Hey there, and welcome to the Planner Palace Podcast, a
podcast hosted by two true Planner Palace.
My name is Mark. Mark your pages.
And I am Jess or Jessie, Karen. And in today's episode, we're
gonna be considering guys in the planner community.
But cutting that straight off before we get into it, I feel
like the congratulations are in order.
Mark, do you wanna tell us about the exciting news?
Yeah. So at this point, my notebook
that I collaborated with Archer and Olive with was a part of
their professional line that just came out this past Friday.
So I made a notebook with Archer and Olive.
Pretty damn cool. Oh my gosh, people are so
excited. And I know that they're very
excited about the page numbers in particular.
We had a whole bunch of people in my community, we have like a
little kind of sneak peeks channel where people put
spoilers and stuff and all of them were like, Oh my God, the
page numbers. Mark did it for us.
It's coming, so. I've been complaining about page
numbers, Archer and I love notebooks since the dawn of
time. It's finally happened.
Yeah. It was one of those things
where, you know, they approached me about it and at first I
thought they were just going to ask for my feedback, which we
all know I've given plenty of feedback, probably more feedback
than they definitely wanted. And, you know, last year I
wasn't a super big fan necessarily of it because to me,
professional is people using this in their in their jobs.
And I just didn't feel like anything was there to like,
really help do that. And I shared all this feedback,
and then they approached me all the way back in January.
It's crazy how far in advance stuff gets planned before it
actually comes out. And this was actually like a
rush job. They were like, we got to do
this quick. And I was like, wait, what do
you mean how quick? They're like, well, if we want
this journal to come out in July, then we need to have it
done by, like, March. And I was like, you need that
much in advance. They're like, we're actually
cutting it tight. So yeah, I had a really great
opportunity to not only design the cover of the notebook, which
I absolutely love. I think it turned out really
nicely, but also add some features to the Arch and Olive
journals that I felt were necessary.
So we added a dedicated like signifiers page in there.
We got the page numbers. Thank goodness that finally
happened. And then we also did some smart
marks essentially are just kind of quick lines that are really
icons that help you break your page into thirds or halves.
Other notebooks do it. It's not like a brand new idea
out there, but I definitely wanted to find some cool
functional things to do so really proud of it.
I, I was telling you right before we got started, my, my
entire desk is filled with the notebooks.
But, but, but yeah, here's, here's the notebook.
So it's one of them that come in three sizes because they told me
that my notebook was a very expensive one to make because of
the printing that has to be done for like the Marks and like the
page numbers and all of that. So we had to cut some, cut some
pieces. So we didn't do a full line of
all the sizes, which I think was fine.
Anyway, I think a professional notebook probably falls inside
the realm of a 5B5 square. I know a lot of people are
talking about. I always don't know if I'm the
right size B6, right? That's like a little bit smaller
than A5. And like everyone was like, are
we getting a B61? I was like I never used a B6
notebook but I think it's becoming a popular size.
Like Basics are so great. I love how compact they are.
They're very, very transportable.
They're also just kind of cute. Like that's why I like them
because they're cute. I've used them a couple of times
before. I do very much enjoy them, but I
am you do do have to really kind of consider how you're using
your space when you go from an A5, which is my typical size, to
A Basics because it's mainly the width that caught me out a lot
of the time because I'm very used to doing like 2 columns of
text. Whereas in a Basics that was
kind of hard to do. But it is a very fun size, very
compact, portable. So shame we didn't get it this
time, but maybe in future. Yeah, we'll see what happens.
So yeah, I really appreciate. It's been really cool, super
supportive. It kind of goes along with
today's topic and talking about how you know, guys in the
planner community. It's something that is a part of
a reason of why I even started posting on Instagram and and
YouTube as well was because when I started getting started with
bullet journaling and I've talked about this in one of our
first episodes, I wasn't seeing a lot of other guys posting or
in the community. There was a handful of them and
we'll talk about in today's overall topic of like who were
the first, you know, kind of for me, really inspired me in there,
but I wanted to be that inspiration for others and I
think I've achieved that. You know, I think that partnered
along with Archer and Olive is a really big deal.
I don't know if any other guys have done that before.
I don't think so. So it's pretty awesome from that
standpoint. And also just overtime just kind
of coming up in this community itself and people knowing who I
am, you know, early on the men who bullet days have passed us.
But that was a really big time of just trying to have establish
myself. I'm a guy in this community.
But then quickly realizing, or not quickly.
I mean, how long did I talk to you about changing the name?
Many moons. Many moons.
But it's that, you know, you don't have to necessarily be I
didn't need to be that outward and say just oh, men who bullet
because I think it turned a lot of people off.
Maybe not as many people as I thought.
Maybe it did, but who the hell knows.
But it was it was a big change and shifting from, you know, men
who bullet to mark your pages and now it's, you know, feel a
little bit more inclusive. But I think that's probably a
really big reason why we don't see a lot of guys in the
community necessarily. But there are some Ogs, There's
definitely some stars out there that that are a part of this
community, which I think are great and should be celebrated.
Yeah, I think that, like, obviously shout outs have to go
to the original guy in the bullet journal community, the
creator himself, Mr. Writer Carroll.
Like it would feel really odd to have an episode about guys in
the planet community without talking about the bullet journal
guy. Yeah, it's, it's just what I was
putting together my list of some of my favorite accounts.
And the list is actually pretty long for myself.
I know I was like, Jess, who are yours?
You're like, I don't know if I have a whole lot.
I was like, how dare you? But he was kind of top of the
list. And I was like, is it too on the
nose to start with Ryder Carroll?
Or should we, you know, start with someone else?
So I just put him a little bit further down on my list.
But you're right, he's kind of the guy, especially around
bullet journaling and getting us all pumped and hyped about this
method. But I think a really big part of
that too is that even though it was created by a guy, I think
the community as a whole has definitely been carried by a
more female audience than than a male audience.
Not that in the long run it shouldn't really matter, but it
kind of does when you look at demographics.
Yeah, I think that if you kind of go to Google, go to
Instagram, Pinterest, wherever and search Bullet Journal, the
stuff that's going to come up first are going to be primarily
made by female creators. And I think that kind of shows
in what people perceive bullet journaling as if they haven't
really researched or gone into it very much.
I do wonder if possibly we don't see as many guys in the plan of
space because they have maybe, you know, no shade to them, not
saying that this is a them problem at all, but maybe
they've kind of like, you know, come across the term bullet
journal. But the stuff that's come up is
not really appealed to them because it is kind of like more
so targeting maybe a different demographic or something.
Yeah, I mean, when I started bullet journaling as a whole, as
a 2017 and I think is the year that I started, you know, just
starting to type in Bullet Journal to understand what it
is. You're right.
There were so many accounts that just came up first, some of the
big superstars that we've talked about in past episodes as well.
It's great from a standpoint of starting to understand what it
is, but I think that by that time it really had taken a life
of its own. It wasn't that core how to
bullet journal, but more of that creative planning space that I
was seeing in the upfront. But I'm still super thankful for
it because I feel like it gave me that kick start, but I myself
had educate myself before I could like start doing those
other things. I know that we've talked about
this before too, about like bullet journaling and this
creative journaling space. So there was this riff for a
long time, which I do feel like has settled down a lot.
But if it wasn't for those creators putting out that
content, who knows if bullet journaling itself would have
become as big as it is slash was.
I know it's kind of gone down in the trends in the past few
years, but you have to give props to those who were creating
and doing and talking about it because I think that's also what
got the word out. Yeah, I would very much agree
with that. Like I don't think that bullet
journaling would have gotten as big as it has or did if we
didn't have the more I'm going to say Pinterest able kind of a
thing because you know, when you share things on Pinterest,
usually there's some kind of like very it's like very heavy
visual elements in that same idea with Instagram and to a
lesser extent YouTube and stuff. But if we had of just had people
sharing the Ryder Cara original type deal, I don't think that
people would have kind of latched onto it as much.
So there are good things to be said about the the sharing of
aesthetic bullet journal content or more creative journaling
content under the label of bullet journal.
But I do think that that has had some ramifications around how
people kind of perceive it. What people think bullet
journaling is, they weren't necessarily, I don't know,
foreseen, I suppose. Yeah, I think the big term that
was really big and I still look for it often is minimalist
bullet journaling or minimal bujo is terms or hashtags that
you can search. And that's where I really fell
in love with a lot of those layouts because it really is
just a pen and their bullet journal and beautiful
handwriting, you know, all of the things that we love to see,
basically lines, you know, maybe some geometric shapes or
something like that. But for the most part, very
straightforward. And that is one of the things
that really got me excited because a lot of that creative
bullet journaling that I was seeing and trying to mimic
because I thought I had to do that for it to be a bullet
journal just wasn't in love with that as much.
And finding more of the minimalist side of the bullet
journal community for me was a huge inspiration because I think
that was more where I was focusing at that time.
I found a love for stationary and stamps and some stickers and
stuff like that. More like planner focused one or
my aesthetic, you know, and finding those.
I just wasn't seeing that at first.
It took a lot of research and digging to find something that I
liked over the years, but I think that was a really big help
for me personally. And there weren't a lot of guys
doing that. That's The thing is that there's
a lot of females that were doing more minimalist approaches that
I really liked. And that was a big moment for me
pretty early on after I started my account.
Because when I first started my bullet journal and my account
under Men Who Bullet, the whole idea for me in the upfront was
going to be to promote other guys that were in the community
and share their content, share my content and help inspire.
But you quickly realize that there were three or four guys
maybe that were in the community at the time that were in that
space. And I was like, well, I can't
share a whole lot of that content.
And I was also finding all of these other amazing bullet
journal accounts that weren't male and I was like, but this
stuff is amazing too. And I actually quickly changed
just my story or bio or whatever one from like sharing and
promoting men in the community to just sharing and promoting
other creators in the community. Because you realize, like it's
not so much the person behind the account that doesn't matter.
It's all about kind of what you're seeing and what you like.
And that for me was a really big deal.
But because it was such a small demographic, I still really do
like to promote other guys in this community because we are a
small little demographic. We talk about analytics a lot,
you and I specifically Instagram and a lot on YouTube about it.
And I was just looking right before this episode at mine, I
was like, how is my, you know, mark your pages account looking
and it's I, I want to know what yours is because mine is always
a lot higher. So like mine right now is at
like 25% male versus female, which I know for a lot of people
is like that never kind of happens.
I know that's like a really big thing for me.
I was curious, what's your percentage?
Yeah, from the last 28 days I have 89.2% female, 10 percent,
10% yeah, 10.3% male and then .5% users specified.
But I think that's just a part of it.
I'm glad that people like to find other guys in the
community. A number of people have reached
out to me, especially with releasing this notebook too,
that it's been really cool. They're like, Mark, just wanted
to let you know, like this is awesome.
I'm so happy for you. Like I don't post, I do bullet
journal. You inspired me or other people
have inspired me, but I just don't post my stuff online.
I just want to let you know, like I appreciate you and this
is awesome and stuff like that. So I think there's also a lot of
guys obviously that are bullet journaling.
It's not just male or female with bullet journaling.
They just don't create accounts and don't want to share
necessarily. I know that was kind of our
first question. I'm curious from your
perspective on what you think why we don't see a lot of guys
posting or in the journal community?
Because this is a question I always get asked in any type of
interview I've ever done. Like why don't we see a lot of
journals from guys? So I have kind of a whole slew
of things. And I'm curious from your
perspective why you feel like we don't see as many guys in the
community? Yeah, I know that on our last
episode where we kind of floated the idea that we were going to
do this one today, a couple of people reached out and commented
saying like, Oh yeah, I'm a guy. I bullet journal.
I just don't share because I don't think mine's like worth
sharing. And I was like, it breaks my
heart. But they said like, you know,
oh, it's, you know, it's not very pretty.
It's just like, you know, pens, some highlighters and stuff like
that. I'm like, no, that is valuable.
We want that, right? We want people to have these
different options to look at and stuff so they can find their
style. So I feel like that's a reason,
even though it's a reason that makes me very sad.
I think that possibly maybe another one would just be like,
I'm not going to say like not feeling welcome in the community
because I very much hope that that is not the case.
But like because they don't feel like their journal looks like
the the common journal that you see online and stuff.
They just feel like, oh, well, I can't add mine in because I'm
not going to be accepted through that.
And it might not necessarily be a conscious thought either.
It might just be like a very subconscious one of like a,
what's the point in sharing this?
Because I'm not going to like fit in.
Even though that's not necessarily the like narrative
they're telling themselves. Possibly there are some thoughts
around that, which is kind of sad to think about because
again, I like that our community is diverse.
I like when people share things that aren't the usual.
It's you know, we talked a little while ago about your
track is that people have that. It's just like, oh, it's an
interesting thing to share online, but also like by sharing
them online, it means that somebody who might need that has
inspiration. So it would be, it would be
nicer to see people in different walks of life sharing their
journals, even if they don't feel like there is value in it,
because I feel like there is, even if it's not like, you know,
upfront immediate value. But I agree with you completely
there. There's a ton of value, even if
it's more on the minimalist side.
I think there's a lot of power in being able to keep a bullet
journal or journaling all together about using a pen and
maybe a highlighter. I think that actually adds a lot
of cool creativity to it because you have to think about how you
would essentially use those two tools instead of having, you
know, hundreds of pens and everything else to pick from,
which sometimes is even harder because you're like, well, I
have seven different pens that I could do this with or markers,
which do I choose? And then you can't pick.
But I think that seeing that would be super helpful.
Some of my favorite guy accounts that some of them aren't even
around anymore were very basic from a standpoint of how they
approached it. And it wasn't even just like,
oh, here are my notes, here are my tasks.
It was just small pages and things that they were setting up
for themselves. It was even simple trackers to
be like, here's what happened this week.
It was just ways for them to jot down or memory keep in a in a
very minimalist kind of way. And I've always really
appreciated that and seeing that too.
I mean, getting this question all the time for myself and and
speaking from that side of the tracks essentially is, you know,
when you first start, at least in my experience, it is a little
overwhelming because you're not seeing other people in the
community that are kind of who you are or kind of see yourself
in. And so it's like, well, maybe
this isn't the space for me, Like if I'm not a female posting
these beautiful pages, then this isn't really what's it, what's
it going to be worth for me to do that?
But I think that when you're like, well, I have something
different and I want to share that.
I think there's also a general, I don't want to say like a
misperception. I think it's kind of, I don't
know the right word for it, but I just did a review.
Baron Fig just put out a Men's Journal.
The mind journal is another one that's kind of more geared
towards men. And their whole reason behind
this is because guys are not used to kind of expressing that
emotion or being as public about it.
It's always been something that like guys don't have those
emotions or you shouldn't have those emotions or we you have
them, but you don't share them. I've personally never
experienced that. It was never boys don't cry
mentality in my household at all.
But maybe others have and they're like, yeah, well, I'm
not going to share my struggles online because that would make
me look weak. I was thinking about that too as
one of the points like possibly like the kind of openness
vulnerability that comes with sharing your kind of stuff like
this online. Because if you're doing bullet
journaling correctly, quote, quote, quote, then you have
thoughts and feelings and stuff like that in there as well as
your task notes and all of that kind of stuff.
Maybe it's just kind of like, oh, if I share this, then I open
myself up to be thought of as like less of as a man, even
though that's like not actually how a lot of us would perceive
you at all. But possibly there's some kind
of like reservations around that or like, you know, fear in being
open and sharing in that. Yeah, and a lot of it too is
just trying to think about how to journal.
And I think that's also a really kind of misleading thing.
I know that a lot of these men's journals are men focused
journals are like, oh, we'll give you prompts and we'll help
you because you don't know what to write or how to get started.
But I think that's just generally everyone.
It's if you're not a type of person that likes long form
journaling or knows about it or prompts or things like that,
it's hard for everyone. But I think it is a way to kind
of niche in a little bit, especially with journals and
say, OK, here is a more minimalist looking journal.
There's not a lot of florals and things all over this.
It's kind of very kind of bare, but beautiful as how, you know,
we're like very sophisticated kind of look.
And I appreciate that. I mean, a big part of my journal
and why I created it the way I did with Archer and Olive is
because I complain a lot about it.
But you know, I don't want to walk around with an overly
fluorescent floral kind of feminine journal.
Just just not my Forte. It's not something that I like.
It's not how I want to outwardly express myself at work or
anywhere else like that. And everyone else just has their
aesthetic. And that's the thing too, is
that there are guys though in this community that absolutely
love that very opposite. I think of what you think where
they are, you know, using stickers and bows and glitter
and kind of all these things inside over their journal.
I even know for myself sometimes I'm like taken aback by it at
first because I was like, oh, I'm not used to seeing guys
posting this type of content, but you're like, this is
actually kind of cool because I see this in the other spaces so
much. And I, I think really just kind
of finding what works for you is important.
And I think when it comes to guys posting, it's just like,
oh, I haven't either found something that works for me or
kind of what's been shared a lot.
I hear that all the time too. I don't share it because mine's
just not interesting. But I've heard that from, from
all people, but a lot of guys specifically because they're
like, hey, I think I want to start an account.
How do I do that? To start it, man, that's just
how you do it. Yeah, I think that like you
said, it's it's not necessarily that all guys don't like
decoration or if if the, you know, the type of decoration out
there doesn't necessarily speak to men in general, because there
are guys who like the type of decoration that are out there
and they're using it. Good for them.
Props to them. But I do think it would be nice
to see a wider variety in the types of decoration that are
celebrated as a way to maybe incentivize guys to get on
board. I know that one of the one of
the ones that comes to mind and not a male creator, but still.
Julia, Julia here. Previously, Julia Royal did an
amazing monthly setup that was like squid tentacle inspired and
it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
And it was it was highly decorated, but it wasn't your
typical like floral pastel soft aesthetic type deal.
I, you know, the stuff that is often, you know, gets more
views, gets more hits, gets more likes kind of a thing.
You know, there are different ways of doing decoration rather
than just what is, you know, typically celebrated, I suppose.
And so it would be nice to see more of those be in our
community, the ones that aren't as stereotypically feminine.
You know, there's gonna be a lot of just, like, stereotypical
statements being thrown around in this episode.
Just know that we're all fitting in the zone of grey.
We're not actually going black and white.
This is a boy's toy. You're not allowed to use that
journal. No.
OK. But for the sake of the
conversation, I do think that it would be nice to have a bit more
of a kind of like, masculine but decorative kind of aesthetic out
there in the journaling and planning space in particular.
So the guys that do like decorative things but don't like
florals have options? Yeah, and that was we had this
further down on the list, but I want to kind of bring it up now
because I think it makes sense before we start talking about
some of our other male creators. I've got a whole list of all my
favorites, but we talked about what do we feel like the
difference is between a male's bullet journal versus female.
And you kind of hit it right on the nose when you just made that
comment because I think there is an unconscious bias to what is
male or masculine and what is female or feminine, right?
Because for me, like two of the biggest accounts that inspired
me from the very start. So we have Victoria from my ink
project. Her work is freaking amazing.
I've loved looking at her stuff because it is really just pen
and paper. It's black ink and paper and I
love that. And same thing with Stena from
Supermassive Black Ink. She's another one from the very
Gecko. As soon as I started my account,
I want to say she's probably one of the first five people that I
follow or that I saw because I was like, oh, wait a second.
I really like the way that this looks and hers is the same way.
I don't think I've ever seen her use color in her journal.
It's always been different weights of black Micron pens or
whatever else is she's using and her journal.
And I'm always just, I, I just love that there's a beauty in
that. And I think also a lot of guys
tend to gravitate towards that because if you're not a big fan
of color, even though I have a lot of things that are colorful
or have color in them, I always tend to lean a little bit more
in towards the black, blue, Gray.
Now I'm starting to fool with greens.
I'm getting real wild over over here, but I just like that kind
of space. But you don't see me using
purple and pinks and things like that usually because that's just
not what my favorite colors and not what I'm using or dressing
or even wearing. So I think a lot of that kind of
goes through where you're like, well, if I'm going to buy this
whole pen set, well, I may only use three colors out of here.
What am I doing with these others?
Meanwhile, on the other hand, when Vogel was, you know,
talking to me about making his journal, he had one theme in
particular that he wanted me to do.
He's like, I don't really care what you do for any other month,
but for October, could you please do me a mean girl's name?
So it was hot pink, you know, like burn book aesthetic with
the little scribbles and the lightly letters.
I'm pretty sure that the quote was Boo you whore because he's
like, I like that one. It's my favorite.
Yeah, it's the best one. I mean, from Vocal's
perspective, having a journal, I know he has you creating it or
designing it for him, content as content, right?
Versus him having his own channel.
I mean, what's why doesn't he have his own channel?
Have you ever or chatted with him about like, hey, why aren't
you sharing or why aren't you creating your own?
Is he just not interested in the creative side of it, but more in
the productive side of using it? Yeah, I think that in terms of
YouTube specifically for him and and making a channel, he did
previously dabble with having one.
So it was mainly focused around games, gaming and then kind of
veered into movies because that was more what he wanted to kind
of like talk about. I suppose.
Like he doesn't dislike using his journal, but it's not his
passion point. He doesn't want to, like, get on
the Internet and like, say, you know, this is the five different
things I put in my weekly setup. And by that I mean, this is the
five different things Jess puts in my weekly setup.
But yeah, his use of his journal also isn't super consistent
either. Like, we set it up.
He has the space there to write in it.
And he does use it in kind of like, I know it's like a cyclic
kind of thing. Like, you know, he'll have
pockets where he uses it quite a lot, writes a lot of stuff down.
And then the very next week, crickets, Baron, wasteland,
tumbleweed. So I just don't think that it's
necessarily something that he wants to share because there are
other passion points that he has that he wants to share.
And I think we got that on our last episode as well because
somebody mentioned like, Oh yeah, I am.
I do bullet journaling. I am a planner kind of a thing,
and I have a channel, but it's related to pipes.
I think it's something completely different, like a
different area of interest. So maybe it's just that we have
our guy planners out there lurking, hiding in the shadows,
you know, doing whatever they're doing.
And they do share things online, but it's not necessarily related
to planning. Yeah, and there's a lot of
people too that I've seen their Instagrams flip where they were
posting a lot of content, journal content, but they've
changed. And there's also just other
people, not just guys that are doing that as well.
I think anyone that maybe bullet journaled through a certain part
of their life through school, whatever that might be, and that
is in a new phase or kind of a new chapter of their life and
they've just moved on from that, right?
It's not that they don't exist anymore.
They're just posting things more about their day-to-day than they
are necessarily the journals. And so that's another thing too,
where even for myself, if I'm going to follow them, like
that's the type of content I want to see though.
I want to see bullet journal content because that's why I'm
there. So there are numbers that have
kind of fallen off and just don't do it anymore or don't
post about it anymore. I wonder about that as well
because, you know, we talk about this idea of, you know, people
bullet journaling through their studies and stuff like that.
So isn't just that the male creators that we are like
wanting to or expecting to see or something?
I'm thinking about professionals specifically like male
professionals and how we don't have a lot of male professionals
creating content, Instagram, YouTube, whatever.
Is it because the majority of the people who are sharing
journal related stuff or planner related stuff are not in that
demographic. And I think that that's like,
you know, a really sad point though, because it would be
really good to have people sharing in that space or more
people sharing in that space because we don't have of them as
prevalent in the community. So it's like, Oh yeah, there are
all of these journal layouts that are being shared and
they're really popular and stuff like that.
But that's not going to work for me.
So where do I get inspiration? I'm like, huh, maybe you could
be the inspiration. Maybe you should start a
channel. I mean, that's why I started
buying it really was it was like I'm looking for this type of
stuff. And I also wasn't seeing a lot
of professional layouts or things I could use my bullet
journal for work for which I've done for all of these years.
I still don't have like a super just creative separate one.
I started that desk journal a few weeks ago and I feel like
Vogel, I have these on and offs where I like sometime I'm using
it and sometimes I'm not. But I think that's also just the
fluidity of journaling and bullet journaling specifically.
It's a tool you have when you need it, but if you don't, then
you're not worried about it. And I think that could also
maybe be something to where someone feels as if they don't
have a diversity of content to post.
I'm just going to post my weekly and that's about it.
And you're like, OK, well, if for someone just doesn't feel
like that's going to inspire someone, I understand it.
But take a look online and look at some of these others where
people are just showing what their weeks look like and it's
pretty basic or minimal, the stride.
And you're like, yeah, I love this.
Like I'm super inspired not to use extra things this week
because I really like the way that looks.
I also think that that's probably something that holds
people back in general, like not just males in the journaling
planning space, but people who want to start an account related
to their journal or their planning system or anything like
that. But they're thinking like, oh,
I'm not consistent enough in the way that I do my journaling to
share it. Like I'd be outed as a fraud.
I'm like, ha, ha, well congratulations, I'm the biggest
fraud out there because none of my journals have been 100% used.
Like every time there's a flip through, I'm like, didn't use
that. Whoops, set that up.
Nothing in there. Oh, look, obviously I died.
Like we've talked about this before, but possibly that's
something that's holding out, you know, not just male creators
or potential creators back, but also just other people who want
to share their journaling. It's like I'm not consistent at
all. So then like I can't share.
Well, let's talk about those who are sharing.
I think it's a really great pivot here to talk about some of
our favorites. And for me, I'd have to say, you
know, want some of my first mail accounts that I follow.
So obviously the bullet journal account and even writer Carol
himself, I don't know how much he posted this personal anymore,
but his bullet journal one, always a great space for
inspiration. I would say definitely Matt
Raglan. I've talked about him a lot as
being kind of the very first male creators that I saw on mine
that I was like, okay, there is someone doing this in this
space. So that was always something
that was very awesome for me. And those I would say were kind
of the start and there's plenty, like I said, I have a huge list
here of other creators that I that I really like and go
through. So I'm just like, well, I don't
want to miss anybody, but I would say like probably my my
kind of top five right now, people that I'm seeing online.
So you know, we've got Bryant, that journaling guy, always love
his content. You know, he's a person.
I've also looked to a lot for fountain pens.
He's big enough fountain pens in journaling his videography, Oh
my gosh, it was absolutely stunning and beautiful.
He does a lot of stuff on YouTube.
Instagram is around. I don't know if I see him pop up
as much, but Instagram isn't showing me half the people that
I even subscribe to anyway so it doesn't matter.
I'm getting a lot more thread content now that I am Instagram
content. I don't know if your feed looks
like that, but they are trying to push threads so hard on me.
I'm like I don't. I just want to see my friends
bullet journal posts. And the worst part is that they
always share you a thread that has a picture on it.
And then because of the way it's shared, it's like cut off.
And I'm like, well, now I'm going to open it because now I
want to know the pictures. And if you jump over threads,
I'm like, cool, I only came here to see this.
I don't care for anything else. And I swear every time I jump
over to threads, it's just a whole bunch of people saying
like, oh, if you hit the like button, it turns rainbow or
whatever because we just had pride month off.
Oh, if you hit the like button, it turns into bubbles.
I'm like, this is not an exciting social media platform
to be on. It's not.
It's really not. But yeah, so, so those guys are
great. Matt from Desktop Nerd, he isn't
necessarily bullet journaling. He does a lot with fountain pens
and inks. Love him for that.
He also does a lot with pocket journals.
So you see a lot of that kind of content on there, which is
pretty fantastic. him and I have actually become pretty close
friends over the past year or so as he got started.
It was awesome because he's like, hey, I'm a guy, I'm a
lefty. I feel like we've got something
we could we can make this work. And you know, it's been cool to
connect and, and watch someone grow and kind of do their own
thing in their own way, which I think like we just talked about
is super important. I would say Eric Gamma is
another big one. If you follow him, it's at under
score, Eric Erick Gamma, Gama under score.
But I've always loved his stuff. But also he runs Amarillo
stationary, which I love even more.
Sorry, Eric, I like your store more than I like you.
But that's because it's a store and has stationary stuff on it.
But his is really fantastic. I've always been a really big
fan of him. I always don't know if I'm
saying the name the right way, but Sohail Bujo was Sohail.
He had a different name, he changed it.
He's another one that does like very minimalist type of
approaches to his bullet journal.
And he also talks a lot about bullet journaling and kind of
the the action of doing it and sharing.
And so that's another account that I actually see talking
about journaling more than just showing about a bullet journal,
which I've always really appreciated.
And then I would also say Job, I see a lot of his stuff more on
YouTube than necessarily Instagram, but Job's journal is
one that I feel like I see all the time now.
He's not bullet journaling. He uses a lot of like
travellers, I'm not sure even like I'm so used to saying
bullet journaling, it was like, is everything bullet journaling
now? I don't know.
But a lot of his content is fantastic too.
I really do appreciate his approach to it because again,
it's something that's like, if you want just a very different
look on like how things look outside of bullet journaling.
His content is good too, but I'll let you share some of yours
because I've got a whole list of other people I can continue to
chat about. It's also bad 'cause I came into
this episode like sweet, alrighty, let's go look at the
notes. Let's see what we're talking
about today. And Marks, just like, here's my
tone of all of these people that I follow, that guys in our
community. I'm just like I follow like two
and one of them is you sword. Well, who is the other lucky
person? The other one is Journal
Lawrence. He does a lot of very decorative
journaling work, which is kind of what I like to say.
Honestly, I like to use my journal as a space for
creativity and things, so it's kind of nice to get that on my
Instagram feed. I know that he does a lot of
recreations of Amanda Rach Lee's work and he does amazing jobs of
them. I also know that he released his
own journal. I'm pretty sure.
I might be talking of smack now. It might be somebody completely
different. Pretty sure it isn't though.
But good for him. But no, I very much appreciate
and love his work. Previously I've also followed
like Dano of Dano's bujo. I don't think he's posting as
much anymore, but he does have a back catalogue on YouTube, which
again is a more decorative style of planning as well, which I I
like. And also Brian Hazard, who I see
more on Facebook in the Facebook groups rather than on YouTube,
Instagram. I know he has a YouTube, I
haven't really watched his videos, but I know he's quite
popular over on the Facebook groups.
So those are the ones that really come to mind.
And then Mark, like, that's it. That's my list.
I would say I know Brian's name. I see his name pop a lot in the
bullet journal proper space. Anytime they have any type of
like ambassador calls or group calls, he's always on those.
And you're right. I mean, his content has always
been very much like, here's how you use the bullet journal
method. Here's how I use the bullet
journal method and kind of talking more about that, which I
can always really appreciate. I'm just gonna kind of go down
my list if that's OK, because I feel like otherwise, you know,
it's just what it is. So you've got Ian at the dot
paper dot Sparrow. He's another person who's kind
of got a really cool mixed approach.
Last stationary, not necessarily bullet journal, some bullet
journal. I'm just going to say journaling
and then everyone can check them out at your own and decide if
it's bullet journaling or just regular journaling.
Totally up to you. Jesse's another one, another
minimalist and he's actually a part of a lot of the same like
affiliate programs that I am as well.
His is at lines, dot and dot lettering.
So lines and lettering always seen really cool stuff from him
and his It's just one of those things where like you see
someone write just plain print font and you're like, damn, that
looks good. Why can't I do that you.
Know right, They're the ones that I like.
It's you've heard of cute aggression where you say
something cute and you're just like, crush it.
Yeah, that's. Equivalent to me when I say
somebody with nice handwriting, I'm just like, I just want to
burn your book. Yeah, so there's a lot of those
where I see those Heron is at big Boy Journal.
It's big in the BOI is how he spells boy.
I just want to say that every picture that man takes is is art
because he does that whole like flat lay cool desk thing and
you're just looking at it and you're like, I wish my space
looked like that. And he's got all the cool toys,
then all the cool things. And I always love just looking
at his pictures and like looking at his desk and being like, oh,
what's new over here? This is super cool looking.
You've got Brett Wright, Brett J White, so I just like seeing his
name pop up. He's one of the I've been
following for a really long time, which is good.
You've got Ricky at Bromero card.
So Ricky is like this perfect Unicorn of like loving
stationary and bullet journals and collecting notebooks and
things like that. But a lot of his content is more
card focused. But let me just tell you how
much inspiration though that I've gotten from his account
because a lot of the same techniques and tools and
products that he's using for card making you can use inside
of your bullet journal. So like there's nothing to say
that just because it's not a bullet journal account that
you're not pulling inspiration. And he's just funny as hell and
an awesome guy too, so you always got to appreciate that.
That's a good point though, because I mean, you know,
thinking about how I got into bullet journaling, the supplies
I was first using, they were all from my scrapbooking days.
Like I still have my creative memories corner rounder that I
use and I'm just like, thank you 15 year old Jess who got into
scrapbooking. I love this tool.
Scrapbooking is like the gateway drug into bullet journaling and
creative planning. It absolutely is.
We've got our common friend Danny over at Danny Plans It.
He's just, he's just the sunshine in this bullet journal
community, you know, like you just kind of see his stuff and
he's doing a lot of teacher content.
At least he was doing a lot of that.
I see that over on TikTok a lot, but still involving this
planner, still being creative, a great kind of representative of
the LGBTQ plus community as well.
So it's like he's a great example of like a Men's Journal
doesn't have to just be this like boring basic looking thing.
Here's like the total other side of it, which I always really
appreciate, and just seeing how he approaches it.
I think Romanov, he uses a bullet journal and I think he's
more inside of like the happy planner or I don't know, what is
that like happy planner space? Like what do we call that?
He totally bullet journals now he's using an alternative.
Oh, OK, I was gonna say I will still use.
I don't know, I always feel like I always saw him using other
things. But that's also if he's in a if
he's doing regular bullet journaling.
Yeah, I think he was in some kind of planner space
previously. I mean, like he's still
technically in the planner space, aren't we all?
And it's a big bubble. But yeah, I previously he was
using a different style of planner, but nowadays he is
using an ultra and olive. I think it's AB 5 again now.
I might be talking schmack, but I think that might be the case.
Why don't we know all the details about what Danny's doing
constantly? I mean I.
Know, right, what's daddy doing now?
I just appreciate that he's also a teacher because like, I love
having more teachers in our space.
So that's really cool as well. So thinking about like how
people use it for their job versus how they're using it for
their everyday life and stuff. That's always something that I'm
interested in seeing, but more on your list.
Yeah. So then we have a Tim Dawkins,
his he's at Cursive and Cold Brew, more of a pen, fountain
pen kind of space than journaling necessarily.
But we all write in our journals.
So having that and I also just think that cursive and Cold brew
is a freaking amazing handle. I mean, you don't get better
than that. I want to try cold brew just
from hearing about this now. Like I don't even drink coffee.
Oh, that's right. I was like, you've never tried
cold brew? Cold brew is the best way to
have coffee because it makes it a little bit sweeter.
It's just like iced coffee, but like, sweet.
I feel like that sounds like what I would want because
anytime I've had coffee previously I've just been like 7
sugars. Please, let's turn this into
melted ice cream. Which is a great way to enjoy
your coffee. Absolutely.
Then we have Lewis at Mr. Bujo, but it's Mr. BU dot Jo, another
fantastic bullet journal account.
I don't have anything bad to say, not that I would say
anything bad about anybody anyway, but just like good
journal content. And then we have Gabe, who
actually got to meet at go wild this year plan with Gabe,
another fantastic account just to see like different stuff that
guys are doing in this community.
We've got Mitchell the crafty planner dude, Kenneth at the pen
father. His is much more pen fountain
pen stuff. He's introduced me to a lot of
really cool stuff too over the years.
We've got Ed at Ed under score bujo under score journey.
So Ed bujo journey. I'm just adding this all in
here. So y'all like if you're not
watching it and you're seeing little names pop up on the
screen, you can like follow it. Later on we'll also put all the
names in the show notes too, so y'all have that there too.
Don't worry about trying to write stuff down.
If you're listening in the car, please don't of.
Course you told them that. Now, after they've been
curiously scribbling it down, like Oh my God, I got to take
all these lines down. I know.
You know, it's funny, I was thinking about that the other
day. I was trying to I was in the car
and I was trying to take a note and I was reminded of remember
back in the day, the people used to have it.
It was like session cup to the windshield.
It was a little pad of paper and a pen.
Like how dangerous was that versus now you just like, Hey,
Siri, and you tell it to remind you my series are all going to
go off of my house in a second, like take a note for me, right.
And it's like, you know, but Can you imagine being in the car
driving and like, trying to write down a note on your
windshield? Oh my gosh, yeah.
I would not probably be inclined to do that.
See, my biggest issue for taking down notes is that, like, you
know, inspiration always strikes when you're in the shower.
And most notebooks don't do well with water.
So it's like, OK, what are we going to do about this?
Still looking for a solution. And I would say the last three
here are all other guys that really inspired me during my
journey as well. But I don't think any of them
are current up to date, at least in the past 2-3 years.
So Ricardo was the booster journal.
He was one that he always had content out, but I think he did
a lot of his content while he was in school.
And so I think it was something where like, he graduated and
then we just didn't see him anymore.
Good ideas. It's a bummer that he's not
creating anymore because yeah, he like the productivity level
board. That's one that I bought into my
journal really love. And now I have a lot of people
who say like, I I saw this from GS and I'm just like wasn't like
originally from me. I'm glad that I could share it
with you, but because it's a really cool idea.
He had a lot of very cool, very like graphic, not graphic like
gore, not like that like graphic style, like organizations of
information, which were really interesting.
Yeah, he had all the highlighters, all the colors,
all the things. Absolutely.
This content was fantastic. Then there was another mark.
So I don't know how to ever say this because it's Mark, but
bujo's in the middle, so MABUJORK.
So it's like Mabujork? Yeah, it was Mabujork.
That's how I would rate it. What was interesting about this
Mark is that we both actually started our accounts right about
the same time. So other mark was very kind of
that minimalistic pen paper bullet journal.
And he was one of the first people that I really felt that
jealousy. Like we talked about this
previously about being like jealous of like someone else's
content and what they're doing. He was the first one because we
started at the same time and I just remember just watching him
just skyrocket with followers and likes and all of that.
And I was like, I'm doing bullet journal content over here too.
And it's not getting as much, you know, like all of the
attention as he was. And I just remember being there
like very early on and like watching him grow and watch me
like slowly growing. And I was like, and you know,
eventually I caught up. Eventually I surpassed him.
But what it's not about competition.
That's not what I'm saying here. But it was one of those things
just like his content just is just hit with people and people
loved it. But I don't see him posting as
much anymore. But I always really appreciate
what he did. A lot of my early content that I
put in my bullet journal was mimicking his because it was
like just that good. And I was like, damn it.
And also I was like, well, if he's just putting the day of the
week and lettering it, I'm going to do the same.
But maybe people will like it. That's just to go show you what
old Mark was like. He just wanted that attention.
I. Don't think it doesn't help that
he has the same name as you. So it's such an easy comparison
point as well. You're just like, oh, he's the
better mark. He's the mark everybody loves.
It's not fair. I know, I know, but look at me
now. Look at me now.
Yeah, I gotta collab with A&R if I made it now.
And then I say the last one I'm going to mention because I've
mentioned so many, was Dan at Pacific Notation.
So like dance account. Oh my God, this man could do
amazing things with black paper and pen and just always had the
coolest spreads, the coolest ideas.
Again, another person that I replicated so much of his work
early on because it just, it looks so simple and then like
you create it yourself and you're like, why doesn't this
look the same? It's just lines of letter read.
But his is another one that early on.
And I actually should have mentioned him earlier as like
one of the other guys I saw in the beginning because he was one
of like the OG guys that I followed as well.
I don't see any of his content anymore.
Like the last I had heard from him, he was actually going to
put out a notebook of his own and then then I haven't seen
where it went from there. So I really miss him and wish he
would come back because he was a huge inspiration to me and
others. I don't think a lot of people in
our community necessarily realize how kind of influential
he was either, because he was the one who came up with the
grid spacing guide. Like, I'm pretty sure the first
instance of the grid spacing guide being shared was from his
account. Yeah.
And then Amanda Rachely saw it. She recreated it in hers and
then of course, yes, everybody was using it kind of a thing.
But yeah, the first one was from him.
So like, total props. Round of applause.
Absolutely.
So he was majorly influential. So I went through all those
names. Again, all of those will be in
the show notes. We'll put them on the YouTube as
well. And again, just to shut up, I
mean, that's kind of like my guy community.
You know, for a while I actually had an Instagram chat group that
was called like Men who bullet Journal.
I try to look for it to see if it existed anymore.
And it must not because it hasn't been used in a while.
But early on I created that. So it was like collecting guys
sounds very weird, but I was like liking these guy accounts.
I was like, oh, a guy account. I'm going to add you this chat
group. And for a while we were like,
yeah, this is great. We should promote each other and
do all those types of things. And I think just naturally like
the chat groups slowly die off, People were no longer posting
anymore, but it was a great space to kind of just chat and
talk about guys, journaling struggles, things like that.
Because we all had that one thing in common.
And I'm sorry if I forgot anyone I really like really went
through everything to go through it.
But if you are a guy that I follow or we've chatted and I
didn't think of, you just know that they're for me personally,
not for Jess. She is like two guys that she
follows. I follow up more guys accounts
personally, so I had a lot more to pick from, but I'd love to
hear from you though and let us know if you are out there making
content and and posting it. Like we want to share that.
We want to promote that because we're very small, little
demographic out there, but we want to promote the guys in the
community too because everyone's welcome.
If you watching have a favorite guy creator as well, like you're
allowed to be your own favorite guy creator.
Go forth, toot your own horn. It's all good.
But let us know who in our community is male and creating
content and you want to give a shout out to, you know, leave a
link in in your comment. Let us know who they are.
And if you don't want to comment here, you want to, you know,
send us an e-mail. Then you can also hit us up at
plannerpowerspodcast@gmail.com or you can hit us up at
Instagram at Planner Powers Podcast.
Absolutely, I'm really looking forward to hearing and seeing
more guys that I can collect inside of my list.
Guys creepy. Yes, Soon my army will be
complete. You know what, I'm fine with
that. I was.
I just don't want to go that like Jeffrey Dahmer around.
I want anyone thinking that like I do want to collect all the
people. I'm not trying to do anything
bad. Yeah, nothing suspicious,
nothing shady. Only good things.
On our next episode, we're going to talk about another topic that
I absolutely love because it is a place that I personally have
struggled. I know others have well.
We're going to be talking about bullet journal and planning work
versus at home. These are two different spaces
that can definitely use this. Do we combine them?
Are they separate? Do we need different approaches?
And we're going to be talking about this topic a lot more and
we're really looking forward to that one because we know a lot
of people struggle with that. So definitely make sure to check
that one out. We promise we'll be back in the
next two weeks. We had a little bit of a break
before, but we are back in action back to the same every
two weeks schedule hopefully. So Platter pals, we'll talk to
you next time. Have a great rest of your day.