Hey there, and welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast
hosted by two true planner pals. My name is Mark or mark your
pages. And I'm Jess or Jessie Curran,
and in today's episode, we're gonna be exploring digital
planning, the world of digital planners, digital planner apps.
Have we used them? What do we think?
Pros and cons, all of that good stuff.
Now in terms of digital planning, I feel like I just
don't know very much about the space at all because I haven't
really tried a lot of things out.
Mark, have you used any digital planning apps before?
I have. I actually am a really big
digital planning app fan. I've tried a handful of them
over the years, Good Notes being one that I've used before, and
then most recently working along with Zinnia, which in my mind is
one of the best digital planning apps out there.
This is not a sponsored podcast by them.
It should be because I love them so much, but we'll talk more
about that as we go through. But really we just also wanted
to talk about just our pros and cons as we've gone through it.
I think that's probably the biggest conversation when it
comes to digital planning versus analog planning.
And something that always goes through my mind, which again,
reasons I love this podcast with you, is because I don't think
about these things. I always think about digital
planning as an app, but you were talking recently about digital
planning actually being more than just an app and actually
the digital tools that you're using as well.
Yeah, I, I feel like in terms of planning and planners, that is
very much how we organize maybe one kind of facet of our life,
like, I don't know, personal knowledge management and tasks,
events, happenings, that kind of stuff.
But then there's a whole bunch of other things that we also
have to organize in our lives that don't necessarily happen
inside of those apps specifically.
So it could be things like your calendar apps is good for events
and things like that. You can have like budgeting and
finance trackers and stuff that you do digitally mainly because
you don't want to do the math yourself.
Yes, that is made. But all of those other things
that happen in your kind of like digital ecosystem that help you
be organized and effectively are helping you plan.
But they're not a traditional planner, per Southeast.
Yeah. And I think what's really cool
is digital planning has so many pros and cons to it.
And I think a lot of them in the pro space is the fact that you
can combine a lot of things together and use them and, and
most of the times they sync pretty well together as well.
I think that's one of my favorite things, or at least
when I'm looking for a good digital planner or have been in
the past. I think one of the most
important parts for me is that you can always have it with you.
And I think there may be a few people out there that'll be
like, Mark I, I use an analog bullet journal or planner and
that baby comes with me every everywhere.
I know plenty of people who do that, but I am not one of those
people. Like if I'm going to the grocery
store, I am not taking my bullet journal.
I also don't carry anything. I'll may be weird to be like,
here's a square bullet journal, you know, my little shopping bag
here in case I need it. I love the fact that a digital
tool can go anywhere with you and it can be on multiple
devices. And I think there's a lot of
benefit to that. I also really love the fact that
you can like work on things in small bits with digital
planning. I feel like like, because if you
are, you know, say you're at the DMV and that's a long wait, you
know, you can always pop out your phone or if you do take
your tablet with you or anything, and you can be working
through something. You can be in your mail app and
taking care of something here in your notes app or if you are
using a specific digital planner as well inside of there and like
making things happen. Whereas I feel like it's a
little bit more bulky to do analogue reading like your pen
holder and you also need your notebook, right?
And usually a ruler or something.
Just always one of those things that I just like, there are a
lot of pros to digital planning, but I just always can't like get
into the groove, I guess enough with it.
But that's because some of my cons I feel like maybe deter it
a little bit. I don't know if you've had any
experience for yourself with like that idea of like take it
anywhere or multiple devices that you prefer about digital
planning or don't. I think that that's a very valid
point. Like the multiple devices in
particular, it's like you can write something down on your
phone and then access it on your tablet or you know, type
something up on your computer and access it on your phone or
whatever. Really, really useful.
And also just like kind of cloud syncing and that idea of like it
has a backup. It's OK if I lose my phone
because it's still somewhere else.
That's really helpful. I also really liked your point
about the fact that it's like you could do bite sized planning
almost. You don't need like a big flat
service to layout all of your materials.
You could just be in the line somewhere, you know, typing out
things on your phone into your digital planner.
That's something that I hadn't necessarily thought about, but
would be really useful. Yeah, it's been really cool.
Zinnia for me was where I really started to do that a lot more
and where I tried to keep it because it works on your phone,
it works on a tablet, it works on your computer, but only for
Apple devices. I do have to say that because a
lot of people get bummed out. It's not for like Android or
other pieces, but it was a really cool experience and it's
a really cool experience because I use it for like other type of
note taking and ideation sometimes.
But that I love and the sinking, I should have put that on my
Pros as well because that is a great spot where you're just
like you put it down one place, you pick it up at another and
it's there. You just can't keep going with
it. It can use a good flow.
I think for myself. What is always gonna deterred me
though from utilizing a digital planner, at least if I think
about like an app like planning, like basically replacing my
analog Bola journal with a digital Bola journal.
And this sounds so silly, but that a notebook doesn't run out
of battery, right? So like you are out, you're
doing things. If you don't have a charger or a
way to charge your phone or your tablet and that dies, you're
kind of dead in the water in a way.
I mean, you might have to revert back to some analog planning
there. And that used to happen to me a
lot when I used to carry my iPad around with me, because I think
we've talked about this before. Before I got in to analogue
planning, I was like, I'm pure digital.
So I did everything digitally. I was using Evernote way back in
the day for like notes. I wasn't really using it the way
it needed to be. But that was the worst when
you're like in a meeting and you didn't charge your iPad before
you got there and it just dies and you're like, yes, my notes
are done for the day. It's.
A nice easy way to make sure that you're not taking too many
notes. I suppose you have to make
everything abridged so that you don't waste too much battery
power tapping down just like absolutely anything.
But yeah, I think that the battery life is probably a
pretty big con. I've never had it that my
battery has run out based on just like note taking though
usually it's because I'm doing something that requires a lot
more power and I think most of the time I could plan ahead.
No, this is definitely one of those things where I've been
using my iPad all day long for other things.
And then I go into a meeting where I need to like be
productive or do something, or I forget to charge it overnight.
And you're at like 25% when you get to work and you're like,
Nope, this isn't going to last for me or whatever that might
look like. The overnight charging one is
the worst. The number of times that I like
think I've plugged my phone in and then it's like not plugged
in all the way or it's come loose from the wall or
something. Like cool, cool, cool, cool.
Yes, I did want to start the day on 20%.
Thank you. Yeah, it's one of those.
You're like, all right, well, let me find a charger and, you
know, pray that this thing works out.
Don't mind me, I'll just be in the corner, like attached to the
wall like typing out my notes over here guys.
The other thing that I didn't necessarily love about digital
planning that I can't is this idea of like running versus
typing. I think one of the biggest
things that I've gotten out of planning for myself is that idea
or, and you might know the better word for this, but the
idea of like writing to remember.
Does it have a special term? Oh, I'm not sure, but I know
exactly what you mean. It's that idea of like when you
hand write something because it's like a muscle LED activity.
There's more kind of, I don't know, mental investment.
You remember what you write better.
Something like that. Yeah, and that's exactly it.
Now, I'm not going to say that the experience writing on a
tablet hasn't improved over time.
I mean, when I got my very first iPad and I was trying to make
all this work with like, good notes and whatnot, just it was
horrible. It's like, it's like the truest,
ugliest form of your handwriting and you're like, is this
digital? It should be better and it's not
whatsoever. And you can't read your own
notes, you know. So I will say like I love get to
talk about Zinnia, like they actually have something similar
to the art apps where you can control like your loop.
So instead of being like a scraggly loop, you can control
how like nice and smooth it is as you write.
And then I'm like, Oh, my handwriting looks beautiful.
I love this. But I always found that typing
into a note ZAP or into a digital place, I have a harder
time retaining that information. It's very much that muscle
memory idea here for me. So with digital Productivity
Tools, I find that I don't know, it's just a little bit of more
of a disconnect for me personally.
And I really love the feeling of writing in a notebook or even
writing on iPad can be OK, but I'm just not the type of guy
that's going to buy like I know you can buy those covers for
your iPad that make it feel a little bit more rougher, like
you're writing on paper. I know some people buy like
special accessories for their pens.
I'm just trying to jot down a note here.
I don't need to go too crazy. You know you say that, but I
feel like I just need to jot down note here.
Let me go find my best, most expensive fountain pen and write
it down with that. Oh damn it, yes, she got me.
Called out, but no, I completely get what you mean by that.
Especially I feel like the technology has gotten a lot
better in terms of being able to handwrite on a I device, tablet,
whatnot, because in the way back when you'd write it out, it
would look so damn janky. And I'm just like, is it just
because you're trying to like lock me into some kind of pixel
grid or something? And now it's just like totally
scraggly, disgusting looking? No, it's probably me.
It's obviously my fault. And you gotta go like, OK, I can
write really nicely on paper. It really shouldn't be that hard
to be able to do this on a digital tool as well.
But alas, it is. I find that the hardest part is
when I'm trying to write anything kind of like cursive
on, you know, when you have to like backtrack your pen certain
places to make certain letter forms and whatever and you try
and backtrack it on a tablet and it's never aligned properly.
So then one sections like chunky fat and the other parts like
beautifully thin and you're like.
No, this isn't what I. Wanted, but in terms of actually
like the writing versus typing, I type a lot faster than I
write. So that's actually a pro for me.
I find that especially when I need to get a lot of things out
of my head, which is most days, like taking down heaps of
information at once, typing is a lot faster.
So I prefer it in terms of like maybe one of my pros for digital
planning because if I was going to be using a digital planner, I
would probably be typing more than I'd be handwriting.
Yeah, and one thing we can talk about afterwards, because I want
to get to your pros and cons too.
There's a lot of notebooks and other options out there that
record your handwriting and then digitize it as well.
I don't know if we want to consider that digital planning
necessarily versus a digital archive, but I'm just going to
put a pin in that for after we get through these because that's
something that just popped into my mind.
And don't forget to write down that other point, otherwise we
will totally forget. You know, before we do these
episodes, we do try and write out like a general outline of
what it is we want to talk about.
And I'm very bad at looking at them until we like get right
before recording. So I'm like, what's going going
on today? Who even knows?
I always appreciate that the outline is there for me.
Thank you, Mark. But I guess my second pro would
probably have to be around the idea of legibility versus time.
So if I'm going to be writing things down really, really
quickly using handwriting, oftentimes it looks super bloody
scrappy, very messy. Sometimes future Jess comes back
to the list and she's like, I don't know how you thought this
was going to be helpful because I can't read any of this.
Whereas if I'm doing it on a digital, you know, tool, usually
it's typed, which means it's a lot more legible.
There might be spelling errors, but usually the red squiggle
helps me out and says, hey, did you mean this?
So that's always been kind of a benefit in terms of using
digital tools. I mean also I guess you could
say that spell check is there because gosh my spelling is not
good. Oh my gosh, just the other day I
was flying out of form and I had to write it in and I was just
spelling things wrong and I was trying to correct it and then
over correct it. And I was like, why?
This is 2024? Why is this form not digital?
Please, so I can easily fix these mistakes.
Like I know I just get over it inside of my journal where I'm
like, who cares? I'm the only one reading it.
But yeah, having spell check would be great, especially if
you're sharing notes or like sharing information.
Be better. Yeah, I think that that's
another pro would just be mistake fixing is so much easier
in a digital tool. You just like, you know, delete
something, move something to a place that you want to have it,
anything like that. Whereas if I need to make a
mistake fix on paper, it's like, OK, let's get out the white out,
or let's get out a scrap piece of paper or let's put a white
sticker label onto it. That's my favorite one.
But it's more just like the administrative cost of having to
fix those mistakes takes a lot longer to do those things.
Whereas if you're using a digital tool, it's a lot more
seamless. And often times the mistakes
that you do make, it's spelling in particular, they give you a
little heads up like, hey, just wanted to let you know that word
isn't what you think it is. Yeah, I feel like Apple's making
it like easier and easier for people to use digital tools.
I haven't been really took a full dive into like all the new
stuff they just announced with their Apple intelligence slash.
It's really called AI like artificial intelligence.
But they have so much stuff with their Notes app now that I feel
like that they're doing and it really got me intrigued into it
as well because it almost is like magic with a wand.
Sometimes I feel like, because that was a really big thing for
me that when I was doing digital planning before to like, I put
my pencil down to like back up or to change something.
I don't know, Apple themselves have done a lot with the pencil
where you just like cross it out or do some like little magic
swoop or something and it gets rid of it or does a thing.
So I also feel like we said before that technology moving
forward has made that experience a lot more seamless, which, you
know, just things get better overtime as well that makes you
enjoy them. Yeah, I guess that's kind of
like, I guess another pro you could think about is the, I'm
going to say the amount of tools you need, even though I know
damn well full and good that you only need a notebook and a pen,
but I don't care because I want the rest of everything else as
well. Like if you're digitally
planning, you need what your your app, your thing to write
on, your thing to write with. So I don't know, stylus, pencil,
whatever, like that tablet and then whatever application you're
using. Whereas if you're going to be
doing planning on paper, and if you're more of a decorative
planner or somebody who likes to be a little bit more creative,
then you have things like your tape, your stickers, your
stamps, your inks and everything else, which takes up a fair bit
more room, I suppose, than just your pencil tablet, which the
app is in the tablet. So it doesn't even take up
space. But yeah, a little bit more
compact, which means it's a little bit more transportable.
I suppose that would be a pro kind of similar to what you said
before. Another one that's kind of
related to that idea of supplies would also be accessibility in
terms of decorative styles. It's a lot easier, I think, to
be decorative in a digital planner.
Like you don't have to have a lot of artistic talent.
Like you still need to be a creative person because I think
that everybody's creative in their own way.
But in terms of actually having the ability to like paint or
draw or anything like that, it's a lot more accessible to do that
in a digital tool because you can bring in like clip art
pictures, you can buy digital sticker packs and things like
that. I think that Zinnia has some
kind of like decorative tools in there.
Some kind of It is the most incredible insane library I've
ever seen in my entire life. And there's always new content
Nicole from plans that blossom. She actually works for Zinnia
and she's I think she's the creative director.
Like she's the one organizing and curating all the stuff.
And I say to her all the time I'm like, how do you continue to
like how is there more stuff in the universe for you to do that?
But it's definitely one of those things that I probably love the
most about it because when you are running down things on
paper, using a stamp, painting, whatever, it's kind of A1 and
done deal. But what's great about digital
planning and even digital creative planning is the idea
that I can lay all the stuff out here and if I don't like the way
it looks, I just delete it or get rid of it.
I think it's probably one of the best pieces and there's a lot of
different options there too. And I think it's there's that
level of like enjoying planning even more because of it, similar
to kind of what you were just saying there, which is, you
know, if you like creative stamps or being creative, you
know, writing them, using them just makes you enjoy planning a
lot more. I mean, we've talked about that
for yourself. You're like, if I wasn't
creative planning, I wouldn't be doing this.
Like it's a really big benefit to my planning style and how
like to do it. And so I think that is really
important. And completely agree, digitally
just makes it so much easier. Yeah.
If I don't like the way my planner looks, I'm not going to
use it, which doesn't make it a very useful or functional
planner. So for me, like the form or the
kind of attractiveness, aesthetic elements, they are
functional because if they're not there, there is no use.
So it's kind of nice that the digital tools allow for people
to do that in a way that's probably a little bit more
approachable, very reversible, which is kind of nice.
I think that the biggest pro though, for digital planning is
the ability to move the dates that things are happening
without having to cross things out or scribble them out or
anything like that and make a gosh Dang mess of my beautiful
planner. So I just, oh, Yep, drag and
drop. It's not happening on Thursday,
it's happening on Friday, all of that kind of stuff.
So that's really helpful. That was a really cool feature
of Zenia two that I love is that you can actually write down
dates and then actually turn them into calendar appointments
right from the app and like connect it.
So it's this idea that yes, you're using a digital planner
to capture that, but they're taking it to that next level.
Similar to what you were talking about before, you can use this
app for your your creative planning, but then use another
digital tool like your calendar where you're probably keeping or
reminders or whatever. That is just big like Sinky
cycle. That is just another really big
pro. I feel like of it is that, which
is just there's so many good pros out there where I can think
about it. Like the cons are difficult to
kind of think through sometimes because you're like, well, I
could just charge my iPad before I go to work or have a charger
with me always. That solves that problem right
there. You know, there's just other
ones too that you're just kind of like, man, I don't know.
But I do love a lot of that, like easy moving, syncing, not
forgetting, doing it in that moment versus waiting till later
and then forgetting to do that. I have that happen a lot.
Yeah, I think that your point about it just being able to
integrate with other apps is really, really useful as well.
It's like if you have these other things that you have to
use for like work or for specific other areas of your
life, you can kind of bring them all in together in some way
where they are able to like cross share information and
stuff. That's really useful in terms of
Conso, I think that one of the big ones for me would be just
like a loss of flexibility in terms of being able to set up my
layouts the way that I want. Now this is going to be very
much like app or tool dependent because some apps like it's
effectively just writing on paper.
You can still set up whatever you want, but there's a lot of
freedom when it comes to working and just like a blank or dock
read notebook, which is what I use.
So I don't think that I'd be able to give that up very easily
as it it is app dependent. Obviously there are some apps
where you still have that level of flexibility, but usually
they're not necessarily the ones that I want to use or there's
like other things that I have to consider.
So could be a con. Depends on how you like to plan
though. I would say that that was my
experience when I use Good Notes because I purchased a planner
that worked in there and I got very into it where I was trying
to create my own planners in there.
Because you had to basically create like an editable PDF or
like a PowerPoint type thing and then you could.
It was a lot that went into it. I think that's why I didn't
really do it, but there are big businesses of it where you
download themes and whatever else about it.
But what I didn't like about it was that if it wasn't exactly
how I wanted to use my planner, I was kind of stuck.
So it was like, well, if I don't want this page to come after
this page, well, I bought it and that's exactly how it is.
And again, like Zinnia is a bit different because you can move
pages around a little bit more than that.
But like you said, very app dependent.
But you have to be the person that likes to do that because
other people could get like paralysis, be like too many
options. I just want exactly what's here
and to do that. But again, it's that flexibility
when you need it. I agree with you.
I also love about just a analog notebook for that.
I think a similar kind of related point would also be a
kind of restriction or lessening in terms of what you're able to
do in terms of the styling possibly.
Like for instance, if I want to write notes down in my journal,
I can write them in like any kind of lettering style I want.
I can put my headers anywhere I want, I can make my headers any
size I want. Whereas some digital tools are
going to restrict you in terms of what kind of styles you can
use in that space. Could also restrict you in terms
of what kind of maybe decorative elements you can bring into
those. Like I can draw anything.
Let's say that with a caveat. I can attempt to draw anything.
But in terms of doing that in your digital tools, like maybe
it doesn't have the functionality to be able to
draw. Maybe it doesn't have the
functionality to be able to bring in pictures and stuff like
that. There are ones that can, but
there are also ones that cannot. Yeah, and, and those features
are going to cost more too, right?
I mean, if you're going to have something that's full-fledged
doing all of that, a lot of them have subscription bases that you
have to purchase or you have to buy the app and the
subscription. You know, there's a lot of
different cost models that come into that.
And someone could easily say, well, so does analog planning
like you have to buy the notebook and the pens and have
all of the like, I don't have to have all of this.
I like to have all of this. I don't need it to plan.
Definitely like to have it, the plan, but it's something that
you do have to consider also. So is that like you said, those
those features that help make things better usually have a
price to them too versus the free apps that are out there
that are super limited? Yeah, we'll have ads everywhere.
You're like, cool, I just wanted to go and check my planner and
now it's like download God of War or something like no, I
don't want to leave me alone. But your point about
subscription based services, I cannot like when it comes to
applications in particular, like no, I want to give you a flat
fee and just be able to use it. Like that is what I want.
I don't mind having to buy like a additional sticker packs on
top of that or whatever if you don't want to have like, you
know, access to the full creative library.
But the idea of having to pay a subscription to access
information that is like my planner is such a turn off.
But then I also like your point about the fact that notebooks
are kind of like a subscription because you have to buy a new
notebook when one runs it out. So but that one, again, it's
like, it's not. Yeah, it's not.
It's not dictated by their timeline though.
It's dictated by your own timeline.
Like I could just use less pages in my notebook and make it last
longer rather than every month on the third.
Here's your bill. Pay US money.
That's the thing about Zinnia that they do, they do have a
subscription model, but you just pay for the year.
And I was always like, oh, but would I, you know, like trying
to figure that out and you can try it for free, right, to see
if you like it before you actually buy it, which I think
is great. But what really bothered me
about good Notes is that you just had to buy the app.
And the problem is, is that like, I forget, I think I had
good Notes 5. I want to say it might have been
when I did this. And then it was like, not long
later, Good Note Six came out and I'm thinking, well, wait a
second now, like, I want all the new features of the app.
Like, it was very weird to me that instead of just updating
their current app like most apps do, right, just continuously
update. They were like, no, no, we're
gonna create a new app, Good Note Six that has all these new
bells and whistles for your planning needs.
And I'm like, wait, so now I have to stop using this one to
buy that one. And I was like out not using
good notes because of that. I just really hated that model.
It's just was very much against how I like to work with apps.
I'd rather do, like I said with Zinnia, know that every update
that comes through Zinnia I've already paid for basically,
right? Like if I'm getting all the
stuff as they're putting out, not that I have to go buy Zinnia
2 to get all these cool new features.
And then basically it's like digital trash in my mind.
I'm like, I'm getting rid of that's trashing something.
It's such a waste. And I'm like Mark digital like
it's not. You're not wasting materials
there. I think that's an interesting
point because I do not like subscription models, but I
completely understand that. Like you have to pay to have
things update overtime and then by paying the subscription you
get the updated stuff. So like part of me knows this,
but then part of me is like, that's a lot of sushi.
So I don't know a very interesting relationship with
like the way that things are priced and stuff.
And it's, it's a tricky, tricky mix for that one.
I think that one of my biggest and no pain points or cons when
it comes to a digital planner system would just be there kind
of like loss of ability to do my hand lettering.
Like over time, my hand lettering has improved so much
just by using my journal. Not even necessarily active
practicing of my lettering. But if I go back into my past
journals and have a look at how I thought letters were supposed
to look, and then I was so proud of myself.
I was so proud of how it looked. And now I look back and I go,
girl, Oh no, Oh dear. But seeing that improvement over
time and then having that archive, it's just really, it
feels rewarding. And I know that you probably
could do it in a digital space, but I don't think it would feel
the same. It's that completely different
feeling because I've watched artist work in different apps
and it's always like they'll draw a line, then erase it, draw
a line back, draw a line back and they'll spend forever just
trying to get this one swoop right.
And I get that we also do that when you do it analog.
And I'm not even talk about planet.
I'm just talking about art creation.
But there is this idea that like, well, I'm going to try to
do my best now because it's kind of a one shot deal over here.
There's definitely benefits to be able to undo things or, you
know, quickly go back if you make a mistake.
But you do, I agree with you, lose a lot of kind of that.
I call it enjoyment, but just that memory of learning a skill
like that, because it is a skill that you're learning, not that
you're not learning it digitally.
I think there's a lot of experimentation that can happen
there. But definitely try it with real
tools, analog, not real tools. I don't want to discredit anyone
who does things digitally, but you know, grab a pen and paper
and try it out there too. Give both a try, see how it
works out. I guess that's also kind of a
con in a way, which con maybe is not necessarily the right word
for it. But like learning how to use
your digital tool, there is a kind of like upfront skill cost.
You have to have that period of not really knowing how the tool
works, figuring out where things are, how it actually gets used
and stuff. Whereas most people, I feel like
if you give them a notebook and a pen, provided they learn how
to write and draw a line, they're probably going to be
fine. There's not like a really big
kind of learning curve with that.
Yes, there's probably some kind of like a learning curve when it
comes to doing the artistic parts if you want to be drawing
in there and stuff like that. Maybe a little bit different in
terms of like the upfront cost for skilling up upskilling to
use your digital platter versus just an analog system.
So let's go ahead and talk about the apps that we've used and
we've mentioned so many of them as we've gone through it.
One of the things that came to mind when we were talking about
this just now is because for a hot minute, I had a digital
planning Instagram account that I started when I was like, I'm
going to start doing this more. It was when I was using good
notes and I was like, OK, we'll figure this out.
And I remember some of the comments in there being like,
well, it must be nice to have the benefit of having the money
to buy an iPad to do this. And that just wasn't something
that I really thought about at that time was like, I was a
privilege to have those items. So of course you can do that.
And I was like, oh gosh, now I feel guilty that I have an iPad.
I always feel like you don't have to have those things.
If you don't have those items to do that, then there's other ways
that you can go about it. I think the apps are similar
because, you know, I talked about Zinnia, that's a Mac only
product. And so I know that it probably
makes people feel very, you know, limited or left out if you
don't have an iPad. And I'm sure maybe some people
feel guilt or FOMO or whatever about that and getting into it.
So I mean, I'll say as much as I love Zinnia, that is one of the
things that I feel like could potentially be better and kind
of more inclusive of everyone. I have zero idea what goes into
the development of that, but I can say that for myself, I've
really enjoyed using that because of all the pieces we
mentioned before. You have all these libraries of
lettering and stickers and graphics and kind of everything.
They also have these really cool like functional stickers that
have text boxes already built into them.
So it's like, I like the way this looks and put it on your
page and then can fill it in, type it in, write it in, which I
love too. I mentioned good notes again, I
think what was most intriguing about good notes for me is that
it was like my step up into kind of a more advanced digital
planning. I'm a lot of the planners that I
was looking at all had like hotspot linking to them.
So you would click on a tab to go to each month or whatever
that looked like. And I think I was more enamored
by the functionality of the thing than necessarily like how
I was using it. I love like, oh, I could create
my own and do all these pieces. Not so much like here's how you
use it. And then for me, Evernote was
really my first like hoorah into like really digital planning
beyond like To Do List and some of those to do apps.
And what I really liked about Evernote was, well, it was my
very first time writing digitally.
It was a Apple Pencil, or maybe it was before the Apple Pencil.
It was just a stylus and my iPad.
And I thought it was the coolest thing to be just full digital in
meetings at work and not have to carry all this extra crap with
me and write down all these notes.
But the biggest problem for me with that one and eventually why
I moved from that was that there was no way to like find those
notes again. Or I had no, let's not say that
they did have like a handwriting search feature, which for me
they were like, good luck, buddy.
We don't know what you're looking for.
But the idea that I didn't have a structure like the bullet
journal method, there was number index that said go to this page
to get this information or whatever it was like almost like
you would do in a notebook without an index, flip through
it, be like, where was that note again?
I love the idea of being able to search your handwriting because
searchability is probably I think a very big pro when it
comes to digital planning, like being able to find snippets of
information just using a search feature.
I've only ever done that with like type based text rather than
handwritten text. So it's cool to know that their
functionality is out there somewhere because when it comes
to my digital planners, quote, quote, none of them have been
handwritten because I do not like handwriting on digital
tools. I am not good at it.
And I know that it's the kind of thing like I would learn over
time, I'd upskill and it'd be fine.
I couldn't be bothered. I have other things that I need
to do. I've kind of come to this
conclusion that there are just going to be some things in my
life that I just am not good at because I'm not willing to put
in the kind of like time, effort, energy to upskill in
them. And I think that hand lettering
on a device that is digital is one of those things.
So when it comes to my digital planners, when I was doing
digital planning for sounds really silly for one entire
month. OK, so this is after I've
started bullet journaling. I was coming towards the end of
the year and my journal did not have enough space to be able to
fit the last two months of the year.
I'm like, OK, so I can either use this for November and start
a new planet or bullet journal in December, which just like I
could, but I don't want to. I want to start a new journal
with a new year. It's always such a satisfying
feeling and I didn't want to give that up.
So I'm like, OK, well we could try and cram everything into the
small amount of space you have, but realistically you know that
you are going to need more space.
I was using a B6 at the time, which is already a small
journal. And then trying to cram two
months into the same amount of space that one month would fit
is just like not the business. So, so it's like, what other
solutions are they here? What could I do instead?
And honestly, I feel like I should have actually just used
an A6. I didn't think of it at the time
because I was like, well, I've already in something small.
I don't want to go smaller, but it would have been a fun
experiment for a month. But instead what I did was set
up a effectively like a digital bullet journal in Notion, kinda
right. So it has like, you know, your
Notion dashboard with your different sections.
It's got the calendar, it's got the task app and stuff.
But I also got to build in things like my actions list for
my goals. It had like pre built in kind of
reflection questions and stuff for your mid month and end of
month check insurance and things, weekly reviews and
stuff. And it was so much fun building
out all of those sections, having each of the individual
templates. So I had like a template for the
monthly set up. And then within that I had
templates for each of the weeks. And then within like those
spaces, I also had the templates for the reflection and stuff.
So you didn't have to like rebuild things every single
time, which was so satisfying because when it comes to setting
up my journal, I set up the same kind of layout month after month
anyway. I might do a slightly different
style or tweak the layout so it looks a little different to keep
it fresh so I don't get hella bored.
But being able to just hit a button and have everything
already set up was so cool to the extent where I was like, OK,
well, I've gone through and I've made this tool and it's really,
really useful. And sure, I'm only using it for
a month, but that doesn't mean that other people might not get
benefits out of it. So I put it on my little shop.
My gorgeous Navy shop on the Internet sitting out there
selling all of like 6 digital products that are like that, no
printables. And we've got the finance
tracker, which is the same one that I use to do all of my
financial tracking because I do not want to have to get out my
calculator and add things up myself.
And then also my my Notion bullet journal.
So cute. That's awesome.
I thought it was cool. I love it and it's been nice to
hear other people enjoying it too, so that's really good.
I think that the benefits of that though, it's like in terms
of decorative style and stuff, you can just take pictures from
things like Unsplashed and stuff like that, which is like a free
stock picture website. You know, you can get them from
other places as well, but that's one that's actually linked into
Notion, which made it really easy.
You can, you know, play around with color palettes and all of
that kind of thing. Of course, it is more limited
than I know my full set of Tombos and Crayolas and Karen
markers and whatever else, but there's still ways to bring a
little bit of fun into it and make it a little bit more
decorative, which I need. But then being able to type into
it, that was really good because I just, I typed so much faster
than I handwrite. But then I suppose there is also
a benefit in the fact that handwriting is slow, right?
Which means that like you have to, don't have to, but you're
just typically going to be a little bit more intentional
about what you're writing down because writing is a bit more of
a slower tactile process. It kind of ends up being this
like automatic filter, which I know the bullet journal is kind
of built on. It's like, if it's not worth
rewriting, then it's probably not worth doing.
Whereas if I'm doing a type list is a copy paste, it takes all of
about like 5 seconds and that's mainly navigating from where I
was copying it from to where I'm copying it too.
So you don't necessarily have that friction in there anymore.
That starts to help you kind of whittle down your list into just
the essentials of stuff that you need to get done, which is kind
of a key part of bullet journaling.
So only stuck with it for a month because I do like paper
more. I was going to say when you said
that the bullet journal method taught me that because when I
was in school way before I knew about the bullet journal method,
I would write down every single note that every single person
said. I felt like I needed the
paragraphs of information to remember it.
The bullet journal method has certainly taught me that you do
not like take out the most important pieces that are, are
an action right, or are important thing that you need to
combine with something else. Those are the important pieces
of it. And that has really made a big
difference for me. I'd be curious because I haven't
really tried it much in like any type of other setting other than
just like personally, like, you know, being like, oh, let's take
this month and see what that would look like digitally or
trying to use a much more watered down version of it
myself. It would be really interesting
to see if I would work the same way inside of a digital planner
now as I do in my bullet journal.
If I was typing versus right, I think that would be the big
thing. But I've never tried to type in
it. I've always handwritten because
it was an option and I'm so used to it now.
Yeah. I think would be very
interesting to tackle a digital bullet journaling system, being
very, very mindful of the original method.
And like how the approach there would be a little bit different
based on what I kind of default to, which is like, Hey, let's
just get everything out of my head, brain dump it all and then
keep that brain dump forever because things that you've
written down are probably important.
The number of brain dumps that I just have sitting as a very
poorly named file on my desktop on my computer.
Oh my gosh. Like usually it just saves the
first entry in the list. And it's just, it's, it's not
helpful whatsoever. And I every so often go back
through them and start looking at all the stuff I've written
down. And most of the tasks they,
they're like, you know, got done and I didn't check them off or
they've become obsolete or like, I've just written the same thing
six times in six different documents or whatever.
Not a smart system, But that's, that's when I get overwhelmed
though. That's when I need to just get
things out of my ahead and typing is so helpful for that
because I'm just so much faster at it.
I think it also helps though, like I went to a school where
you had a laptop like it would BYOD, like bring your own device
from year five, you know? So learning to type happened at
a very young age. So touch typing is like
something I can do. I swear my touch typing has
gotten worse though since I've been using a bullet journal
because I'm not as good as I used to be, to the extent where
I was genuinely thinking about taking a typing course last
year. Really.
That's so interesting. It's something that I've always
kind of like, not like prided myself on or anything like that,
but it was a feel good point, like something that I could do
that I can type fast because I can touch type and I feel like
I'm slowly losing that skill because I just type a lot less
than I used to maybe. I'm sure there's online apps, I
forget the name of the one we had back in the day, but it was
that whole like typing quiz and they would, I remember the
letters just to fall from the sky and you have to like type
the letters real quick. And it was all about how many
words per minute you could get. It was the one that was like
space invaders as well. So like the things would be
falling down like Pew Pew Pew Pew ASDF space semi colon LJK
return and having all of those like different things.
I, I love it 'cause that was like the first one you learn to
like, you know, position your hands correctly on the keyboard
and that's why you've got those little notches on your keyboard
or sometimes a different kind of feeling so that you can like
find your place again, even if you're not looking at the
keyboard. Like, see, now I'm just thinking
about it. I want to go and learn, relearn
how to touch type. Even though I can still do it,
it's just not as good. But then also my spelling sucks.
So maybe it's my spelling, not my touch typing.
It definitely is both for me for absolute sure.
In terms of other kind of like digital planners though, because
really the only planner planner I've used has been that Notion
one, but I do use other digital tools to help me with my kind of
like personal or organization. So I do still use Notion.
I use it for like my content calendar in particular, mainly
because then you can move things around.
Also because those entries could just hold so much more
information. If I had to hold all that
information in my journal, I would have to have like just a
dedicated journal only for content planning.
And again, I type faster than I handwrite, so I'd rather just
type it. So that's something that I use
still. I also use Excel in particular
for my financial kind of planning, so keeping track of
all of my expenses, income sources, all the that kind of
thing. I've got like a bill splitter
built into that so that then when I pay for things for when
my friends and I go out to eat or whatever and I'm just like,
I'll just Chuck it on my card and we can know you can pay me
back later. I have a space to organize those
splits and stuff, which just makes the calculation a lot
easier. And then I also have things like
Outlook, you know, for, I mean, e-mail already, you know, you
have to have organization in that.
Otherwise, Oh my gosh, you know, when somebody's on their phone
and you see the little red icon or whatever, that tells you how
many emails are. I'm like, there should only be
an icon there. If you were doing something else
and you were not looking at your for, there should never in any
way be a number. When I see people that have like
over 1000 I'm like just get dump the act.
I know. Just delete it.
You obviously don't use it. Burn it and start again.
Control a delete like we'll just start again.
It's just going to be easier. I'm sure most of it is just like
e-mail newsletters that you sign up to once and you don't read.
But like, as soon as you see the comma, I'm just like, oh the
heebie jeebies. No, can't deal with it.
If I see double digits and that digit isn't just like a one, I'm
like, you have a problem. Clearly.
You know, I was trying to think there are some really cool
digital Productivity Tools that I use specifically for e-mail.
I'm going to mention it now and then we're going to go in a
different direction here because this is not the topic, but the
stack method is a method that I've used and I use it for work
and I absolutely love it. But maybe we could do a future
episode around like maybe some productivity.
It doesn't have to just be digital, but like productivity
method is the thing that we've used that have been helpful
because that's one that has been game changing for my own inbox
and really been helpful in me organizing it.
Because I think that's probably the problem people have when
they have hundreds or thousands of unopened emails is they just
like, well, I don't know what to do do with it.
So maybe we can make a future topic about that.
I would be so super keen to talk about that kind of thing.
Productivity is just like my happy place in general and
learning about productivity systems and different little
tips and tricks and all of that. I would love that.
All right, so I was a good boy and I actually dropped the note
inside of our outline so we could come back to it.
So we were talking about some of these other tools that kind of
take an analog but a digital approach.
I forget the notebooks that do this.
There's a hand full of them out there.
Actually did a review on one a while back too.
The idea that you are writing inside of an analog notebook,
but usually they involve some type of special pen that is
essentially transferring your analog writing into a digital
space. Now personally for me, I see
that as more of an automatic archiving of information, but
I've never used any of these apps or anything enough to
really think about. OK, I like to hand write my
notes here, but I'm going to use a digital planner over here to
recall information or to set things up.
I don't know. Have you had any experience with
any of those or any thoughts on like do you consider that
planning or is that just archiving to you?
I don't know. I feel like it would very much
come down to like the individual persons kind of like purpose and
function that it's serving. Because in a way it does feel
more like archiving that idea of like, you know, digitizing the
notes so you can find them again later, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But if you were using it specifically because you wanted
to have the digital copies, then like maybe.
But then I guess once you've made those digital files, you're
not continuing to plan on them, are you?
It's like you kind of make once keep as a resource almost.
That's what I'm kind of thinking about that, but then it made me
think about Remarkable and that's a product that I want to
use so bad I just don't want to pay for it.
I think the Remarkable too is like 5 or $600.00 or something
crazy and I'm like, it's just an E Ink device, but it looks so
cool. And Natasha I think has one
right. I think she talks about hers a
lot, but I've never used one. Have you ever had a chance like
fool with one or have one? I'm like here, I'm like, I would
never buy one. You're like I got two and buy my
drawer. Yeah, no, I do not have any, but
I have gotten to play around with one.
Funnily enough, it was Natasha's one.
So yeah, so her one, she she let me have a go out and see how how
it worked. It was quite interesting.
I don't know how I would necessarily use it or how I
maybe bring it into my system, but that's because my system is
fairly well established in terms of like what I like to do
digitally versus what I like to do on paper.
Because when it comes to note taking specifically, which is
where I feel like I would possibly get the most benefit of
it, I I just prefer having a scribble book.
Like I would rather just have my beautiful ugly book to write
down, scribble notes and draw scribble pictures and that kind
of stuff. You don't have that in a bullet
journal, Jess. How dare you?
It's more of like a support notebook.
So I use it for things like, you know, when I'm coming to do a
new setup or something like that.
Something in particular that I started doing is what I'm now
calling a want analysis. So so it's like wins, aversions,
needs and things to try. So I'll do that in here because
I can hold it alongside my notebook and kind of go through
the pages and be like, Oh yeah, I like this about the setup.
I didn't like this. This is something I need for
next month or whatever depending on what I'm setting up.
But I also use it for just jotting down things very, very
quickly, like, I don't know, little scribble notes and stuff
like that. It's things that don't need to
be neat, don't need to be referred to again in future very
much, but I don't want to litter my desk with small shrapnel
pieces of paper type thing. So keep them all in one space.
It's always my biggest thing. Every time I write down a note,
I'm like, where am I writing it? Do I want to write in my bullet
journal? It's not really that important
to go in there. Do I have an extra piece of
paper? Do I just write it in my phone
real quick? It's like this existential
crisis that happens in my head. I'm like, maybe that could be a
collection. I don't know just yet, Mark.
Just write it down somewhere and get over yourself.
I'm exactly the same way, though I get so snickety about what I
actually add into my journal, I swear.
Which is silly because like, it's there, so you could write
in it. So just write the thing in it.
But I'm like, but does it go here or should I put that
information somewhere else? And I think it comes down to the
processes that I have around transferring those notes, which
I'm not very well established with, I suppose.
Like if I write it down on my weekly log or whatever, sure,
it's captured somewhere. That's a win.
At least it's somewhere that isn't my brain hole because, you
know, brains are made for having ideas, not for holding them.
So if I try and just remember it, I won't remember it.
But if I write it down on my weekly, I still possibly won't
remember it because I won't remember to go back through my
weekly and find the note and then either turn it into an
action or put it in a more appropriate place or anything
like that. So now we're sitting here and
I'm like, I need a dedicated journal just for notes.
Where's another notebook? Oh my gosh.
I told you it's a. It's a real problem that we
have. It's an addiction, I swear.
Just like setting up new notebooks all the time.
Well, Planner Pals, we're very interested to hear from you.
This week's question is have you tried digital planning before?
And if you have, we would love to know the apps that you're
using and definitely the pros and the cons.
So make sure you leave a comment on the YouTube video if you're
watching there. You can also always e-mail us at
plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com. And also hit us up over a
Planner Pals podcast over on Instagram as well.
Jess, what are we talking about on our next episode?
So something that has come to my attention, which I don't know
whether to be alarmed or maybe they're just hiding, but like,
where are our planner guys? Like where, where damn boys at?
I, I can't find them. I mean, obviously we have you
and we know and love you, sure. And we have had other planner
guys pop up from time to time, but I feel like they're either
hiding from me and I just can't find them, or maybe we're just
genuinely lacking guy creators in the planner space.
This is the whole reason that I actually started my Instagram
account when I started men who bullet was for this exact
reason. There was only a handful of guys
in the community and I thought like there has to be more and if
not like let's promote them even more.
So I love this topic because it's always the one people ask
me in the community, like where them boys at?
I'm like, here's my list of people who I really enjoy that
are male creators or in this space.
But what's interesting I was thinking about this is I need to
go back to I used to have a chat and Instagram that was just for
all of the male creators and I haven't been in there a while.
Not a lot of activity. I'm curious how many of them are
still around. I'll go ahead and bring my list
to the table. But definitely we'll just kind
of pull them together. Definitely talk about where they
are and why we don't see as many of them necessarily the planner
community, but also promote and talk about some of our
favourites too. Will be super fun.
Now I'm looking forward to it, especially just like being able
to hear your list and check out some new creators for myself,
which I always love to do. So I hope that you will join us
next time plan our pals. But for now, thank you for
watching.