal.
I feel like we get so caught up in the way that the rules are
set out with bullet journaling that you feel like if you don't
follow it exactly how it's been written, exactly how it's been
kind of laid out there, how others might use it, that
therefore you're doing it wrong. And I, I think a lot of people
get overwhelmed by that. They have put a lot of pressure
on themselves to do that. It's kind of the other side of
that pendulum though, is people who don't follow it at all and
kind of this chaos journal in a way where you don't know the
rules. So I think a really big part of
it really is like learning the rules and following the process
and then finding out how it works best for you versus
feeling like you always have to like fit the mold of somebody or
something else. Yeah, it could also be in part
just like that system doesn't work because no planning system
is going to be like 100% one-size-fits-all type of a
deal. Some people just prefer to have
things in a preprinted planner. I mean like you can bullet
journal in a preprinted planner. Like if you can bullet journal
in any notebook, then why not one with lines in it, whatever.
But I think that thinking about like other planning systems that
are out there and available, some of them are just going to
gel better with like the way that people like to structure
their lives, their days, how they like to plan, how
accessible they like to have things, any of that kind of
stuff. So it could possibly be that the
style just doesn't really work for them and there's something
else out there that does. All righty.
Another Bullet journal related question we have is how do you
deal with something kind of taking up more space than you
allowed for it? This happens a lot to me,
especially with lettering because I'll start where I'm
like, I have all this space that you get to like the last four
letters and you're like, there's not enough space here for this.
So something that I do, which I will just take a creative
license here is I'll just drop the last few letters to the
second line and it looks artsy on the page.
I think that something I do often though, to make sure that
doesn't happen to me is I usually use a pencil and kind of
mark things out on my page first, especially if it's overly
intricate or if I know I'm using a certain size stamp or
something like that. I want to make sure it's going
to fit well because if I start stamping before I plan it out
and doesn't fit, I'm not going to be a happy camper.
So I really try to avoid it when I can, but it still happens to
me. So I just take a little creative
license and do something creative with the space.
If I if I have more space than I need, then I'll put like a
sticker or just color in a square something and be like
it's meant to be here. How about yourself?
So I guess it depends on what kind of like angle we're coming
from here. So if it's like about like
titles or decoration or anything like that, just like you said,
pencil first, the way to go. If you're thinking more about
like you've, I don't know, set up a collection page or
something and you're adding all of your entries and then you get
to the last couple entries and there's not space for it in
there. I kind of have two options for
that. One of them is if there's only a
small number of stuff that needs to be added, doesn't really
warrant setting up a whole another page for it.
And that would be something like a tip in which is effectively
just like a separate piece of paper that you stick in on one
side. It makes like a little door or
kind of flap that you can have on that layout.
Add a bit of extra information, which is always very handy.
The other option would literally just be setting up another page
for it. Like if I feel like there are
going to be many, many more entries that I want to make to
this collection, if I have a lot of more thoughts to kind of like
write down about that, then I will just turn to the next
available page in the notebook and set it up there.
What you can then do to make it so that it's easy to find and
that layout is something that they call threading, which is
effectively at the bottom of the first layout, write down the
page number for the next instance of that collection,
like where is the next place you should look in your notebook to
find the rest of those entries. Super smart tips there.
Tip ends. Oh, see what I did there?
All right, let's get into our next question here.
This one is for you, Jess. And I think that you're best to
answer this question because I've actually never planned
beyond the week that I'm actually currently doing.
So this question is how do you expend excess creative energy?
This person specifically will set up a bullet journal's bed
way too far in advance. And then it makes them sad when
they get there. I don't know if they're just not
as creatively fulfilled with it or they're like, oh, it's
already done. Therefore, like I don't have to
do anything. Yeah, no, I can completely
understand that. Especially if you're kind of
like it's gonna be a busy season or something and you wanna get
into your planner early and set things up.
And I know that we have some people in the community who are
setting up like months in advance, people who are around
April, like, Oh yeah, I'm working on December and stuff.
And I'm just like, wow, okay, dedication, typically speaking
for that kind of like creative energy, creative outlet, I
typically would try to find something outside of bullet
journaling for that. So for me and my friends, that's
usually like event planning. So we'll plan like a reading
retreat day or something where we can kind of expend some
creative energy into that or maybe host a cocktail evening
that's themed or something like that.
That's a lot of fun. If you want to keep it paper
based though, my biggest way to expend the extra energy is
Youtubing because I make a whole bunch of layouts all the time
just to feature on the channel and they're not there for me to
actually use. Like we recently had a video
that was 100 different things you can put into your reading
journal. And I am certainly not going to
be using all of those, but I like to set them up so people
actually have an example that they can play around with.
A lot of my time, effort, energy creatively goes into that.
So that's one way to do it. I guess you could also get into
like card making, like it's kind of a scrapbooking.
They're like adjacent kind of things.
They're still paper crafting, still use a lot of supplies that
you probably probably already have, but they don't necessarily
take up space in your bullet journal and don't get you to
that point where you've set up a month like many, many months in
advance and now you don't really like or kind of gel with what
you've got in there. I really like that idea of
having that. You call it an Rd. journal, and
I call it the same thing as well, which I love, but it's a
journal where you kind of plan out and try out things before
you bring it into your regular bullet journal.
I think it's a really great way to be creative and be open and
less constrained. Feeling like it has to to be
perfect because the purpose of it is to be messy.
So I really love that idea. Even if you don't create a
YouTube channel on it, having an extra notebook, we all have
extra notebooks. Great use of time and that
creative energy too. It's a really good one.
All have extra notebooks. What are you talking about?
I have no extra notebooks. Jess, I think you actually
surpassed me in your last video. You did account.
I've been really good about not buying anymore.
I just keep getting them as part of like subscription boxes and
like Halloween boxes and stuff. Whatever Archer and I love puts
out the new collection I need at least one of.
But yeah, you've now surpassed me, so congratulations, I'm no
longer the weirdo hoarder of notebooks you are.
No reigning champion? Probably not.
There are probably other people out there who have a wider
notebook collection than me, but one literally just arrived in
the mail today as well and it's so pretty.
But it is also an Lt. 1917, so it's probably just going to be a
shelf trophy. But that's fine.
It's gorgeous. Another bullet journaling
question we have was what do you think the best way to start
bullet journaling is and how to develop your creativity with it?
What are your tips, Mark? Absolutely.
So my best tip is the best way to start bullet journaling is
just to start bullet journaling. So I kind of mentioned that
previous question is learn the rules, understand the method and
how it works and set up a bullet journal.
And I think the most important thing, and in the new bullet
journal notebooks, they have a page dedicated to this.
Now, at first I was kind of like that.
I don't think I like this, but I love it.
Now, what is your intention for this notebook?
What are you trying to achieve and what are you trying to do in
that? So for myself, as a great
example is when I started my very first bullet journal, I
knew that I wanted to work on three main things.
The first is I wanted to work on my handwriting because I was
really trying to find style that I liked and I've always loved,
like architects handwriting, which is basically in all caps.
And my dad actually wrote on all caps growing up and I didn't
know that I could write in all caps because you're always told
in school to write a certain way.
So I gave myself permission to do it and I've loved doing.
It was very weird to get started.
But now I can't write in regular sentence case anymore.
It doesn't work. I also wanted to focus on grids.
I have a design background and I really love grids and layout and
especially with bullet journal. And it made a lot of sense.
So understanding different ways that I could work on the page,
set up different boxes and make that workout, that was really
important for me. And the third thing was also
just finding ways to do that to support work.
So I use my bullet journal almost exclusively for work
every single day, every single week.
And I needed it to work for that reason.
And I was able to really build my own look and feel and needs
over time. And it is almost kind of like a
template in a way. Now I have specific things that
I need on my pages and I'll add extra stuff in, but that was my
goal. So I think finding something
that you want to work on or improve on specifically
creatively. If you want to try to get into
more hand lettering or you want to try different colors or
materials, like give yourself kind of a challenge in a way to
use certain tools and get used to them and find fun ways to do
that. And then that way you have a
function bullet journal because you understand what's happening,
but you also get to add in those little bits of creativity and
have fun with it as well. No, I would agree with that.
I like the idea of starting with purpose first.
Like that's something that I very much believe in, whether it
be for your journaling or effectively any kind of
endeavor. But I like the idea in terms of
like developing creatively is kind of leaning a little bit
into mimicry Now. We kind of touched on this
before. We shouldn't necessarily mimic
exactly what we say in other people's journals, otherwise you
end up with the gratitude log with somebody else's partner's
name on it anyways. But in terms of like those
creative kind of styles that you see online and stuff, if that's
kind of part of your purpose for journaling is to be creative,
develop your creativity, leaning into a little bit of kind of a
copy, you know, artistic copying can be a really good way to up
your skills, can be a very good way to get comfortable with
different kind of designs rather than trying out of the kind of
like, you know, very first page, reinvent the wheel and.
Find yourself in creativity and all of that.
I've watched watching somebody at some point who said like one
of the creative projects that they did was to redraw the same
thing every single day until they found their creative style.
Not necessarily saying that you want to do the exact same thing
on every single page of your notebook, but because that kind
of process of finding your own style with your creativity can
take a lot of time when you're just starting out.
A good way to go about it is just a kind of copy what you see
online. All right, Jess.
So our next question is coming from our good friend Julia.
Julia here or Valor Vanity, depending where you're looking
at her on social media. Her question is, what has been
the most unexpected part of your planner stationary journey?
Then I made it my career. Probably when I first started,
it wasn't really the expectation, but yeah, because
when I first started it was just trying to organize, teach your
life and getting everything done in all the different areas of
life and stuff. And I did not expect when I
started that it would become my full time job.
I just had to say, first of all, I love that it has become that.
I think most people who start with bullet journaling in this
creative content creation space, that's always something people
ask. And it's just like, oh, when are
you going to do that full time? And I'm always just very happy
for you that you did it because I know it doesn't always work
for everyone, but I don't think you could mentally allow that to
happen. And you just do such a good job
at it. So I think that my most
unexpected part of this journey so far, honestly, has been the
opportunity to go to a planner conference and and host a a
thing. And people like know who I am.
So go wild. This year was an amazing thing,
not just from the fact that I went also being sponsored by
Zebra USA and like going there with them and creating this and
like meeting people and doing all that.
Never in my life that I think I'd be like, hey, I have to take
off work because I'm being sponsored by a company to go to
a planner conference to like talk about this thing that I
just do every day regardless. So that for me has been the most
amazing thing. I think about it all the time.
Every day I have my little meet mark for mark your pages thing
that was on the table when I had my meet and greet.
And every day I smile and I look at it, I'm just like, damn, that
happened. Yeah, I always watch scrolling
back to her Instagram the other day for I don't even know what
reason and got to the picture of you at the what the booth or the
table at the top, like telling us about the new pens and stuff
and it looks like you're DJ ING the time of your life.
It was great. It was a great experience
getting to be there like, you know, not just for you, but also
kind of for you. Like I was very proud Mama
moment for anybody who wasn't there and didn't see me.
I was like down the bottom, like the lady from Mean Girls, like
like recording, taking the pictures, being like living my
best life. It was really cool.
No, I'm so grateful that you did that because you know, we are
teams of one. We don't have an assistant, we
don't have anyone else. So we really do rely on each
other in real life to be like, hey, can you record this for me?
Because I'm up here doing a thing like I can't do it myself
like I usually do. Yeah, just like pause and be
like, guys, I just need to whip my phone out to record some
content. Like can you just wait a second?
Yeah, everything is content. Everything is content.
So this one was kind of a cool question because it was like a
marrying of bullet journaling and fountain pen kind of stuff.
But I'm going to read it word for word, so bear with me.
If your bullet journal was a fountain pen, which ink and pen
body you have? That's a really fun question.
So my fountain pen, and I don't have one of these in my
collection yet, but there are fountain pens that are like
really, really wide, like really thick boys.
Everything I have is like very small and like a regular
fountain pen, but there are some just like monster ones.
I feel like that would be my bullet journal because I always
have like a square bullet journal or I've really fall in
love with like B5 like these bigger journals now.
So like that would be it. My ink would be black,
blue-green color shift, a magical ink that just kind of
switches between colors depending on my mood.
I really love black ink just because that's just the
beautiful thing to have on page. But I also really fallen in love
with like green inks recently as well over the past year.
And I just love the way they look and it works out so well.
So if I could like mix both of those things together in a way
that like allowed it to easily like give a little bit of ink at
a time, look really cool on the page, I think that would
perfectly describe my bullet journal, my pen, which is going
to be a thick boy, and then this weird cool mixing of inks.
So how about you, Jess? If it couldn't be Iris because
she's beautiful, she's gorgeous, she's the moment, all right.
If it could not be her, then I'd need something that was like a
dark purple kind of color. I think in terms of like the pen
body, medium nib, because it seems to be the middle of the
pitch and that's kind of what a 5 is like the average.
And I think that in terms of the ink, it would be like a kind of
dark purple, but dark to the point of almost being black.
And it would have to have some kind of like shimmer in it,
maybe holographic. I don't know if that even
exists, but that's what it would be.
Seriously, I've thought about custom making inks.
Well, not custom making inks, but custom mixing inks and
trying to do that. I don't know how to do that, but
I will figure it out and I'll make you a perfect color
shifting ink and find you a purple pen that's easy to do.
All right, I would ask this question, Jess, even though it
was supposed to be me answering this because I want to know your
perspective on this because I don't know if my recollection is
actually correct. This is a great question and it
was absolutely love the podcast. I want to know how you two met.
It just seems like you've been BFFS forever.
The reason I assigned this to you is because like I couldn't
remember. I do remember so I have an
answer to this, but I want to know what yours is.
The reason that we met, in theory, was because somebody set
up a group chat in the way backwards of Instagram where
engagement pods were like more of a thing, kind of a thing.
Effectively, you just get a bunch of your friends who are
kind of in the same niche, or maybe not even add them all to a
chat. And then anytime somebody posted
a photo or like, yeah, we've been a photo, there were no
videos back then. Reels, what is that?
But anytime you posted, you'd share it to that group and then
everybody in the group would go and jump onto that picture and
give an engagement. It was kind of like one of the
hacks quote quote back in the day for being able to grow your
engagement. We didn't really use it for that
so much. I think that was kind of like
the start off intention and then it just became like just general
bands and chill. But I think that in terms of
actually like becoming friends, it was probably Ericas fault, I
think, yeah. And Erica, if you don't know
her, is crafter nated. She's in Instagram, YouTube.
She's a very good planner friend as well.
She's a we love her. But I think that she was really
the reason that I kind of probably started interacting
with you more. Am I wrong?
Were you in that engagement pot at first?
I don't remember if you were or not.
You were. OK, That's OK.
So there's an example of like, no, the reason.
So let me tell you why I don't remember because I was at that
point on itty bitty little tiny bullet journal account, right?
I was, I don't even know, under 5000, maybe only 2000, maybe not
even 1500. I just remember it was like
walking into a room of celebrities.
That's how it felt to me. I was in this room with all
these other bullet journal accounts that had 2530 forty
75,000 followers and I was like, I'm sorry, why am I like I'm
here because I don't really know.
And I just remember being like, Oh my gosh, I have to perform.
It was a mess. And I'm like a Chatty Cathy.
So like we were asking other things.
I was getting to know people as I do.
And then eventually the people who were a part of that
engagement chat were like, I think we need to have a separate
one. And then they moved it to the
side or whatever else. But Erica was another one that
like you guys were friends or chatting more and then somehow
we got connected. And then I think it was just
like, Jess is actually really cool and she has the same weird
sense of humor that I do. That's why I think we vibe so
well. I'm going to add Jess to this
other really crazy chat that we have too.
I think he had fitted well here and it was just, that was just
something that just worked. And then from there, it's funny
because I've always remember seeing your content obviously
being on YouTube. You were like one of the top
Youtubers that I was following at the time as well.
And like seeing how you were doing things on Instagram and
YouTube and all of that too. So it was very interesting to me
because I was just like, this girl's a celebrity.
Like she's really like has this huge cult following and I'm the
Oh my gosh. And then from there, I think
once I got over the celebrity, the starstruckness of it and I
was like, Jess is just a really cool, fun person and I
absolutely love her personality. It's so fun.
We're going to be friends. And then from there it's just
been building on that ever since, just doing more stuff
together and actually getting to meet each other when I did my
little stop by at the DC go wild.
And then just knowing that you're going to be at the Dallas
one too and like that whole fun thing.
It just, it's been awesome. And then, yeah, I don't know if
there's a question on here about how we got this podcast started,
but essentially I had my other podcast I was doing by myself
and that was very lonely. And Jess was a guest, my first
and only guest on the Hobbyist Hangout podcast.
And everyone was like, you guys, this just works.
I love the banter. I love the chatting.
And then I was just like, I can't keep up on my own.
It's a lot to do a podcast by yourself.
And I was like, Jess would be a really cool person to do this
with. Like I was just telling Jess
right before we started this one that her brain works a little
bit differently than mine in the best ways.
I've always had people in my life where I'm kind of like,
over here, ideas, things like in the moment.
And then I have another really good friend that's like, OK,
hey, Mark, let's go ahead and organize that.
Let's make a plan on how we're going to execute on that.
And I need that of my life. And Jess has always been that
person. So I'm very thankful that you
still want to work with me in this capacity after all this
time. But it's always just been a
super cool thing. It just works is.
This the awkward moment where I say I'm leaving goodbye, like
now. This is actually our labs
podcast together because Jess is sick of my crap.
What? I also, I loved her to go wild.
Anytime people like, wow, Mark's so cool.
Like I wish my partner was so supportive of my hobbies and
stuff. I'm like, yeah, you need to ask
his wife because she probably wouldn't say the same shit.
She's like, he's a menace. Yeah, very annoyed by me being
like hey, I have to go record a a random podcast don't get paid
for and go record some YouTube videos.
Thankfully, Vogel doesn't mind. He's just like, hey, I'm going
to be having a meeting at this time today.
Is that OK? I'm like, no, I'm recording the
podcast. You must reschedule.
OK, I didn't tell him to reschedule that meeting.
But still, I heard him like sneaking out of his office
because we started like an half hour before I told him we were
going to. And he's just like, sorry, like
sneaking away. But it's nice to hear how you
kind of remember the what journey of our friendship.
I feel like I need to scroll back all the way back in the
chat and figure out how how these things went down because
my memory does not served me well.
It doesn't matter. The big thing is that we got to
where we are now and we're killing it.
That's all that matters. Keeping on the topic of Planner
Pals, we did have a question as to whether we were ever gonna
have a Planner Pals made-up. What do you reckon?
I mean, I would love to, I just don't know how when like any of
those things like just lives on the other side of the world from
me. Literally it is tomorrow my time
for her right now. It would have to be at some type
of event or something. And I feel like we'd have to mix
it in to something like go wild or something like that.
You know, if we've got like sponsored from a podcast
perspective to go do a thing, I would love to to do something
like that or do what you did at this last one.
You planned a whole separate meet up outside of all of that
on your own, and people came and hung out with you.
I mean, maybe we could do something like that, but other
than that I really honestly don't know how else in the hell
we would ever make that happen. I don't even know who it was.
It was some brand who reached out to me a little bit ago
saying like, oh, hey, we want to, you know, plan a travel
experience for you and your followers, community, whatever.
And like, it sounds really cool, but I was just like, I'm not in
the right headspace to do this right now.
I have so many other things going on.
Please hold caller. But I've been tempted to go back
to the me like, OK, so like logistically, what would that
look like? Because maybe we could plan like
a plan a retreat type of thing. I don't know what locations they
offer. I don't know what packages they
offer, I have no idea about anything at all, but it sounds
cool. So maybe one day you shouldn't
sip off. But yeah, probably between now
and then. It would just be like any time
if I managed to make it to go wild and you're there as well.
Just like a little side gig type thing, like hey guys, we're
gonna meet at this eatery and hang out for a bit.
Come, come along if you're in the area.
I mean, we technically could do something with this podcast if
we wanted to. I know that the platform that we
use allows for audience members. So I don't know if anybody would
want to deal with our unedited version of us talking and going
through this podcast because there's a lot of editing that we
do on the back end. But I mean, that could be
something too. We want to do something
virtually. Maybe that could be a great
first step. I don't know.
I love it when people ask like, oh, when do these podcasts go
live? And I'm like, they are not live
for a very good reason. The editing is necessary.
Yeah, when we talk about how much we edit ourselves in our
YouTube video, imagine having a back and forth conversation with
somebody and talking about random subjects that you haven't
scripted out necessarily like we do for our videos.
Yeah, quite a quite a time. And it's like what in terms of
the actual recording of the podcast, we give ourselves like
an hour or something. Very often we go over like
pretty much every single time, this time included.
And then after that, it's like trim it all down, OK?
Now it's 45 minutes, it's more manageable.
But yeah, I don't think anybody would.
Well, there's probably somebody who would get a kick out of
seeing the unedited version, but I don't think that that's
necessarily something we're going to do at this stage.
Let us know in the comments and feedback like if that's
something you would like. I mean if people want it, I'll
give it to them. Just gotta play the.
People what they want. All right, this is another kind
of bullet journal planning question, and we've gotten this
a good amount. I think I actually did a video
on this one myself, and you probably have as well.
The question is, how do you get over a journal rut, especially
when you're bored with your bullet journal and you just
don't want to keep using it because you don't like it?
Part of the reason that I struggle with ruts so much is
because I'm stubborn. And oftentimes if I'm in a
journal rut, it's usually like middle of the month or like
possibly even the start of the month.
And I've already set up my kind of, you know, start of month
pages and stuff and I've established my theme and I'm the
kind of person who likes to have the same theme throughout the
month. Took me a while to get there,
but I like it when things are match matchy.
Same, same kind of a thing. So then if I'm feeling kind of
rutted, is that a word? It probably doesn't mean what I
think it does. Whatever.
If I'm in a rut, like Oh no, don't use words that you don't
understand, you will make a fool of yourself.
But if I am in a rut and it's the middle of a month, usually I
just grin and bear it until the next month.
Not necessarily the best way to actually get the most of your
journaling, both in terms of like no purpose and joy, which
sometimes is the same thing. But sometimes if need be, I will
just start again, like make the month again.
You know? If especially it's the start of
the month and things just aren't vibing, I will scrap what I've
done and start over. The thing is like, I'm not too
precious nowadays about using up pages in my journal if they like
don't get completed or filled out or whatever.
Because like, if you haven't noticed, I have quite a few
notebooks, so I'm not going to run out of space.
But I know that's not necessarily viable for everybody
to do. But any kind of workshopping you
can do to make it so that there's just a little bit more
joy in the process. If part of the rut is because
you're finding it's just too hard to keep up with, and maybe
simplifying that kind of a thing, a lot of it is just
giving yourself the kind of like, leniency and flexibility
to say like, hey, this isn't my best month, but I'm gonna do
what I can with it is really all that I could probably say to
that. What do you reckon?
I think that is great advice. I think for myself, and I've
been there a number of times over the years.
I, what I've found to be most helpful is I kind of do a bit of
like a emotional audit of my bullet journal.
So I'll go ahead and just identify I'm in a rut.
I just don't like it. I'm not enjoying this right now.
And I'll go ahead and from the very beginning and I'll just
flip through my pages and kind of just be mindful of how I'm
feeling as I'm doing that. If I open up something that I
really liked and I was like, yeah, that was really cool.
Like I really like that. And then I go to a different
thing. I was like, Oh no, no, not like
that. You can even keep a little
scratch piece of paper on the side if you want to it write it
down. It's just identifying what is it
about this right now that is not working for me and that's making
me feel this way. That question before, if you've
planned months in advance and then you get there and you just
feel creatively unfulfilled, don't plan that far in advance
or maybe plan a skeleton and then add your creativity on top
of it at that moment what you're feeling.
Honestly, that's why I do weekly spreads this way is because I
love the variety of change of different pens or inks or stamps
or stickers or whatever I'm into in that moment.
Hello adult ADHD like that's just how it works for me and I
think that's what makes it really exciting and if at any
point I just really don't love it.
I just take that moment. So that would be my best advice
is just understand what is making you feel that way and
find what brings you joy and start doing that instead.
I think that, like we kind of mentioned before, while purpose
is something I believe in a lot, reflection is another one.
So it's exactly like you said, taking kind of an audit of
what's working, what's not why is a really good question very
powerful. Like, why is it that you're in a
rut? Is it because things are too
hard? Is it because life is actually
crazy frantic right now and you just need to simplify the heck
out of everything to keep up? It happens, it's cool.
And yes, sometimes we go into a month with the best intentions,
like I'm going to be really decorative.
I'm going to be using like paints and like inks and like
whatever else and stuff. And then you get into the throes
of actual life quote, quote. And it's just not going to work
out that way. It's all right to take some time
to reevaluate and adjust to make sure that you can use your
journal in a way that's actually going to fulfill the purpose
that you gave it. All righty.
We've got a related question. What is it that would have to
kind of like happen to make you move to a new journal?
Like without the journal actually being finished, what
would be kind of like the deciding factor that would say
like, Nope, I'm done with this journal, I'm moving to another
one? I would have to have fallen into
a pool and been completely waterlogged and the ink
completely just all over the place and a mess and the book
unusable. I've gotten to a point now that
I do not care about the point in the year in which I switched my
journal. I know that sounds weird.
Some people probably are gasping as they're listening to this,
but I just, I don't care. For me, it's all about
effectively and efficiently using my notebooks.
It's about getting to a point where I can look at it and say,
OK, I have 10 more pages or however many more pages left.
What do I have to add to this or what might I need?
And if that's not enough space, then I'll make the transition.
I will say though, like you know my current bullet journal, I
think I maybe have about. I want to say 25 to 30 pages
left and I know that I'm creeping ever so closely to the
beginning of a new year and I'm already thinking about like
what's next? Because I know that's going to
come very quickly for me. If I run out of pages before the
new year, I will add some pages because I will not move over to
a brand new book for like a month.
That's that. I can't, I will do a different
thing. But if it's like 2-3, four
months, I just go into it. I don't wait.
So Oh yeah, major planner travesty.
Drowning would be what would make me do that.
How about yourself? I feel like there's like a
myriad of reasons, while yours is like, it has to be like a
natural disaster. The journal is dead.
There's no chance of resuscitation.
Mine's like the journal looked at me wrong.
It's Tuesday. Stop it.
No, I think that for me, it really depends on the
circumstances. Like, you know, there's nuance
to everything. One of them would be like, if
the journal is just not working, like whether it be like the
paper isn't the kind of paper I like, or if it's because the
purpose that I set up the journal for isn't really kind of
working. For instance, like I've had a
social media journal previously and I found that despite best
intentions, I didn't use it. Actually, that one is a double
11. I set it up in the middle of
another journal I had because I was trying to repurpose that
journal and I was like, Yep, got all my pages set up.
This is going great. Got halfway through a month and
I'm like, I hate this being in the middle of a journal.
I'm going to start a new one. So I started a new one and used
that for about two months and then was like, Yep, this isn't
working either because it's apart from all of the kind of
like day-to-day tasks and stuff. So that's two instances.
I don't really hold myself back from starting a new journal
while Mark is out here trying to use every single page up.
Good for you. Excellent, excellent idea.
Mine's more just like any journal that I don't use to
completion will just get turned into an R&D journal anyways.
So it will get used, but it doesn't have to get used right
now. So I don't really hold myself
back from switching out of a journal if it's not working for
any which what reason? I think a lot of mine because
I'm this way is because when I first started a Bullet journal,
it was very frugal. I didn't want to spend a lot on
notebooks. I thought it was ridiculous that
a notebook cost more than $20 and here I am buying I.
Still feel that way? I mean, I get we, you talked
about it earlier, Jess, and you're absolutely right.
Like we have a lot of journals. We both have been on the Archer
and Olive teams before. They send us a lot of stuff.
We also buy a lot of our own stuff.
I think when you find something that you like and you want to
stick with it or collect it or do whatever, then you're just
like, yeah, I'm going to get it. But it is one of those things
though, where I just was like, Oh my gosh, I got to use every
single page of this because it's going to cost me another $20 to
buy a new notebook or whatever it might be.
So I'm getting the most out of this and I just can't kick that
feeling. No, that's very fair.
I think that like you kind of said at the start, I was a lot
more frugal, like really trying to get all of the life out of a
journal that I could. But nowadays with the number of
journals that I get sent because like as we've talked about, this
is my job. So I do get sent a lot of
notebooks. I have such a back catalogue
that it's it's very kind of like low risk to start a new journal.
Like if if it's going to spark more joy moving into something
else, if it's just like I need like a change up or if it's the
purpose isn't aligned with what's happening in the journal,
then I just don't hold myself back from it.
All right, this next question, we'll start with you Jess.
This is an interesting one because I've thought about this
myself actually and I don't know how I would approach it.
So I'll think about it more while you answer it.
What's the easiest way to personalize a planner when you
use a regimented one or kind of a pre planned one?
This person mentioned coming back to Franklin, Happy
Planners, Aaron Condren, day timer, etc.
So curious if you've ever done this before, and if not, what
your recommendations might be to personalize something like that.
Yeah, I know that a lot of preprinted planners from like
bigger planner brands, they do have sticker sets that you can
get and stuff to customize. I know that there's a lot of
chunk to the journal. So that would definitely be one
way to do it, especially if you don't mind the chunkiness of a
journal that has a lot of stickers in it.
If stickers aren't really your vibe, then things like washi
tape and like, I don't know, stickers outside of kind of like
the planner space also exist. But if you're going for
something quite simple, I guess you can effectively just like
dedicate some of the space in the pre printed structure to be
for decoration. Maybe that's just like in a
vertical layout, the bottom or the top and like alternate or
something. If you're going with horizontal,
it's just like one side of it is for decoration or whatnot.
You can probably find safe stamps and inks and stuff to use
in that. You can do doodles and whatever
else, but the easiest way to change it up is probably just
like different pen colors and that's probably be the way that
I would do it. I found that when I was using a
pre printed planner, I wasn't really focused on the kind of
like decorative, decorative side of things.
So I wasn't sticking in like drawn stickers or like doodle
kind of stickers or anything like that.
It was more so my stickers were functional and the main kind of
creativity element just came from color paletting and stuff.
What do you reckon? I think that I would have to go
that same way, especially as someone who has dabbled more
with stamps and stickers and 100,000 different pens.
The only ever planner that I ever used that was kind of pre
printed, meaning like it had a specific kind of goal, was like
this action planner I tried before I tried bullet
journaling. I've used other preprinted dated
journals and stuff like that before.
I think for myself though, it was very functional, like it had
a specific purpose. I wasn't worried about designing
anything inside of them because they were there for the calendar
and the dates. However, if I were to ever fully
move into one of those or try those, I should give myself the
challenge actually and try it one time.
I think I would just lean heavier into the stamps and the
stickers as ways to kind of add to it.
But you made a really good point when you said like safe stamps
for those because a lot of the times a pre made planner doesn't
have great paper. So I'm so used to using Archer
and olive notebook so I can stamp on a page and not see
through the other side. But some of these other ones
papers not that awesome or it's Tom or River paper and it's
already thin, so I'd have to be OK with the ghosting.
And I'm already holding myself because I'm like, I really don't
like ghosting and I don't know if I can make that work.
So I think that what you said about it being a challenge, that
would be a fun way to do the rest of your year, especially if
you wanted to like start a new journal with the new year.
Maybe like how would I use a pre printed planner or like how to
use a pre printed planner for bullet journaling or whatever.
Because like we mentioned before, you can totally use a
pre printed planner for bullet journaling because the method
just relies on a notebook and why not a notebook with lines?
And collection pages and core collection pages.
And a notebook. And a pen.
So a question that got me maybe too excited than I should be
because I've already spent some time thinking in this space, but
it was are you guys already preparing your journals for
2025? Could you give us some spoilers
for them? So I have because I've been
going back and forth and have to keep reminding myself that I
have a journal that I created with Archer and Olive that has
special smart Marks and pages and a design that I've been
dying to use. So my plan is to use my B5 sized
mark journal that I partnered with Archer and Olive on.
And I still think it's available if anybody wants to buy it.
And I'm just really excited about it because it's something
that I designed and I built in the smart marks on purpose and
I'm going to use them and talk about it more.
I also have been dabbling with a few other different type of
journals and planners. I'm going to continue to use my
workout journal that I've been using.
I just put out a video about how I created that.
It's working very well for me with a purpose and a goal and a
thing to do. And even though I talked about
not using workout trackers and weight trackers and how they
failed us in the last episode, this one is working and I'm so
happy about it, very happy about it.
The other thing that I'm really excited to continue to do is
actually these Ugg Monk this they call it an analog card and
I've been using this for the past few weeks and I absolutely
love them. I've talked before and I made a
video about how I set up this desk bullet journal for myself
and I just haven't really been using it to be honest with you,
just because it was kind of I thought it was going to do more
with it than not. I've been using these now and
it's like, why else do I need anything in my entire life?
Honestly, you put the top things you want to do this day and if
it doesn't work out, you migrate them to the next day.
And it's working really well for me.
So I'm excited to be doing that. That's really a planner, more of
a system that I've been doing. And that's kind of as of this
moment in time, that's what I think I'm doing.
But anything could change between now and the end of the
year. But since you've been thinking
about it, just what's what's on your mind for 2025?
So I'm going to have an everyday journal, which is like this guy
that gets all of the kind of day-to-day plans, monthly
setups, all that kind of thing. So that's happening.
We're going to have a reading journal.
The structure of it's going to change a little bit.
I'm thinking of going to more like monthly setups and monthly
reading challenges and things. So that should be fun.
I'm thinking of taking my long term collections journal and
actually retiring it to bring into new journals.
One of them would be like the new edition of the long term
collections. So that's like reference
materials that you want to keep for longer than just the life of
one journal. And then the other kind of part
of that would be a dedicated Swatch journal because I just
feel like there are some pen sets in there.
They're like, I'm not really using, I've gotten rid of so
that I don't really need to have the reference of them there
anymore. So maybe setting up a smaller
journal for that. We're also going to continue
with the goals journal. That one's working well.
We're going to continue with the yearly collections journal.
That one's fine. What else?
Brainstorming book, Rd. journals, all six of them,
because there's a few on the go. And then I think that's probably
about it. I haven't necessarily decided
like which notebooks I'm going to be using for them yet.
I know that like the swatching journal, I probably want maybe a
basics for the everyday journal, I want either a square or an A5.
But outside of the ones that are kind of like continuing from
this year already, I haven't specifically decided which ones
I'm going to be using. That'll be super exciting.
So you have to keep your eyes open for Jess's videos over on
YouTube as she's making these selections and doing them.
I think this will be the first year what I'm going to be
talking more about that overall process people seem to be very
interested in, in that I'm still be doing a bullet journal setup
just because like I said, I've already know that my notebook
will end in time for that and I'm going to set up a marked
journal anyway. But to talk about some different
ways to do it too. I don't count like my R&D
journals or anything else like that.
I have them, but I guess I'm just not using them enough where
I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a specific journal.
She's like, oh, I need to do a thing, grab a grab the journal.
I've already been using off the page though, but I like that you
have them all separated out. Yeah, no, I if I don't keep
track of them, then they either don't get used to completion or
like I can't remember which one was which or which ideas are in
which one. Because on the on the go at the
moment I have 4-4 R&D journals. One of them I needed to set up
because the other ones were too full and the idea video wasn't
going to fit into it. So it like needed to be in its
own journal. And then other ones like a kind
of specific use cases, like one of them has really thin pages.
So I use that for anything that's kind of like cheap, quick
and dirty kind of a thing. One of them has like all of the
kind of like very simple bullet journal kind of stuff in it.
So it's like, hey, if you're going back to like the very
basics, the law as passed down by Mr. Writer Carroll himself,
then that journal is like dedicated to just those kind of
layouts. But then the other two of them
also like, hey, thick paper notebooks that we can just do
kind of, you know, what I'm going to call like regular ideas
in ones that are a little bit more decorated, a little bit
more akin to what my usual kind of planning is.
But I'm going to try and use up at least one of them before the
end of the year so I don't have to carry all four of them over
to next year. All right, Jess, well, we have a
ton more questions actually, so this will be the first time that
I think we'll ever have to do this with the video.
Instead of going on for like another hour, we'll go ahead and
split this into a Part 2 video. So we'll have another video that
comes out on screen. All the rest of the questions,
because there are so many more that we didn't get to tonight,
but it has been amazing to ask these questions from the
community. So I hope you all really enjoyed
this episode Code and listening to our back and forth and just
amazing questions, like I said from this community that are
really good and the ones coming up next week are going to be
awesome too. I can't wait to get into those.
And of course, we'd love to hear your opinion as well.
Have you started thinking about your 2025 planner lineup?
I know it's early in the piece for some of us, but technically
speaking, if you're like a planner, planner pal, then
planner season is here. The releases are coming, if not
have already come. What are you thinking about
using in the year ahead? Let us know either in the
comments or if you're not here on YouTube, then you can e-mail
us at plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com.
Well, just like we said, we'll get this Part 2 up following
this one, and I cannot wait to answer more of those.
Thank you so much for hanging out with this tonight though,
Planner pals. We'll see you.