Welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast with two true
planner pals. My name is Mark or Mark your
pages. And I am Jess or Jessie Curran.
And in today's episode, we're going to be looking at community
versus competition, in particular, how it kind of
pertains to the planner community.
We're going to be thinking about the changes that we've seen
during our time in the planner community and kind of a bit of a
consideration as to where we are now.
Before we get to that, we have to thank all of the amazing
listeners out there for commenting on our last video,
All about Go Wild. It was fantastic just to hear
from the community, but more than that, how awesome Jess was
it to meet people face to face it Go Wild.
It was such an amazing time. I know it's always such a good
time getting to meet people in real life.
Like anytime somebody comes to my end of the world and says
like, hey, I'm like in Wellington, do you want to meet
up? I'm like absolutely, yes, I want
to meet you. So having a place where like
everybody is there already and everybody's kind of, you know,
there for the same thing or whatnot, that was really
exciting. It's always just like nice to be
in the room where it happens as well.
And having it be my first like full experience as well.
We have a lot to talk about South.
We've decided that we're going to push some of our other ideas
back a little bit because we're like, well, we have to obviously
talk about go wild. Next time we'll have just a wrap
up episode to really talk about this, our full experiences.
You shared so much helpful information.
I do have to tell you that I was just as I was editing that
podcast and I was jotting down notes, I was like OK, Mark, this
is what it's going to be like. And while for the most part it
was all there, it just the way that it happens is so cool and I
can't wait to share more about just like no, we talked about my
prep to get ready for the crop but just talk about that because
that was that was next level fun.
So excited to talk about that next time.
So, yay, looking forward to that episode kind of again.
Yeah, go well 2.0, like I don't know the after effect of it,
like the the high come down and all of that.
We're gonna get all into that next week.
But as said in today's episode, yes, we're looking at community
versus competition and how this kind of looks in our space in
particular. So kicking off like what do we
actually mean by this. So if we're thinking about our
competitors or other people who are creating things in our
niche, you can you probably know who they are, you know the names
that are out there. In terms of our space of the
Internet, for us that would be very much like the bullet
journaling space. So who else is putting out
bullet journaling related content?
Obviously there's the Bullet Journal brand.
I don't even think of them as a competitor because like they're
the reason that we're here kind of I think.
And that kind of, you know, having started this journey of
doing bullet journaling and then sharing it online and stuff
would not have happened without them.
So I cannot even remotely think of them as a competitor, but
trying to see the people who are doing the same kind of thing as
you, not so much as somebody who you're kind of like fighting
against for attention, but more so people that you can kind of
build connections with in other ways.
So then everything feels a little bit more, I don't know,
friendly, nice, approachable type deal.
Definitely. It's something that I feel like
as you start to grow on social media, especially when you're
posting about your bull adrenaline and your planner, you
can definitely see others as competition.
I've been there. I've definitely been like oh
they have more followers than I did or they started this before
I did or they had more likes. A lot of it I think has to do
with like the stats part of it. I don't think I've ever been
like I don't like that person necessarily.
But it all has to do a lot like you said about attention.
Who's looking at what, who's getting the play, who's getting
those types of things when you start looking at that
competition part of it. But I think over time, as we get
in further into this episode, we'll talk more about that
community part, which for me seems weird that the competition
comes first and that eventually you just have that aha moment
and you realize we're all a part of the same community.
Let's celebrate one another. Yeah, I would very much agree.
It's kind of interesting to think about it as like a
transition and you might not necessarily notice it like a
like a set point in time where it kind of like is a flicking of
a switch or anything like that. But I will say that like when I
started out, I was very much in kind of camp competition rather
than camp community and I'm very pleased that I'm much more in
camp community now. I'm the same exact way.
When I look back and I think back on it, I'm just like man
that really was kind of stifling you.
I don't think a lot of people realize that when you're not
accepting or open to that community part, people start to
notice that when you're not interacting with the community,
it kind of comes across almost like well you're too good, but
you're a part of this community, so why wouldn't you interact
with everyone? I think a really important thing
to think about is that history as I was talking about just a
minute ago when I got up and running, you really do feel like
you're competing against others and you really are for
attention. I don't know overtime and I'm
going to speak from an Instagram perspective right now because I
feel like that's where I've grown up the most and I feel
like I personally have seen a lot of competition there.
It could creep over into YouTube now.
But right now I'll just speak on the fact of like Instagram was,
you know, when I got started up and running, I kind of felt like
I had two kind of competitors in a way.
One was just the general community, which was ginormous,
especially when I was new and I came into it and I was like, OK,
there's all these people out here.
But I think more than anything, early on I saw other
competitors, other nails in the Bullet journal space, mostly
because there aren't a whole lot of those.
That's a separate podcast episode all on its own, I feel
like. But very much just like, OK,
well, I'm vying for that viewership.
I want people to look at my stuff, you know, at that point
over theirs. But now again, I was like, Mark,
you're not in competition. Like, can we celebrate that
there are actually other guys out here posting content?
Because to be honest, like the whole reason when I first
started, my username was Men who Bullet.
I was like, OK, I don't see any men guys, anyone who identifies
as male in this space, eventually realizing why I
changed my name in the long run is it doesn't have to just be
male. It's more just this minimalist
kind of fun, functional kind of space and just be like accept
this, let's support each other. Let's go through all of this.
But early on for myself, it very much was that.
And I think that just comes from a space of you want to be seen,
you want to stand out. And in some cases, especially if
you're taking on social media full time, that's your bread and
butter, right. That's kind of that's money at
the end of the day. So you definitely want eyes on
you versus someone else. Yeah.
I think that you know with your niche being kind of like a
smaller subset of the bullet journaling space.
You know like with kind of targeting the space of like men
who bullet and males in our community and stuff who we don't
see as many of especially in the more decorative space like
they're there, I know you're there, but you just don't get
surfaced as much, right. So it was always kind of
interesting to see like you know, the way that you do stuff
and the way that you kind of like carve out and channel your
nation particular. And I can totally understand how
like anybody else who's kind of like I'm going to say
encroaching on your turf. It's not really like that.
Like we said, like we're we're trying to fight towards more of
a community kind of based kind of perspective on this.
But seeing other people who are kind of doing the same thing
that you're doing can feel threatening.
Like especially when you're just starting out, you haven't really
established any kind of like viewership, audience, community
around what you are doing. And it's like, Oh, well, if
other people are doing what I'm doing, it's like that.
Going to steal people away from me.
I find for me, it's like you need to remind yourself that,
like, people can follow more than just one creator.
And they definitely do. Oh yeah.
And also when it comes to the idea of, like putting things out
there that either like other people have done before or maybe
once you put yours out, then they do it as well, kind of a
thing. It's actually not a bad thing,
especially if we think about it in terms of algorithms.
So if we think about YouTube, right, so you go to YouTube, you
look up a topic, you watch a video.
The stuff that's suggested on the side panel is usually the
same topic or very similar. So it's like if I'm putting out
a video that's like, let's say about, I don't know, health
related layouts or something. And then there are five other
creators that have put out things related to health related
layouts. We're all gonna like kind of
grow together, feed off each other because all of that stuff
is gonna get recommended alongside each other.
So it's actually kind of a good thing in that sense if people
are doing the same thing to an extent.
So for yourself, just where do you feel like, I guess, whether
you, when you first started, even as you've moved through,
did you have a similar type of competition view early on for
yourself, not that you're not part of like a separate
demographic, but right, we're being honest with our numbers
here, the male demographic versus female, very, very skewed
and very unbalanced. What was your take on the
competition part? Did you feel any of that early
on or even as you've continued to grow?
Oh. Very much so.
And I think it is very much tied to that kind of statistics and
analytics because as as you're looking at your numbers,
especially the public ones, like the ones that you can see at
face value for yourself and for others because that's really
your only comparison point. You know, you put out a picture,
somebody else puts out a picture the same day around, around the
same time kind of things like, oh, they've got like 500 more
likes than me. Like what did I do wrong?
What are they doing that's so good?
And it just gets into a really negative headspace of either
like, you know, self beration like, oh gosh, like I have
failed on this Instagram picture or whatever versus kind of
targeting them being like, Oh well, how are you special?
Like why do people think that yours is so great but mine
isn't? It's kind of needing to take a
little step back from that and be like, wow, check yourself
Jess. Like just because you don't have
the same number of likes does not mean that, like the worth
isn't the same or something like that.
Do you feel like you've seen that more on Instagram or
YouTube or a mix of both of those?
I just, I carry my baggage around with me, honestly.
Like wherever I'm going. Like, yeah, yeah, see me up on
threads, looking through people's likes.
Absolutely not. I do not thread, but I will say
that like going from Instagram to YouTube because that was my
first kind of big transition I suppose like you know building
up one community, one platform and then going to another and
building that one up. I think that I did certainly
take it with me, but I was still kind of in the early stages of
my overall social media kind of journey.
So I think that by the time that I made a YouTube channel, I know
I had a decent ish following on Instagram.
It would have been in the some thousands.
I wouldn't be able to to tell you a specific number, but it
was still kind of like in the early days of my social media
use. So I was still very much seeing
other people as something to be wary of.
Like, oh gosh, you know, if I put out the same thing as them,
like, that's going to be a bad thing.
Or if they do the same thing as me, that's a bad thing.
It's not. It's not.
I see a lot of that more on YouTube.
I feel like for myself now as I look at that, where I do a lot
of that comparison and and competition, it just feels like
maybe it feels more competitive on YouTube than Instagram now
for me, like at this moment, because YouTube is also tied to
money, Adsense and all of those types of things, especially when
you have similar content. As for me, it has nothing to do
with the content itself being repetitive.
There's only so many ideas that people can have.
I do the same thing. When you mentioned that earlier,
I was like, yeah, OK, what did they do different than I did?
Why is their video getting more views than mine?
And how can I like one up them in a way?
So next time people look at my video instead of theirs and it
is just a very negative kind of space to get into.
I think it's healthy to be a little competitive.
That kind of puts a little fire on to you sometimes, but how can
we use that creatively versus that competition negative force?
Yeah, for sure. And I would agree like tying
that idea to like money to the content and how like you know,
views matter in terms of the amount of revenue that you can
get from your content. On YouTube in particular and
views in particular are a hard one because not all views are
created the same, yet I treat them the same and I shouldn't
because obviously in your own analytics studio and your own
back end of YouTube, you know, you can see like the average
view duration. Like how long do people actually
stick around and view the content, Content.
You can see like a really nice breakdown of like, you know,
number of comments and stuff like this, like other
interaction, how many people or, you know, rough percentage of
people clicked the end card like they made it to the end and they
wanted to stay with you. You can see all that information
which those statistics could tell like a very different
picture compared to just like the view count where maybe
somebody stuck around for 30 seconds on a video and decided
it wasn't for them. So you know, this is like a
almost a little revelation moment right now.
I'm like, why do I pay so much attention to this?
Because I do find myself comparing my views in particular
to other creators, and I feel like I do it in a more healthy
way now to an extent. But in in the early days of
Youtubing, it was certainly a not so healthy thing.
Let's dig into that a little bit more because now this has become
a therapy session it seems like, which is a very good one to
have. So let's continue on that point.
If you think about that comparison and that competition
community earlier on in your start versus now, how has that
changed for you? I think that my tendency to fall
into comparison is lesser now, but when it hits it is much more
intense. I find that when I was first
starting off, I would kind of compare myself to everyone, but
it was usually kind of like a passing thought.
So, you know, check out a bunch of different creators that we'd
have on YouTube for bullet journaling in particular, 'cause
that's where we're at and and see what they're doing, see
their numbers and stuff. But I wouldn't really let myself
dwell on it because I was too busy in my hustle, too busy
trying to build up my own stuff, too busy trying to get out my
videos and all of that kind of thing.
I feel like now, as I've maybe streamlined my process a bit,
maybe I just have more time to ruminate or something.
But I do find that I don't ruminate as often When I do
ruminate. When I do find somebody that I
really, really start comparing myself to, then it gets really
bad to the extent where, like my solution literally has just been
to cold Turkey. Quit watching their content
because I would find myself going on to somebody's video and
they'd like, you know, do their intro.
And internal Jess, the best she is, would just like mock them.
Like internally I would never say it out loud because I know
that like the first thought is not the good thought, right?
Actions speak louder than words, all of this kind of thing.
But internal Jess who, if we kind of treat her like a
separate person, she's just afraid.
Like, she's just afraid that somebody else, you know, in this
instance, this person doing well, is gonna be like, you
know, some kind of negative consequence on her.
And Rational Jess knows that that's not the case.
Scared Jess, though. She doesn't know any better.
Scared Jess needs to like, you know, lash out and feel like she
has some control over the situation.
So she's gonna be like, parroting back what the person
says in her mocking tone. But that's not, that's not real
Jess. That's scared, Jess.
That's a very interesting way to kind of look at it, 'cause I'll
I'll be very specific with this 10 expectation for you to name
names here, because I don't want anyone feel this way.
But I'll use this just as an example so that people maybe can
get a good idea of like what this means because I very much
look up to this person so that Reglan has been on YouTube for a
long time, He's in a lot of Bullet Journal content.
I was so excited to find his content early on when I started
because I wasn't seeing anybody else, you know, like me, so to
say, inside of the space. So I loved watching his videos
and going through that. I was amazed taking a look at
his viewership and how many views he was getting for his
videos and things like that. And so early on, I very much
kind of looked up to him, and I still do to a certain extent,
but especially when I I was a much smaller account, not as
well known. And he was, I was like, OK.
And then as I started to grow, I was almost like, OK, like I'm
starting to get up there a little bit.
And then I started to almost kind of feel that way.
And then Matt had decided to actually take on content full
time. And I felt like he kind of went
away for a little bit. He was doing his own kind of
exploration and thing. And then I want to say maybe a
handful of months ago, he came back, right?
And he started to post more content and instantly I was like
son of a bitch, like he's back. And I was.
And then I stopped myself and I thought, actually this is great,
like, this is awesome for him. This is awesome for other guys
in this community to see that. But it was that split second.
But it's exactly like what you just said.
It was almost like, OK, Mark, you've been putting out content.
You know, there's other again, there's other guys on YouTube
that are doing this as well. But I really felt like a lot of
people were, you know, my account was growing, so
obviously I knew that people were taking a look at my
content. Now was it because my stuff was
getting better or was it because I was kind of the only person
they were kind of seeing out there?
And again, for that split second, I felt that way.
And then I think it is the maturity of myself and social
media that was like, no, Mark, this isn't bad.
This is actually really good for the community.
And like, I've, I've always been a fan of his regardless, right?
But just again, that's just an example because you get a lot of
love for Matt this. Again, everything he's done and
continues to do, I always think is fantastic.
But just as an example of showing like this is real, what
happens is exactly like you said, it was almost maybe I felt
almost too comfortable with my process and flow and then
suddenly I was like great, it's amazing.
Creators back, everyone loves his videos.
Are they going to stop watching your mind to watch that?
He just realized it just is a totally different purview on
planning than I do. And for anyone who loves like a
super minimalistic, very productivity like focused, he's
your guy and I'm your guy for like the fun and functional
stuff. That's kind of how I look at it
now, because I feel more comfortable in my space, whereas
before I didn't feel like I had that.
I think that's the thing, yeah. If you set yourself apart in
some way, then your nation is instantly different.
There isn't a competition for that, which is kind of nice.
I remember seeing a quote once. It said something like you're
not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible
for your second thought and your first action.
And I I need to remind myself of that.
Like those very reactionary kind of gut feelings that we get when
we're presented with an opportunity to, like, be jealous
or see somebody as competition rather than as a community
member. That's not real us.
We're we're responsible for the second thing that comes after
that. You know, maybe it's like the
rationalization of like, no, actually, this is a good thing.
It's a good thing for our community to have different
perspectives. It's nice when we have people
who are on the same page as well.
So it's like if I'm putting out a piece of content about like, I
don't know, ways to not burn out with your bullet journal and
somebody else makes the same kind of video with similar
points. Like it's just another
opportunity for people to be reinforced with that idea.
And that is a good thing. Need to see it more.
So like we're all kind of on the same page, we're all like trying
to build the community up in the same way.
And that's that's not a negative thing.
Not at all, not at all. So let's continue on that
thought if you're OK with it, unless you have anything else
you wanted to share about any of that competition part before we
move on to like negative effects of feeling that way.
No, no, I think that we can totally get into the negative
things because I find that I and possibly a lot of other people
too have a big negativity bias. So when we think about like you
know, community versus competition, you know instantly
just even with the term versus my mind goes to the negative
space. Like what is the like the bad
kind of like version of this look like.
We will of course get into some positives as well.
But starting with the negative, what do you think some of the
negative consequences of that are?
I definitely think a big part could potentially be creativity
burnout, right? And this is if you decide that
you are going to counteract this feeling by overcompensating.
So in the case of Instagram, that could come in the form of
working extra hard to create more spreads and get more photos
out there, doubling down in reels, which I think are a great
idea overall. But you can easily get
creatively burned out from that. And I think even more so would
be pumping out even more content on something like YouTube
because that takes significantly more time to make make that
happen because you got to create the content recorded, edit it,
boy all the things that come along with it.
And you and I both know this from creating content ourselves.
You know I have 15 minute video can sometimes take an hour, 2
hours, 3 hours start to maybe more.
You have a lot, you do a lot of your videos.
So I have to give you a lot of respect.
Mine typically I think at Max maybe by the time start to done
are probably in the two to three hour mark from like ideation,
recording, editing, B roll. All of that kind of stuff.
So I feel like I can imagine myself doing anything more than
I already am. But that is how I feel like a
lot of people could potentially burnout.
What about for yourself? What other things do you think
negatively affected you? Or others perhaps?
I think that burnout is probably a big one, even if it's not in
the sense of like trying to increase your workload, like
make your content better or put more out.
But it's just, you know, you spend this time, this energy,
this effort to like, you know, for us to make a layout and then
make the content around that, whether that be video or, you
know, audio or photo or whatever else.
And then to put it out there and see it not do as well as you
were hoping. It's it's an it's an opportunity
to get really down on yourself. And honestly that happens a lot
of the time. You know, you put something out
there, you expect it to be hopefully well received.
Fingers crossed please universe. And then it gets like 2 likes
and your mom comments on it or something.
You're like cool, Thanks. I spent six hours on this.
For what kind of a thing? I feel that way a lot for a lot
of like bullet journal setup videos, like for myself for
instance. That is something that I
definitely compare myself to others because I watch a lot of
those myself and I check them out and I'm like, Oh my gosh,
it's like a 45 minute video with a ton of likes and then I go to
create mine and they don't take as long.
It's totally different. And then I used to get under
1000 views on those types of YouTube videos.
I actually stopped doing that because I was like, OK, mark,
that effort versus reward, that time kind of thing.
I would spend all this time creating and editing, uploading
that sometimes on a weekly basis and not get a whole lot of
viewership. And it's not that it has to be a
certain limit, but for me, like my number was always like 1000
views for myself because I always kind of trended a bit
smaller on those. And then I did have that
realization after a while of like, I'm just doing this
almost. I'm competing with all these
other people that are doing this.
It's just not really worth my time.
I like doing it. I'm doing it anyway on a weekly
basis. But maybe I can utilize my time
differently than, you know, putting out those videos
constantly trying to compete with everybody else out there.
Yeah. And I think that after a while,
like if you start to really start chasing those views or
chasing likes or anything like this, you really just kind of
suck the joy out of the whole process.
Like, there's a reason that, you know, you and I, and there's a
reason that you may be listening, started creating
content. If you're creating content, you
know, why? What was that?
Like? Get back to that kind of purpose
about it. For me it was really about I
have ideas and I want to share them with other people because I
think they could be helpful. At the end of the day, if a post
helps like one person, then technically speaking that's like
you know, checking the box mission fulfilled.
Like I have shared an idea it was useful to somebody.
I think it can be a little bit difficult.
You know, when, when it's that kind of a a mission or an aim
and knowing whether or not, you know, mission has actually been
accomplished without those kind of like, you know, viewership
kind of statistics or comments. Saying to the fact, not that I'm
like, you know, sitting there expecting every single person
who got value out of one of my pieces of content to come back
and tell and be like, Oh my God, yes, this layout like changed my
life or whatever. Because often times they're not
going to do that. They might just be a little bit
helpful. And that's still good.
It's still OK, right. Like tiny winds are still winds.
But if you're kind of, you know, constantly chasing this idea of
like need to have more viewers, need to have more likes, need to
have more comments or whatever else, it it starts to be more
about that than about the enjoyment and fulfilment of
that. Kind of like initial kick off of
like why you started. Yeah, the validation is always
nice, no doubt about it. As a creator, as a performer,
you know, so to say of of what we're doing right at the
validation is definitely nice. I definitely like what you just
said though, this idea of almost going back to why did you start
doing this? Because I just remember very
early on for myself, you know, my why most certainly was to try
to inspire others, especially other guys in the community.
But now it's more just like anybody that doesn't want to
have overly decorative spreads, that wants a functional bullet
journal while also sometimes having fun and geeking out about
stationary. Like I remind myself about that
all the time. Because you do always feel like
you're kind of trying to one up what's happening in the
community, what's happening on Reels?
How are people approaching things just taking that moment?
Just to really think about that as a really good reflection
point, I think. And for anyone who's maybe
feeling that way, overwhelmed, overrun by that comparison troll
that comes at you sometimes sitting back and saying, well,
why did I even start this in the beginning?
Because if it's for a very selfish reason and not for other
pieces, you may find yourself, maybe you need to take a break
so you don't go too far down that depressive, you know,
sucking the joy out of life and fun.
Because that's not what this is supposed to be about.
No, we're we're getting kind of you know into the waves of the
negative parts of competition in particular.
But that's not to say that it isn't without its merits.
I think that competition can and be a good thing in particular
for just like striving to be better.
I find that, you know, you see people putting out content
that's kind of similar to yours or maybe like something that you
wanted to do in particular. That is such a big one.
The number of ideas I have that takes so long to execute on and
having some competition kind of just lights a fire under my
butt. To be like Jess, you need to do
this. Do you find that as well or?
Oh, all the time. Especially when I have an idea
that's in the hopper or I have an outline and then I see
someone put out a video on that. And in my brain I'm almost like,
damn it, Mark. Like you should have just
followed through all that faster because you could have been the
first one out with that. And then I'm always like, well,
now I can't put it out in the next 2-3 weeks because when
someone's going to think, I'm copying them and I just put
myself into this kind of weird space.
But that is definitely something where I think about that often.
Like, Mark, when you know you have a good idea or you think
it's going to go really well, just buckle down, get it done,
get it out. And then you'll just feel better
about that than like, losing out on an idea for sure.
But it is that fire that you get sometimes.
If you're like, I just needed someone to kick me in the butt
to be like, yeah, do this thing. And that's a great example for
me where I'm always like, damn it, I should have just did it.
I knew I should have not just rested on my laurels waiting for
that to happen, you know? I have two very specific
examples about that. One of them was on YouTube.
So Aaron of Aaron Floater Designs put out a couple of
videos about her Bujo Basic series and I was like I was
gonna do that. I'm like Jessica, you have said
that you are going to do this for like 2 1/2 years.
You cannot get angry because Aaron actually did the thing
right and I still did the thing. I still ended up doing it.
Mine ended up being like a 40 video series where each of the
videos were like 6 minutes or less.
It was very kind of like little bite sized pieces and it was
effectively ended up being like a Bujo course and it was a piece
of work that I was very proud of but I don't think I would have
actually gotten on and if Aaron hadn't put hers out, so shout
out to Aaron, you lit the fire under my butt and I got it done.
And you got it done very well too.
I have to say that your Bhutto series was like very in depth.
If I think about any of mine that have been like, you know,
starting in your bullet journal, how to get started.
Mine are just like little 1520 minute chunks on like what it
is. Whereas, like yours were
fantastic because it was like broke down, like the terms, the
pieces and everything. I felt like I left there
learning more and I've been doing it for a really long time.
You should have seen the planning stages of that.
I had like 3 iterations with what I was just calling my crazy
map, which was effectively like start with just a brainstorm.
Like these are all of the different things that we want to
talk about. And then the next one was like a
road map of like a cable. We're going to make this video
and it's going to lead to this one, it's going to lead to this
one.
It turned into this very large project that took me a hot
minute to do. But now as it's done, I'm like
that is a permanent resource because of your kind of
competitive nature with others. It actually came into fruition.
So I'm feeling very good about that.
The other one that I had was a real actually, and I'm not, I'm
not a fan of making reels. I try.
I'm so. Good at them, though.
You make the best educational reels.
I'm over here like, you know, lip syncing to some dumb sound,
and you're like, here's how to do a thing very specifically
with great information. I'm like, damn, she's good at
those. I find it to be kind of like a
little challenge because I like to do things in depth.
I like to really give people a lot of detail.
But of course with a reel you only have like 90 seconds.
So I'm like, OK, well what is the most part down abridged
version of this that I can give people that is still actually
useful. So it's kind of like, you know,
that little challenge for myself to get that information across
as quickly as possible. But the real in particular that
I was going to do was actually more of a fun one.
And you guys probably saw them. They were fairly recent, but it
was like what all that work and what the Dick?
Oh yeah, you did one of. Those why did I do it?
Yeah, I know I was going to do it.
And I procrastinated, procrastinated, procrastinated.
And then I can't remember for the life of me who did it.
And now I feel really bad about it because obviously in the
moment I was like, wow, you've like ruined my day.
Not really. You didn't ruin my day, right?
It was just, it was it was scared Jess.
It was small child Jess being wah wah wah, No, right.
But they put theirs out and I was like, OK, I could not do it
now because, like, it's already been done.
But we don't have exactly the same audiences, so there's no
harm in putting it out. And even if somebody does think
that I copied them kind of a thing, like, you know, I know in
myself that technically speaking, I didn't, even though
it ends up kind of being the same thing.
If anything, I'm copying the, like, you know, 600 other people
that I saw to it as I was scrolling through my real speed.
So it's kind of reminding myself that like just because somebody
else has done it before and now I'm doing it, doesn't
necessarily mean it's actually a copy.
Like, you know, we can have inspired by rather than like a
full recreation of. Like if I was breaking down
their reel shot by shot and being like, alrighty, I'm going
to like, you know, make eye contact with the camera in
exactly the same way. And I'm going to hold my journal
in exactly the same way that I'm like, OK, now we should be
concerned because that's a whole new level of like copying, but.
That's one of the things that is very interesting about reels is
exactly what you said. It's like thousands, millions in
some cases of people doing that. I mean I technically I guess I'm
stealing from other genres because a lot of the funny or
like very interesting sounds for whatever reason, book talk is
the hottest for that type of thing for some reason.
And so I see a lot of stuff there.
But I'm not going to lie to you, I do get that feeling when I put
something out. I haven't seen anyone else in
the Bullet Journal Planner community do it and then like I
see like another creator do the same exact thing.
Not exactly the same. I mean it's a it's like a 7
second sound. You can only do so much, and for
some ideas it's very limited on like showing a thing.
So I can't get mad of someone elses showing their notebook
with this sound because, well, all I did was show a notebook.
It's not exactly the same, but it's 5 seconds.
What are you going to really do? I have to remind myself of that
often? Because I do pride myself on
finding cool new sounds and trending things and trying to
get them out there. Or I'm like, you're trying to
steal my fire, but then I'm just like, Mark, everyone's going to
forget about this in less than two days.
Move along, buddy. You're going to be all right.
I think it's also that kind of like mindset shift of like
rather than viewing it as a oh, you're trying to steal my idea
that I stole from somebody else or whatnot.
It's more just like a you find the same things funny that I do.
Like that's a point of connection as well.
So it's like you found this entertaining or like, you know,
thought it would be entertaining and enjoyable and I did as well.
And that's why we both put the same thing out.
One of the kind of like I'm gonna call like like a
recreation train almost. I think my best example of this
was I used to make these layouts in my journal, which were
effectively like planning spaces for my next monthly set up.
So I'd have a space for like, you know, colour swatches,
writing down any kind of, like decoration notes of what I kind
of wanted the vibes to be, any of the layouts that I wanted to
include, the font that I wanted to include, that kind of stuff.
And for a while I found them quite useful.
I'd post some of them on social media, put them on YouTube,
whatever else. And then Tori of Creative Mind
Coffee Grinds shout out. She thought that they were, you
know, looked useful, looked interesting.
So she started doing them herself with full credits
because we love giving credit, which is great.
So I always appreciated when she tagged me in them and over time
I stopped doing mine and she kind of kept on going with the
ones she was making and tweaking them and changing them to the
point where like, you know, she'd give me credit for it.
Like, you know, original idea by Jess.
And I'm like, it looks completely different now.
Tori, this is yours. But she effectively, like, re
inspired me to start taking them again, which I thought was kind
of cute. So it's like, you know, I
inspired her. Then she kind of changed it,
tweaked it, and then she inspired me, and then I tweaked
it and changed it. So it's like by actually sharing
this stuff, letting other people share the same ideas that you
shared as well. It's like this iterative process
where you can build it up to something that's better than the
initial concept that you had by yourself.
So I thought that was really valuable.
Do you feel like there is a time limit where you have to give
credit? And then is there a time when
you feel like you no longer have to, especially if you've really
taken or grasped onto something? And let me ask you that question
first, because I have a very specific example about this,
about a very good friend of ours that we've mentioned on this
podcast. We might as well just have Julie
on this podcast at this point as a guest.
Could we talk about her a lot? But let me ask you that question
1st and I'll give you my specific example about her.
That's a great question because I think it's really hard
thinking about like, what that kind of time frame should be and
then considering our perspective of, like, the time frame for
ourselves versus the time frame for other people.
Because I find that, like, you know, somebody might take my
meal log that I used to do quite often.
And, you know, for the first couple of months, they'll like,
tag me and say, like, inspired by Jess kind of thing.
Sweet. And then they get to like, the
third or fourth month and they won't tag me.
And there's that, like, small moment where I'm like, wow, oh,
my gosh, am I not good enough for you anymore?
And it's like, Jess, you'd probably do.
Exactly the same thing. Like you cannot be a persnickety
biscuit because they didn't tag you when you would literally do
the same thing. But again, you know, the first
thought isn't the one that matter.
It's the second thought and the one that we actually act on.
That's the one that matters. So the one I act on is
commenting, saying, Oh my gosh, I'm glad this is still working
for you. Yay :) XOXO gospel go.
My is always been around ink swatches.
It sounds very silly, but I feel like part of the gatekeeping
skill set of this. You mentioned you asked on your
stories about this topic, and gatekeeping was one of those
things that came up. And this is something that for
me personally, it's one of those where I don't know at what point
I no longer have to provide credit.
So when I started doing ink swatches, I was just, you know,
using a pen and kind of making a circle on a page.
And then there's someone else in this community that does really
cool ink swatches. And I always saw them.
I was always blown away by it. And I was like, oh, wow.
And then one time I just asked him, I said, how did you do
this? And they were like, well, look
at this video. And it was someone who was using
a plastic bag. They would put ink on a paper,
put a plastic bag over top and move it around.
And so I was doing that. And I was like, OK, then I
started giving credit to it. And then I watched Julia's video
where she did all the different ways to make ink swatches.
And she used the plastic spoon. And now that's the only way that
I make ink swatches. And so early on, I was like,
making these ink swatches and I would tag her in every single
video. And then I'm like, at this point
now, I don't mind doing it because I love her again.
I feel like she deserves all the credit in the world for her
videos, right? But I'm just like, do I always
have to tag her on this? Or is there like a time in which
it's just a technique that I learned from her that I'm just
doing myself now? Not that I don't want to give
her credit, make that very clear, but it's just, is it just
a part of what I'm doing now of how I do it.
So I don't know. I feel like is that something
you would ask somebody? I mean, it's a skill.
I'm sure that even for her, she's not the first person to
use a plastic spoon to do that. But yeah, I don't know.
I don't know where I'm going with that one.
But I guess my question is like is there a time limit on that or
just always give credit because you want to give credit where
it's due? Yeah, it's it's a tricky 1
because yeah, I think that there is probably a sweet spot.
I just don't know what it is. And it probably is different
depending on like I'm going to say like the level of the idea
or like the size of the idea almost.
So a layout that I know that I use quite a lot on and off quite
a lot is the Productivity Tracker or I think it was called
the Productivity Level Board when it was originally shared by
the Boosted journal. I really loved what they did
with it when they shared it. So I made a video about it, kind
of expanding on that, saying like, you know, this is the
original, this is how I actually use it, this is some kind of
ideas for it and stuff. But now a lot of people give me
credit for it because they saw it from me and I'm like, well,
yes, I shared the idea to you, so it makes sense as to why you
would give me credit. And you are technically using my
version of it, but that version was inspired by the Booster
Journals original version. So it kind of gets to this
little kind of like grey area of like well, where are we actually
going to give credit? Are we going to give credit at
the very initial idea? Because then I suppose
everything should go back to the person who, like, invented paper
or something like this is made possible because of that one guy
who mashed up a tree kind of a thing.
So yeah, there there is definitely some kind of a time
frame. I'm just not too sure what it
is. So let's continue down this
idea, because I know that a really big part of the community
competition part has to do with this recreation slash.
I don't know. We'll be going to call it
stealing. It has a lot of these different
pieces where you're like, well, what's the difference between
inspiration, recreation, and then outright stealing it?
Because I feel like that credit part is a part of it.
But like we just talked about, how long do you give credit to
something before it's just your own version of it?
What are your thoughts on the idea of recreating spreads?
Does it always have to be slightly tweaked or what would
you consider it if someone literally is copying word for
word? We've talked about this before
where someone did that with a piece of your work.
Like what is your general thought on that?
I think that there's nothing technically wrong with a full
blown recreation. Like I am not opposed to people
taking my layout as they've seen it in my journal and fully
recreating it. If you want to write down my To
Do List for the day, go forth, I don't think it'll be very
helpful. For you.
Can you just do those things for me while you're at it?
Yeah, I'm like, could you please wash my windows?
Oh my gosh. I'm like, I'm not getting up on
a ladder. I don't like being more than
like a foot off the ground at most.
But I find that there is merit to recreation.
Especially if, like, you know, you're practicing artistic
skills or, you know, just getting a feel for whether a
layout's actually going to work for you in the kind of like
layout that you saw it in to start with.
That makes sense as long as it's something that you think is
actually going to work for you. Like if you're recreating
something just because like, oh, that got 2000 likes.
Maybe if I recreate it, I could get like a fraction of that as
well like this. There doesn't seem to be a lot
of point in that. I think that it's also a very
biased mindset though, because I'm coming from a point of like
my journal should be useful, my journal should not just be
performative, and if you're recreating something just for
the sake of getting likes, it does feel performative.
If you're going to recreate something though, at least at
the at the minimum, the very first instance you share it, it
should have a credit back to the person that you recreated it
from. That's my personal take on that.
I feel like there might be a bit of strategy.
I mean, I go wild. We got to meet Amanda Rach Lee
and I feel like a lot of her platform, especially with her
videos and her monthly setups. She's sharing those not with the
expectation, but understanding that a lot of people do recreate
her things. But she is showing you exactly
how it's done. So it's almost inviting a
recreation to it. And I'm guessing that most of
the time people will credit her on those things, but they may
not always do that. So I think there's also maybe
content that we may create that has the purpose of recreation
versus if I'm doing something in my journal that's very personal
for me, but then I choose to share it.
You know, I want to inspire other people.
But sometimes it's like, well, if you can do exactly that and
then not credit me because you saw it from me.
There is like that line I feel like that we're on where it
feels like someone is stealing something from you.
They were inspired by you. But did it exactly as it was.
I guess there's probably also certain levels of things.
Take like the Eisenhower method, for instance.
Like someone uses the Eisenhower method.
Maybe they didn't know the name of it.
They saw me created in my journal and I maybe mentioned
it, but they're like, oh, I saw Mark do this about
prioritization. But it's like the Eisenhower
method. It's not Marx or Jess's
creation. It's almost like at some point
you don't have to give credit. I think it's also just to be
able to name it like that's what it's called.
Therefore we use it. It just kind of moves into that
spot sometimes, right? Feel like at what point is it
your idea versus just someone else's idea?
And does it really matter at the end of the day?
I think there's the biggest one that irks me and this is going
to show Jesses like you know the little the little scared Jess.
The little bitchy scared Jess. The one that irks the ever
loving crap out of me is the rolling weekly.
I'm like, there's nothing rolling about it.
It's just daily. I can't I I think it probably
comes from a part of like I don't really understand.
I I think like every time I try and do it more of a deep dive
dive into it to really understand what this is about.
I get to the same conclusion of like there's nothing rolling
about this weekly. Like it's just tasks go from
day-to-day. So I'm like it's like a rolling
daily. Well, that it is a rolling
weekly. Maybe I'm just like caught up on
the terminology or whatnot. It might be because I was just
researching the Bullet Journal. Someone mentioned to me on a
YouTube comment. Have you explored the Bullet
Journal time ladder? I was like, I've never heard of
the time Ladder before and I went and looked it up and I was
like, it's the rolling weekly. It's the rolling daily it's, it
looks almost exactly like that. But I've never heard the term
time ladder before. But it's exactly what we always
talk about. So it's it's like, well, OK,
they're calling it the time ladder.
It's a rolling weekly. Then who created it?
Does it matter? Should we just say, hey, I saw
this on the Bullet Journal website or I saw it from here
and just sharing that or just creating yourself and be like
this is called the time ladder. No one cares where I learned
about it from. Maybe I can inspire you with it
now, you know. I don't know.
Because is the. Again, this shows obviously my
ignorance towards it. The rolling weekly utilizes the
Alistair method, yes. Yeah, exactly.
So what I'm saying to you and so is it the Alistair method, Is it
a time ladder? Is it a, you know, like wherever
it is, there's just a lot of different methods out there that
kind of done it. So I guess you have to go back
and be like, okay. Well, I mean, this blog post
that I had up because I've been reading about it this week was
posted in 2015 from bulletjournal.com.
Where did they get it from? You know, like, I think on there
as they said that the timeline was inspired by Bill Westerman
of The IY Fish. I have no idea who that is.
Should I be crediting him for this or Bullet Journal?
You know, I think that's where we get into the whole thing.
So maybe we just collectively as a community say this is where I
learned about it from or a lot of cases.
And I know we talked about this with people who find things on
Pinterest and then share them. Maybe we just should do a little
bit more research to understand the basics of that before we go
sharing information of that we don't know about.
It I think this is a really good topic to get into and we
obviously have a lot of thoughts on it.
So I think that we're going to have to do like a full separate
episode of just like, I don't know, recreation, inspiration
and straight up theft in the Planet community, because I know
that you guys will also have a lot of thoughts on it.
So stay tuned for an episode on that.
Yeah, that has this whole other part.
So let's go ahead and switch Gears of talking about moving
from the competition into how do we build a community around
this? Because for myself personally in
my life right now, my bullet journal, social media maturity,
I feel like the focus is on the community now, no longer
necessarily competition. Again, I know who else is out
there, who is my competition petition.
Not in an unfriendly way. So, you know, how do I continue
moving forward with this idea of building our community instead
of thinking about the negativity?
And I'm going to turn this to you, Jess, because I feel like
you have such an amazing community.
Yeah, I think we both have great communities and I think we have
a lot of overlap in our community as well.
Because like what we've got like, you know Planet Pals, the
Planet Power Podcast and their community and we've got like
Joshi curing community and we've got the men who bullet.
Now mark your pages community. I'm never going to be able to
not say Men who bullet. It's such problem but sorry.
Yeah I know right. Changing things up it's all
good. I'll I'll get there eventually.
But we obviously have a lot of overlap in our communities as
well and we have a lot of overlap with other people who
are in our niche. I mean like obviously cause
often times if you're gonna follow one bullet general
creator you're gonna follow a couple because they're all
sharing great ideas. And I think that getting from
that, kind of like everybody is a competitor to like everybody
is a connection kind of mindset, does take a lot of time.
I'm certainly not to the the point where everybody has a
connection. And I think that's probably a
lot of my own kind of like scared Jess talking again, you
know, feeling awkward, reaching out to people who maybe have a
bigger following than me and all of that.
That's something I've carried the entire way through.
Even if it's just kind of like starting off with the really
kind of basics, you know, like commenting on other people's
stuff, you know, giving credit where credit is due.
Like we talked about, all of those are little opportunities,
little moments where you can make a connection with somebody
else and they they are small, but they're also the ones, one
of the ones that are most valuable.
You share a layout talking about how you, like, struggle to
complete your habits this month or something.
So your habit tracker looks like trash.
Obviously, I died kind of a thing.
And it gives an opportunity for other people to comment saying
like, you know, I struggle with that as well.
Like you find these commonalities with people and
sharing this stuff and then commenting on other people's
things, and that's really valuable.
They were only small, but they do add up over time.
Absolutely. And something else you can do
too. And I've actually done this a
lot more overtime. Let's take a look at this
podcast right now. Not again, I'll say competition
in a friendly way for us. Just another creator out there
though, and this wasn't a conniving way of doing this, but
collaborating right is another really good way to build that
community. Now ours is much more than that
because we are planner of friends.
Before we were planner pals podcast, so like that already
existed there. So honestly, for me it was like
let's get Jessica. She's so awesome.
And it'd be great to have this similar but opposing thought to
kind of where we are on this. But same with content creation.
I love doing this, especially on reels and stuff like that is
collaborating with other people on that same space.
Because again, if you're trying to grow, right, it's great to
have more of that out there. It's, you know, I have a lot of
smaller creators that will reach out to me and be like, hey, do
you want to collab? I'm like, I love doing this
stuff. Sure, I know what they're trying
to get out of it. I don't think it's always a
negative thing per SE, but it's also just like that might be
someone new that, but you know, I get exposed to their community
and they're getting exposed to my community and I think it's
always done, hopefully, at least the people that I'm
collaborating with in a very positive way, right.
I don't see it as, oh, I'm just trying to grow and I'm reaching
out to you. I think some of those times you
can see that I think we get the same messages sometimes with
people that are like, can I pay you for the post about my
content? You're like EW like no.
Like, well, they're not even going to pay you.
They're just like, hey, can I have a shout out?
Like with my 5 followers? And I'm like, I know you're
trying to build a thing, but I'm like, let's maybe build up a bit
of content before you before I'm going to shout you out.
Oftentimes if I'm going to do a shout out, it's just because I
wanted to. It's not because somebody's
paying me. It's not because somebody's
asked me. It's because like, I came across
your content. I loved what I saw and I was
like more people need to know, know about this.
So you know any kind of those shout outs on Instagram Stories
or in in a YouTube video or whatever else, That's usually
what it is. I love your point about
collaborating with others though, because hands down, my
favorite video from this year was the one where I got a bunch
of different Bullet Journal creators and we all collaborated
to make a piece of content that was.
Awesome. It was a stand out and I I
remember going into it being like Oh my God like what if they
think I'm skeevy? Like, what if they just, like,
don't want to work with me because they're just like, oh,
you're gross. Like, again, scared.
Yes. You know, speaking from this
place of fear, it's like, shut the heck up, right?
You're you're shutting yourself up from the opportunity to make
connections with others. Let's just put ourselves out
there and, you know, just just ask them, like, you know, do you
want to? No expectations on that.
So it was really great that people wanted to get involved.
Also really does show that same type of like general maturity,
that mental maturity, like you said back in the day, it was, it
was very much, oh, they're my competition.
I'm hate watching their content or I'm not watching their
content at all because it's what it is.
I think that video is a really great example because a number
of those people in that video I see on YouTube all the time and
you're just. I do the same thing though.
I'm like watching this, like why they have like 80,000 views on
this. I've done a similar thing and
it's just, you know, it's that constant battle in your brain
where you like somebody would say, I'm not going to reach out
to that person. Like they're my competitor.
Like I'm trying to beat them, Why would I do something with
them? But instead to turn that around
and say, hey, I'm reaching out to you.
First of all, maybe we've never interacted before, right?
You start to build that. I feel weird saying this, but I
guess, like, before I knew you, I knew you, right?
Like, I knew Joshy Kerr and not you Jess.
So one of those things where I was like, you know, her, she's
got all these followers and these amazing videos.
Like, I want kind of that thing. But when you reach out to
someone and you get to know them and you realize there's so much
more than just what you're seeing on video or on photos or
online, you have this opportunity for really cool
friendship. I think we'll use ourselves as
that example in this, right? Like, there's so much more that
can come out of that if you just change your way of thinking.
Instead of it being like, I don't want to interact with them
or see their stuff or whatever else, maybe there's an
opportunity to collaborate with them.
Or maybe there's just a general, Hey, how you doing?
Like, I've talked with Matt as a good example a few times,
nothing very deep or anything like that.
But early on, especially when I was growing and he gave me some
advice and I was very open to, you know, the things he was
sharing. What's to say that there's not
other things you have in common? You know, like he's a dad as
well. So am I.
He has a whole entire, like dad forum now that he's building a
lot of content around too. And like, again, if I would have
been like, oh, I'm not looking at it as his content because
he's my competition, I would never found out about these
other great communities that exist out there.
So I think for anyone that may be in that mindset, realize
there's a lot more opportunity if you look at it in a positive
light than if you look at it as a negative kind of fight versus
a love. And it's also just an
opportunity to kind of like, I'm going to say like humanized
creators, which is a really, it's feels strange to say
because like obviously we're all humans and we're making content
as people. Unless I know you're an AI robot
listening to this, then like shout out to you.
But probably not. You know, it's just that
opportunity to say that there is more to this creator, more to
this person than just what you see online.
You know, like we talked about before, that idea of, you know,
making connections, finding similar struggle points, similar
experiences throughout whatever it is we're doing, the stuff
that we don't necessarily get to see online.
And it's like if we're not going to reach out and take the time
to kind of recognize that, like this is the potential for
someone I could make a connection with, then you're
going to miss out on the opportunity to really build up
that more in depth picture of them as a person.
If it would feel like a loss. You know, I I think about it in
terms of the creator friends that we have and it's like, what
would life be like? Like if I hadn't opened myself
up to the possibility of like making a connection with them,
even if it's not like you're kind of going in with the
mindset of like you're going to be my bestie for life or
anything. It's like if I wasn't even open
to the the concept of like making you a connection rather
like and a competitor, like how would things be different kind
of a thing. I think that what would be
really good this week instead of maybe going with a specific
question is just thinking about like, who in our community would
you like a shout out? Like is there anybody in the
community who you think they're doing great work, they're not
getting, like the love and appreciation that you think that
they deserve. It could be maybe your planet
bestie, just somebody that you really admire and look up to
anybody. Let us know either on the
comments if you're watching here on YouTube or you can e-mail us
at plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com or hit us up on Instagram at
Planner Pals podcast. I think that someone I would
like to shout out would probably be Valerie of Bright Violet
Arts. She does the most amazing stuff
with paint markers. Her work is always gorgeous.
Every single video is totally worth a watch, so make sure that
you go and check her out. Mark, who would you shout out?
So the person I want to shout out is the person that I
mentioned before that had the amazing swatches that I was
doing and doing that, and that's Lesko writes.
Just absolutely amazing fountain pen content.
Like if you just appreciate the look of fountain pens, if you
appreciate the look of inks, that is the account that you
want. That's the person who turned me
on to the really cool ink swatches before I started using
the plastic spoon. I just it's art is what it is.
So big shout out to lexer writes just because they're amazing and
you should check out their stuff because it's beautiful.
And both of those are LinkedIn, the description slash no show
notes. So do make sure to check them
out and let us know who you think is as a shout out.
In our next episode, we're going to be chatting more about Go
Wild, doing a bit of a digest after the fact because we
certainly have thoughts. We're going to talk about the
highlights and things that were really exciting, the things that
we were initially excited about and maybe weren't as exciting
when we actually got to experience them.
So I'm excited to get into that conversation with you, Mark.
Saying just I can't wait in again.
It was so awesome meeting face to face, and I hope you enjoyed
the little present that I got you that I said I was gonna get
you as well. So maybe we can talk about next
episode, especially around Go Wild 'cause I can't wait to hear
all your wonderful thoughts about the cool thing I got you.
And for you planner pals, thank you for watching and we will see
you in the next episode.