Welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast hosted by two
true planner pals. I'm Jess or Jessica and.
My name is Mark, and I go by Mark your pages and today's
episodes by friend is going to be a fun one because today we're
going to be talking about when it's time to switch your planner
when it's not quite working out for you anymore.
But before we get into that topic today, just want to thank
everyone so much for the comments on the last video.
Getting those on Spotify, getting those on YouTube and
other places where you're listening or watching this
podcast are fantastic. And I know I say it every time,
Jess, but it's such a plethora of knowledge.
It's so awesome to hear from planar pals every single
episode. So just want to say thank you
all so much. We really appreciate it.
It's a fun conversation. The opportunity to have the back
and forth with the community is something I very much value
about the community in general. So as always, thank you for
leaving us, your thoughts and feels and make sure that you do
at the end of this one. Because in talking about like
when it's time to switch planners and such, I feel like
this is a really big pain point for a lot of people.
You know, you're kind of slogging through it like, is
this working? Isn't it working?
Like should I try something new? Do I just need to kind of like
grin and bear it? I find that it's the decision
making, right? The decision making part is the
painful part. Once you've made the decision,
it's not so bad like with most things, but that kind of like
lead up to making the choice is tricky.
I think it's because we value everything we've put into that
type of planner because a lot of the times when you are thinking
about starting a new planner and actually starting in it, a lot
of the times you've already put all this mental thought and
everything to it before you even start.
You've researched it. If it's a certain notebook or
planner or something like that, you have so much energy in it.
You just, you really, really, really want it to work.
And I think that's exactly it. You're just, OK, I'm going to
use this and then you start using it.
And then there's just a point where you're like, and maybe
you've been there before and that's what we're going to cover
today. Are some of those topics I'll
kick off just because I think the biggest kind of red flag for
me when it comes to planners or notebooks especially is that I
just don't open it anymore. It's just one of those things
where I just am so disgusted by it or I'm just so unhappy with
it. It's like open it up just
doesn't give me joy. It's like, oh God, I've got to
open this up and I'm going to kind of slog through it just
because I've invested money into it.
A lot of the times for me, it's actually when like the paper
isn't papering the right way, it's not working with the
materials that I'm using, it's bleeding through or it's
ghosting too much and it's just really just, I don't want to
even look at it. And for me, that's like a really
big red flag for me in the past that I've had to come to
understand and say, Mark, if you're not going to use it, it's
not worth it. So like, let's just move on.
I think it's very much that kind of like sunk cost fallacy, like
whether it's the literal like money in terms of cost or if
it's the time cost, energy cost or something that you've already
put into a system that you're working with.
So you kind of feel like you're doing yourself a disservice or
like you've wasted something by moving away from it.
So you kind of tell yourself like, OK, we're just going to
keep using it. We're just going to keep going
with it. But then you don't like you say
you're going to keep using it, but then it just sits there
neglected on your desk. It's not doing what you wanted
it to do for you. It's not helping you organize
your life or record your thoughts or anything like that.
And it's really just sitting there reminding you to feel
guilty about the fact that you wasted those resources.
It's not a good feeling. And something I will do and I
don't even realize that I do it. Sometimes I'll start to like
store it away or put it away. And it's kind of that out of
sight, out of mind, which makes it even worse because then it's
just like, well, I really am not reminded that I'm supposed to be
using this thing. It's not even an effort because
I've completely just cleared it off my desk or put it away.
It's it's never a good thing when that happens.
When you do kind of like buckle down and say like, no, actually
we're going to do the thing. We're going to get in and use it
and then using it is just like soul sucking.
It's just not a joy at all. And it feels like you're kind of
making it a chore for yourself or you're forcing yourself to
use it. Especially like you kind of
mentioned with the idea of I don't like the paper or I don't
like the layout or the structure or something like that.
But making or I guess forcing yourself to fit into the system
rather than having a system that actually works for you, it just
sucks all the fun out of it. And one of the things I love
about journaling and planning is that it is fun.
So it's not fun anymore. Then that's a pretty big red
flag that maybe it's time to make us work.
Yeah, that's like a life thing. I also, I say that to myself and
other people, especially with work or certain situations, if
like if you're really not loving it anymore, if you get up out of
bed. Not that I think about my
journal when I get up out of bed.
But in this situation, like if you get up out of bed and you
don't like your job, I think it might be time to move along,
especially if it's like, OK, I had a bad day one thing.
But if you just really don't like what you're doing, like you
said, it's hard to just get to that point to make that
decision. Again, it's much different
change from a job than a notebook or a planner.
But the idea is still there is that you have to say to
yourself, OK, I'm really not loving this.
Something about this just isn't really right.
Let me go ahead and look for maybe the next thing that will.
I'll keep that while I'm doing those other things and like
eventually get into it. But it is it just, it's just,
it's just not a good feeling. I love that idea of Oh yeah, no,
your general plan is separate to your job.
I'm like, is it? Is it it's supposed to be
separate? Where did I go wrong?
Like you don't get out of bed and just start to think about
journaling. I guess it's a little bit
different when your full time job is journaling and making
contact and doing stuff like that.
It's like, well, what am I doing today?
Whereas like most other people, if they're not, I mean,
everyone's a bit different. Who knows?
I'm not going to get myself in trouble and make it sound like
anyone who does think about the journal when they wake up, it's
wrong. It's hardly a very good
practice. That's usually just not my
number one thing. I mean, if you're getting up in
your first thought as you're journaling, you want to make
sure it's a good thought though. You want to make sure it's a
positive thing. Like whether it's your job or
your journal or any other life area, We want to make sure that
it sparks joy. Otherwise, you will not get out
of bed. You will procrastinate starting
on your day and then even more things won't happen, which isn't
a great spot to be in. That's definitely not well.
What about yourself, Jazz? Anything that has popped up in
your life where you've just really felt like, you know what,
this is another flag. It's time to cut it.
I think that one thing that has popped up, which is not
necessarily a red flag for like the entire planner needs to
switch, but maybe like something needs to change is when there
are particular layouts or structures or parts that are
just going untouched. Like I'm not getting in and
filling in the trackers. Trackers are always a big one.
Routine trackers, habit trackers in particular styles or
structures. Jess will not check in with that
sorry annual tracker. It just wasn't meant to be
sorry, monthly tracker. It's not my happy place.
But those are also really good indicators that something isn't
working for us and maybe we need to switch something up.
Yeah, I agree with you. I think trackers are the number
one thing. We always joke about that when
we talk about like unused pages and some of those past episodes.
They always have the best intentions.
But something that you and I have mentioned a lot is that
idea of it being like performative instead of it being
something that you're really using.
Like the idea of filling out a tracker is great.
I think that's why we all love them so much.
It really does make you feel as if you've accomplished
something. But when you don't fill out
those trackers, it's like, well, maybe I did do the thing, but I
just not filling it out. You're kind of in this weird
kind of spot, the hard part, like your journal shouldn't feel
like a job, but to a certain extent it kind of should.
It's something that you should be responsible for.
It is something that you should certainly keep on top of, but it
is just, it should never feel hard, sometimes more difficult,
especially when you're making difficult decisions.
And that is just something that is just, it's just not a, like
you said before, it's like it's not a good feeling when you're
not filling out those trackers. But you're 100% right.
I feel like those are always the first ones who were like not
going to be doing that next month.
That did not work out very well. The number of times I bring one
in for the month being like, Yep, this is the month that this
tracker will work for me and we get to the next month.
I'm like, haha, psych Nope. But I kind of like what you said
There is that idea of it shouldn't feel like a job to get
into your journal unless journaling is your job.
That's a different thing. But like it shouldn't feel like
a giant chore. Or if it does feel a little bit
like a chore, there should be enough of a payoff that makes it
worthwhile. Like, you know, I don't enjoy
cleaning my kitchen, but I love the outcome of a clean kitchen.
I might not necessarily love filling in my tracker, but if I
feel like I'm actually getting information out of it or I'm
feeling genuinely accomplished by doing that, then there's
going to be some kind of like pay off there that makes the the
effort put in worth putting the effort in.
If there is no kind of payoff or if the payoff isn't sufficient
enough, it's not significant enough to really account for the
fact that you've put that time, effort and energy, then that
will also be kind of a red flag to say like maybe something's
not working. Maybe we need to change
something up if. There's something that I made a
spread a long time ago and I don't know if I came up with
this or like, you know, someone probably said it, but I used to
say this a lot is like your journal needs to work for you.
You don't need to work for your journal.
Like that idea that like whatever you're putting in
there, your planner, your bullet journal, whatever that might be,
it needs to work for yourself. It needs to work for your life.
It's supposed to make your life easier.
But when it turns on you and then you feel like you're
dedicating too much time to it, you're kind of putting and
pouring all that energy into something that you're not
getting anything back. That for me is like a really
important factor to just be like, this is isn't right, this
isn't working. Something is off with this
balance here. And usually for me, that's when
I say, OK, reset button. That might just be turning the
page and rethinking about the ways in which I want to tackle
that journal. Since for me, I'm using blank
journals and I'm kind of filling them in myself.
But I think even with like another type of planner, right,
maybe your inserts just aren't right.
Maybe the way that you've kind of put those or curated those
together, like something's just not vibing the right way.
So for me, a lot of the times that's when I'm just like, Yep,
not good. It's time to really make.
Yeah, I think that that part about the inserts in particular,
one of the things that you can you kind of use to indicate that
something isn't quite right is like is the information where I
would think to find that information, Like is it put in
the spot in my journal or planner system or whatever where
I would actually naturally tend to go looking for that thing.
So for instance, for me, I will tend to look for any kind of
like event that is scheduled or like time sensitive.
My default is like I should check my calendar, not I should
check my journal. So if I'm trying to like, make
myself use my journal for those types of pieces of information
when realistically that's not where I'm going to check for
them, that is also another red flag for me.
Yeah, it's something that I've had to change up overtime since,
you know, I'm utilizing the bullet journal method, you know,
and I have specific collection pages for certain meetings and
things. The idea there was always to
rapid log in that collection page, right?
All the information that you have should go there.
The problem that I've had in the past and I've had a change is
that I used to just rapid log, let's say like a meeting
collection page, for instance. And I used to jot down notes and
to do's, I used to keep them there.
But the problem is, is that that's not the page that I am
typically always looking at. So what I started to do is
almost kind of migrate them into my weekly view because I know
that I wasn't going to look back there on the page.
It still stayed there because still information about that.
But a lot of times, like right after that meeting, I would just
put like a forward facing, you know, arrow and just say like, I
migrated that to where I am right now just to let myself
know that I didn't miss it. And that was something that I
had to change because to your exact point, the information and
the to do's weren't where I thought they needed to be.
I mean, in theory, it makes sense that they're on the
collection page because that's where I'm taking those notes.
But like the actual to do's that I'm looking at every single day
are not there. And since collection pages could
be anywhere in your notebook, it's also so difficult to try to
find those and come back to them.
At least now I'm utilizing the system like maybe I'm doing it
wrong. Who the hell knows.
Nowadays, anyone can tell you you're bullet journaling wrong,
Jess. Don't even bait me.
Oh my gosh. But I think it is a very like
it's an ADHD friendly thing to put things at like the point of
performance, I think it's called.
So it's like, where am I actually going to best use this?
Let's put it there because then it'll actually work better.
But in terms of things that also indicate like, hey, maybe this
isn't working, one of the biggest ones is just not getting
stuff done because I use my journal and planning system,
funnily enough for planning, like trying to organize my life
and stuff. If I find that I am forgetting
when I need to be places where I need to be with places and like
what I need to be doing, when things need to be done by all of
that kind of stuff. When I start finding like, oh
cool, I'm working up towards like a lot of deadlines and I'm
like trying to get things done 5 minutes before The thing is due
or whatever, then that is a really good indicator to me that
like something in my system is not working.
Even though it's not necessarily like I'm looking at my planner
and saying like, OK, there's something wrong with my planner.
It's more so like the reflection of those plans or the execution
of those plans is kind of indicating something isn't
working because you're not getting things done in a timely
manner. Something's been big for me.
When I first heard bullet drilling, I thought everything
had to live inside of there. And so I was like, OK, every
event, everything gets put inside of there and I wasn't
putting it in other places because in my mind I felt like
it only go in my planner. And something that I realized
obviously is that wasn't working because I was missing dates and
forgetting. I don't carry my journal with me
everywhere, especially if you've got like AB 5 or a square, like
that's not like going in your backpack or I don't carry your
purse or a man bag or anything like that.
So like it's not with me. And so something I've been doing
a lot is just duplicating that data in my phone.
So it's like I'll write down that note, I'll remind myself
I'll go in a future log or even if it's an appointment for later
on in the week, but I always put it inside of my phone because
then and I can easily find the address, put it into the meeting
invite. And again, I can put all the
information in my bullet journal, But again, I don't have
that with me. So if I don't remember to take
it or look at it beforehand or write it down.
And then also to me honestly feels like old school, like
printing out your MapQuest directions, you know, like
that's, I don't know, for some reason, like writing down on
paper and then being like, here's where I have to go.
And then realizing I'm still going to put that in my phone's
GPS to find out where that is. It just didn't feel right to me.
So that's why I started to do that.
So it's like the journals are to collect it.
It's there to remind me, but the actual action of going and doing
that appointment or whatever lives on my phone.
And that's been like a really big like awakening for me where
it's like, it's not that the bullet journal isn't working for
me. I just had to find a better way
to kind of do it. I think that's also a good part.
It's like you kind of said, the bullet journal isn't like not
working for me or whatever. English is not my first
language. That is a bold faced lie.
It is. I just suck at it anyway.
I was going to say, what is your first language?
It was. Not obviously.
My first language is Australian. Gosh.
Yes, true, true. You do say some words a bit
differently. I do, I do.
But in terms of thinking about like, is it the fact that the
whole thing isn't working or it's just maybe part of it not
working? So it's like, do we have to
throw a baby out with the bathwater or do we maybe just
need to change the bathwater? This is a bad analogy.
Don't throw babies anyway. But in terms of thinking about
that, like there might be parts of your system that actually do
work really well for you. But if you have that kind of
tainted view or like twisted perception of it almost because
there are particular parts that are just really problematic and
not working. We want to make sure that we're
kind of mindful of the fact that maybe not everything sucks.
Maybe just this little part sucks and maybe we need to tweak
or change that rather than going to like a complete new planning
system. It's one of my favorite things
to do actually with my weekly bullet journals spreads is going
and looking at not just the information that's in there
before I migrated, but actually kind of doing an audit of that
weekly spread because I'm trying to put like little modules of
things inside of there often. And I'll go back and I'll say,
OK, did this week spread work for me?
And a lot of the things or what we just talked about, like did I
miss tasks that were supposed to get done?
And something like I've altered a little bit over time is, you
know, I used to do just like rapid locking, like the way that
we learn in the very beginning. And what I've realized is that
when I combined line notes and tasks, even though I have these
symbols like that tell me that something, a note or a task, for
whatever reason, when it's in line with everything else, it I
just don't feel very productive about actually then
accomplishing those things. So like something that I tweaked
for myself personally was that I have a separate column for tasks
and then a separate space for notes.
And that is something that's helped me out.
Again, sometimes it counters itself where I'm running down
notes, but there's an action and I'm like, OK, wait, the action
goes over here, but it's kind of a part of the note.
And so I've kind of altered a little bit of how I do it.
But a real big thing for me though, is really making sure
I'm separating out where that different information goes so
that I know it. Especially when I started New
Week. I think that's the big thing for
me. If I'm migrating things from
last week and bringing it over, I just have my task list and I'm
just writing everything straight down that line, not trying to
like connect it to the note of the thing that it goes with.
And that's just like a simple example of something I can
change. Again, I like bullet journaling.
Not all of it was working for me.
I'm not just blow up my whole system just to make that work
because honestly that was like a little tweak I had to make for
myself. Do you have anything like that
that you've done overtime as well?
Yeah, for sure. When I first started, I like,
was kind of just mimicking what I saw online.
So I kind of used a lot of the same structures month after
month without a lot of thought as to whether they were actually
working. I kind of, you know, made myself
fit my planner rather than my planner fitting my life.
They did get to a point, though, where we had enough kind of
inspiration in the community, I guess, to show that there are
actually other different ways to do things.
Not everything is boho Berry. Yeah, that's the boho Berry.
She very much inspired my first journal setups.
But looking back and looking at those, those kind of layouts and
such, they did obviously work for me for a time.
But they did get to a point where it's like something needs
to be different here because this is a system that can work
for me and has shown like it has a track record of working.
But there are some parts that just weren't so much so for
instance, like the horizontal layout of a tracker.
Like for instance, you'd have to turn your notebook in order to
actually use it. That didn't work.
Didn't love that. Didn't like the fact that the
title wasn't like at the top of the page or something like that.
Didn't like that I had to rotate my notebook to use it because it
was just like a barrier to entry.
So rather than saying up, well, I guess the bullet journaling
isn't for me, I'm just going to throw that away, I just changed
the structure of that tracker. Eventually I found that monthly
tracking also wasn't really for me either.
So we put that on to the weeklies instead.
So just changing the style of it, just changing like the, I
guess time period of it so that then you can kind of have a
smaller area of focus rather than the entire month.
That was just really helpful for actually getting me in and using
it, rather than saying at the start like Oh well, I guess
habit tracking isn't for me at all.
I can't possibly do it because this one structure or this one
layout doesn't work. It's like, OK, no the layout
doesn't work. Habit tracking in general
though, could work. We just need to do it
differently. Was that tracker that you were
putting on the side? Did it happen to be in AB5 size
notebook? No, that one was in an A5, it
was like a rotated one. But since doing what?
How did I do my trackers in AB5? I think that was the point where
I was doing similar style. It's just that it was vertically
aligned. So when I just started, I would
rotate the notebook, the habits would go down the kind of like
essentially the bottom of the layout and then you would count
the numbers up from the bottom so that then when you had that
horizontal view, it kind of made sense.
Eventually the style of monthly habit tracker that I actually
got to work for me was similar in structure, but vertically
aligned. So you had the habits as icons
or as written words along the top and then numbers down the
left hand side from like, you know, 1 to 30 or whatever it
was. So you'd effectively just have
little boxes to color. And for each of those, I found
that that vertical alignment did work really nicely.
And in terms of monthly habit tracking, that was the best
structure I found for me for quite a while.
But eventually it was just like, yeah, you're getting to the mid
month point every single month and now you're just falling off
with your trackers. Especially when I would set up
the next month, like as soon as I would set up the next month's
like start of month pages, like you know, the cover page and the
monthly log and all of that kind of stuff.
It's like the current month just didn't exist.
I'm like, Nope, you don't spark joy anymore.
Go away. I only want to use the new
things. It was a bit of a problem.
Well, I asked that question because I feel like A fives and
B fives like a 5 is its size and and the width of it is only so
right. And so that's why you likely
turned it. And B5 I find to be like
somewhat similar, even though there is more space with it.
You're just like, well, now I have this more space, but you're
like, but I have even more space if I turn it over here to the
side. And doing it that way, the size
of the notebook and the layout of the notebook I think makes a
really big difference on that too.
So I just asked that question because I feel like everyone's
been there at some point where you're like, I need extra space.
Maybe I'll just turn my notebook.
I mean, that's what I'm doing in my B5 right now.
I do my calendar pages for my future log instead.
And I couldn't get it to work. It works beautifully in a square
notebook I perfected. It was great that I'm like, oh,
B5 this time around. And then I think it actually
might have been you. You were like, turn your
notebook, Mark. I bet you that would work.
And I was like, yeah, but it's kind of the same thing.
I'm just like, OK, flip to the page.
OK, got to rotate my notebook now.
And it's funny you say that about like where the header is
for whatever reason, I can't read sideways all the time.
So I have to turn my notebook and then look at the month as
I'm going up it. Like for whatever reason, I can
just read it better that way. But it just makes a big
difference though. I'm like given the size of your
notebook with some of those layouts and that's always a hard
1 trackers and like the wrong size, they don't make friends.
Yeah. I mean, you know, a size of
notebook or size of planner in general can really have an
impact because, for instance, if your planner or journal is too
big to get out and put on your desk, you're probably not going
to use it whenever you're at your desk.
And if you do the like majority of your work at your desk, then
it's like, cool, now I'm just neglecting my journal or
planner. So maybe it's not the structure
that is a problem, it's just the fact that like it doesn't work
in the physical space that you're working in.
So taking that kind of like problem solution, like a kind of
problem solving mindset to it acting as like an experimenter
or a scientist. So trying to figure out like
what in particular is actually wrong here and what can I do
about it? So maybe instead of AB5 planner,
I go with an A5 or AB6 or something.
You need to obviously make sure you're balancing the like
physical space taken up with actually writing things in there
and having enough space to do your planning.
But it is something that you can kind of apply and see if that
will help you in terms of any woes that are keeping you from
using your platter. Yeah, something that's been
really interesting for me over time, I was just as I was
resetting up my bookcase, I was looking through everything and I
was looking through like my A fives because that's where I
started. And then, you know, I tried
different sizes that I went along and it was something that
was so interesting, especially in the A fives.
And this just brings us into our next point about knowing how
like it might be trying to maybe switch things up and not switch
necessarily the method. I didn't, you know, my, my A5
pages were like one page and somehow some of them weren't
even all the way filled out. And I was looking back, I was
like, Mark, how did you only need one page in an A5 for what
you were doing in your bullet journal?
Because like now I can't even imagine working inside of a
smaller notebook because there's just a lot of notes and tasks
and things that are going on in my life.
And so I've, you know, watched and kind of tracked because it
was a thought that I had in my mind.
And I was like, OK. And then I like looked as I
moved up in space, especially into like AB 5 or into a square
notebook. And then I was like, oh, OK,
like you don't need double pages.
You only need single pages or you need double pages because
like a lot is going on. And then I started to find this
theme of like almost seasonal approaches to work because I
know that, like, I have them at work.
Like, I know like we get very busy in the summer, like early
spring, summer, and then it takes a little bit of a dip at
the end. And then like we get towards
like October, November. And then it like dips hardcore,
like in December. And something that I've noticed
also with that is I was changing the layouts that I needed
because I was feeling as if I had all of the space and I
wasn't using it. And then I was like, well, maybe
this isn't the right thing for me.
But then what I realized is that just the amount of space that I
was using or the amount of pages that I was using wasn't right
for me at that time. So something else to think
about, this is kind of just what brought me into this was just
that maybe there's a seasonality that you haven't realized
happens in your day today or your work or whatever.
That is where you don't need all of the things you only need like
a, a smaller space to kind of handle that.
So instead of overloading yourself or trying to still do
too much and then getting upset at yourself for not using it,
not filling out the tracker, not doing those things, Maybe it's
just not a tracker season, you know, maybe it's time to just,
you know, Nestle up and be free of that for a little bit and
then come back to it when you're feeling better or you have the
space or the time to try to accomplish those things.
That could be something else. So someone could try if you feel
like it's not quite working out for you.
But again, we don't want to say like force yourself into it,
like if it's not working, it's not working.
But I always, again, trying to save all that money and time and
space and energy that we talked about, trying to find options
first before we make that decision to move away from it.
And I think that along with the kind of seasonality of it, what
can also be at least tricky for me, I found is the idea of like
an annual planner. Like you buy your one planner or
journal or whatnot for the year and that's the one you use for
the entire of the year. That one is always tricky
because it's like, OK, typically they're more expensive because
they are bigger. And then if you get to like, I
don't know if it's a January through December, you get to
February and you're like, cool, this isn't working.
You're like great. Do I just like Bennett or
recycle it? It's paper probably.
But still like that, that can be a really tough thing because,
you know, time, effort, energy, like we said, those resources
that you've spent on it can feel wasted.
But are we effectively throwing away the rest of a year on a
system that's not actually working because we're trying to
like cram our life into a planning system that doesn't
actually work for us? That's that's kind of where my
beef with it is, I suppose. But I also kind of based on that
feeling and based on that idea of like, oh God, I've got this
like annual plan that now isn't going to work because I've
realized that my life doesn't really work like this.
That's why I do very much appreciate the existence of like
6 month planners or even quarterly planners or whatnot.
Especially if you're moving to something new or thinking about
moving to something new, you can do that kind of like ooch or
test run of it rather than going in and being like, cool, I'm a
Hobonichi cousin kind of person now.
I don't even know. Does is the Hobonichi cousin an
annual planner? She knows nothing.
She's not a Hobonichi person. That's like you jump in by this
annual planner and then realize two weeks and you're like, yeah,
no, that's not going to work for me.
But if you had have done like an Ooch or just tried it out for
maybe a season or a quarter or six month period or something,
you could have saved yourself the heartache of buying an
annual planner that went pretty much untouched.
Yeah, I think about that especially when I'm talking
about and talking with people about starting bullet
journaling. It's not a month thing that you
try and realize it doesn't work out for you.
I think it is at least three to four months worth of doing and
trying and learning and really trying to figure out is this the
right thing for me before you're like, it's just not working out
for me. And and that's really important.
You make a fantastic point there.
Some of my favorite non bullet journals are just, you know,
planners, I guess do that. We talked about like the night
owl planner, for instance, right, like owl paper, they do
half a year and then you can buy both notebooks for a full year
or just one. And that's six months of time,
for instance, that you're putting into that and figuring
out is this the right thing for me?
And that way when you get to the end, you don't feel as bad about
that investment if you are like, no, this isn't right for me.
So I'm, I'm curious, just like from your perspective, like what
do you think is that right amount of time before you're
making that jump to say not working?
I think it very much depends on what thing you're trying out.
Like if you're trying out a monthly structure and you only
give it a week, yeah, probably not like a sufficient amount of
time because maybe that was the week from health, maybe that was
the week where all whole like everything went haywire.
It was not like a good reflection of regular life for
you. So of course trying to
incorporate something new on that kind of period of time
isn't really going to, it's not going to work out, it's not
going to happen. Whereas something like a weekly
structure, if you give that a week and it doesn't really work,
then possibly you'll have more of a better understanding as to
whether that's going to be something that does work moving
forward or not. So I think that whatever period
of time The thing is supposed to be for at least two at a minimum
is probably my safest bet. Like if you use the same weekly
structure two weeks in a row and at the end of those two weeks
you're like, yeah, no, nothing got done.
I am a scatterbrained mess. I am behind on all my deadlines
and my journal didn't help me at all.
Then probably we will, or at least I, I would, I would make
changes there. I would try something different.
Similar idea for a monthly structure.
If I try it for two months in a row and at the end of those two
months I'm like, yeah, this did not fulfill the purpose that I
gave for it, then I'd probably be looking for something
different. It also kind of is like, do I
need to change this in the form of like small tweaks like when
we talked about before that idea of rotate the tracker?
Or is it do I need to change this in the sense of completely
scrapping it? Because I'm maybe I thought I
was like wishfully hoping that this was going to be something
that I would use and would get value out of, but realistically
I'm not. It's that idea of, you know,
when you set yourself a goal and you actually said it because you
feel like you should want to do the thing rather than you
actually want to do the thing. Sometimes layouts and planners
end up like that. I feel we put them in there
because we feel like we should want to hydrate more and track
our water rather than actually giving a toss as to how much
water we in took during each day.
Yeah, it's one of those hard things to do.
I think what makes it even harder is if it's a predated or
even if it's just a planner that already has the pages designed
out for you, You are really dedicating yourself to those
layouts. There was a notebook a number of
years ago and it's not coming to my mind right now where you
could kind of design it for yourself.
Palette was the name of it. And so you could go onto their
website and essentially you could design what you wanted
your pages to look like. And then that way when you got
it, it was exactly what you needed.
And I remember like really loving this idea at first, I
didn't totally love the paper. That's the reason that I'm not
using it. But it was a really cool modular
way to approach it because it was like, how do you like to
take your weeks? Do you like a weekly view?
Do you like to have space, which is like grid layouts?
Like what does that look like? And I just, I remember just
being like this. Is it because it's so hard to
find a planner that you love, especially if it's already pre
made, right? That's why I love a blank
notebook because I can make it what I want.
But there are times, especially when you're going through that
and you're trying to see if a layout works for you or you're
just doing the same thing over and over again.
I think that's the misperception a lot of people get around
bullet journaling or DIY planning is like, oh God, you
got to draw the same thing out every single week.
I personally feel like if you are drawing the same thing every
single week, there's probably a more efficient way to do that,
making it yourself or again, working with someone else on it
or just drawing it. You do your thing, who am I to
tell you what to do? But the idea there is that there
becomes like an efficiency part of it.
But yeah, when that efficiency part isn't working out for you,
it does get hard. So I mean, that's my thing.
Like you said, you're kind of, I like the idea of like if it's a
monthly thing, at least two months.
If it's a weekly thing, at least two to three weeks to see if
it's working. I think just as a planner or
notebook as a whole or a method itself, I'm in that boat where
I'm saying like three to four months, give it a quarter
because I really do feel like that's going to give you the
most to really be like, okay, yes, this worked for me.
No, this didn't work for me or this fits my lifestyle.
I think that's something else we haven't really kind of tapped on
just yet is like, I personally think that a planner or a system
has to also match your lifestyle, not just you.
Again, trying to fit yourself into this planner box of
something that already exists. If that's not how you like to
work or that's not how your life is generally organized, it also
isn't going to work out for you. So it's like finding kind of
that perfect little Cinderella moment of planner in person.
No, it's very much that idea of like, what are the Goldilocks
with the porridge? Like this journal is too hot.
Hot damn. Mine usually is this tastes like
crap. I don't want to use this
anymore. Throw it out.
I'm going to go sleep in this bed over here because it has 160
GSM dot grit paper. I guess that's also a thing.
It's like in thinking about why you might want to switch or what
isn't working. It's also like, is it a
systematic thing like this is going to happen every single
time I pick up this journal on every single page?
Or is it more of like this one off thing?
So if we're thinking about it in terms of like DIY planning,
bullet journal, that kind of a thing, is this a notebook I
actually like, you know, does it give me the good feel when I use
it? Does it have the right quote
quote right kind of paper? Is the other pens that I'm using
actually going to work nicely and hear that kind of stuff?
Or if we're thinking about a pre printed planner, like do I
actually have enough space in the boxes that I have for each
week? Do I have the right number of
boxes? Like is it broken down too small
or too granular for me? Or is it kind of like, you know,
maybe the spaces are too large and I feel like I'm just wasting
a lot of space and stuff like that.
Because if there are things that are going to happen on every
single page and there's not really a lot you can do to
change it and doesn't work, then probably you might want to jump
ship and go find something else. But make sure that you take that
information moving forward. Like if I was moving into a pre
printed planner, there are certain things that I know about
myself as a planner based on my experience that I would be
looking for. I would be looking for that
thicker paper because I like to use certain materials that are
going to, they're going to really test the paper out.
I need to make sure it holds up because if there's ghosting and
bleeding, I'm going to have a bad time.
I know this about myself from past experience, though.
I know that I prefer to have vertical layouts rather than
horizontal. I know that I don't really like
to have monthly trackers, but I do like them on a weekly.
But I also know that I like to have about 10 things that I am
tracking at any one point in time because when I build out a
routine, I like to make it very stepwise as opposed to like
little box that says morning routine.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to get out of
bed this time. We're going to get to the
exercise. We're going to have a nutritious
breakfast or like whatever. I like to be able to break it
down in that way. I need the space to be able to
do that. So if you're going to be jumping
ship, if you're jumping to a new planet, make sure that you
account for those things as opposed to just getting like the
shiny object syndrome. Like this is going to be the one
that changes everything for me. I'm going to get my life
together. And then you get in there and
you're like, yeah, I don't like that.
Why didn't I think about that before?
Have you had any examples, Jess, like where that's happened to
you, like any specifics? I see.
I guess the biggest 1 is just knowing that I don't like
preprinted planners because I like to have flexibility.
So every time I've tried one out, I get into it, I'm like,
where's my flexibility? I'm like, Jessica, it's a pre
printed planner. What were you expecting?
But I think the one in particular was moving into or
attempting to move into a teacher planner.
Knowing that I do actually still like to see the weekend, but it
didn't have weekend spaces available.
So I got in there and I'm like, I'm sure I can make my pace with
it. But if I had of kind of examined
it with a bit more of a critical lens and been a little bit more
honest with myself, I would have been like, yeah, OK, no, you do
like to have the weekend there. Even if it's not teaching time,
you're still doing teacher related activities at that time.
So you want that space there to be able to record things.
What about yourself? Yeah, the, the biggest one that
has made sense to me, there was a pointed task planner that I
love every single thing about it and I, I really did, but the
paper just wasn't working for the materials that I wanted to
use. And so I was so dedicated to
making it work that I actually started to just write in pencil,
which it was weird for me, but I was, again, I was kind of like
changing myself for the planner. Now, I want to put this out
there because I really, really do love Appointed.
And I'm not saying it's not for everyone.
It could be, but like the pens that you can use in there.
You can use pens in there. And let me just throw that out
there. But it just wasn't like the
really inky juicy ones. Definitely no fountain pens.
Like it was kind of all of that. And also we talked about like
that moment in time, I was really big and getting into
fountain pens. And so in my mind, I was like,
I'm using using fountain pens all the time.
And I was just like, well, crap, they're not working inside this
planner. But I really like the way that
this is structured and how it's organized.
And so it was. And then what I ended up doing,
not taking our own, I can do as we say, not as we do.
I ended up starting another bullet journal and also keeping
that planner at the same time. Because the other thing I didn't
like is it didn't have a lot of extra pages for collections.
And I'm a big collections person.
And so it was like I was keeping my weeklies over here at that
point. I was also tracking my team's
capacity inside of there. It was really doing all those
things. And then all of my collection
pages I was putting inside of my bullet journal.
And I did that for about 3 months.
And then I was losing my mind because I was opening the one to
write things down. I was like, well, wait, Then I
had to go reference it over here and it just got to be too much.
Like we talked about, it was like not enough room.
I was trying to work on A2 notebooks on my desk at a single
time. It did not make sense.
And so I did have to like finally like kind of just like
put that to rest. I still have it.
Again, I still love the idea of it.
And I actually took a lot of inspiration from that into my
bullet journal. It's actually what was the thing
that got me to switch between using just a regular future and
creating a calendar future log, because I love that so much in
that planner that I just brought it into, and now I just make my
own calendars in the front of my notebooks.
That takes a little bit of time, some practice, some research and
development, but I figured it out.
So it just took me a while to get there, but it was because I
really did. I liked it so much, but it was
just some lifestyle things that just they weren't making sense.
One change that I know that I made fairly, I'm not going to
say early on because it did take me a decent long while, was
moving from that vertical monthly log that's in the kind
of like original bullet journal method kind of thing to ages
calendar layout. Because I don't know why I had
it in my mind. And I'm like, it's not a bullet
journal if you don't use the vertical monthly log.
Oh, how naive she was. Oh, meets have a child.
But eventually I'm just like, your brain just works better
with an actual calendar view. Just draw the calendar view.
I don't know why it took me so long to just like kind of bite
the bullet and actually do it. I'm glad I did though, because
it did wonders for actually being more organized, getting to
things when I needed to, keeping track of these appointments and
such. Because I'm not very good at
writing multiple things because I'd always have multiple things
on one day and then trying to write multiple things on one
line. Will it?
No, no, no, no, doesn't work good for my brain.
I just needed something that had like a little box say, oh look,
this is Monday, these are the things that are happening.
Worked much better. I'm one bazillion percent there
with you. I think the reason that we are
all so much like that is because when you do start with the
bullet journal method, it is really ingrained in you that you
have to follow that method. And, and again, I, I throw this
out there, it's not baiting you, Jess.
But the idea is though, that you have to learn the method before
you start to break the rules. At least that's how I like to
look at it. So you have to try it that way
to see if it works for you. But you do have to come to a
point there where you have to say and you have to understand
it is okay to change parts of that method for what you need
because I did the same exact thing that you did for so long.
I could open up all my notebooks when I first started.
You would see them not really used because of that exact
reason. I need to write multiple things.
If it's someones birthday and I also have a doctor's appointment
on that day that will not fit on a little A5 size line.
I'm not going to abbreviate every word to try to make it
fit. And I was just like why isn't
this working for me? This isn't working for me.
I need a different approach. So it's so funny to hear you say
that because for a really, really long time, I again, I
stuck with it because I thought that I had to until I just gave
myself their permission to be like, Mark, this isn't working
for you. Change it.
And was the same exact thing. And then once I did that, I
never created another monthly blog page ever again because I
just realized it wasn't the right thing for me.
And so I just completely deleted that part out of my method.
I think that permission is a big thing as well because we have a
lot of people in the community who, you know, they'll jump into
the Facebook groups or the Discord service or anything like
that and they're like, oh, do you think I can?
Am I allowed to? Would it be OK if I'm going to
just say that if it is your planner and your planner system
in your journal, you have blanket permission.
Totally fine. You know, if you want to draw in
there with a watercolor pencil, go forth.
If you want to, I don't know, engrave your things onto a stone
and use that as your like Tabernacle for the day of things
that you, you need to get done, more power to you.
I don't have that kind of patience.
At the end of the day, what I care about is that you enjoy
using it and you're actually using it.
So if it's doing the thing you have like assigned to it, if it
has fulfilled the purpose you have given to it, props to you.
Yay. Even if it doesn't look like
ours, even if it doesn't look like somebody else's method, as
long as it's working for you and it's bringing joy, it's a good
one. If that means you need to change
into a different planner system to do that, you again, have full
permission. Like if we think about it in
terms of that kind of sunk cost fallacy, it's, oh, I spent money
on this and I've already spent time on this.
You can't get that back, but you can at least get back the time
that you would spend in future, just like forcing yourself to do
it. You can get back the joy that
you would not be able to feel because you're trying to force
yourself into a system that doesn't actually really work for
you. So in in that kind of like space
of things, if you switch now, then you will have more joy to
spend the future and more time, effort and energy to spend on
other things because you're not like soul sucking yourself
trying to work in a system that just doesn't work for.
You and I think a really big point just to add on top of that
is that if it doesn't work out for you, it does not mean that
you are a failure. It does not mean that like you
couldn't make it work. It's just that it really wasn't
right for you. And something you can do again
to try to overcome that. That cost failure part is don't
throw away that notebook. Now, if it is giving you hell
and you hit it every second of it, you burn that sucker outside
in the fire pit, right? Like we don't have to hold on to
things like that if it gives you that type of anxiety, but
sometimes you can find future uses for those things.
There's a number of those type of planners that I have.
I actually think Kobenichi's are probably the most used for this,
especially in like the fountain pen ink space where people are
like, I'm going to use this, it's going to change my life.
And then they get into and they're like, not really for me
that actually has really nice paper in it.
And so a lot of people will go ahead and start doing ink
swatches inside of there or even like using the calendar pages
for like different things that they want to do with pens or ink
or drawings or doodles or whatever it is you can give life
to partially use notebooks. I have several of them on my
shelf that I will just open up and be like, you know what?
Today I'm doing some ink swatches inside of here.
I haven't used this notebook in a while and it's fine.
It's paper. I'm not going to throw it away.
I'm still using it, maybe not as functional necessarily as it was
intended to do, but I'm still giving it a second life.
And now again, it takes a little bit to get here.
We both are saying this to you after years of experience.
So if you're the person who's just getting into notebooks and
journals and different type of planners now, we're telling you
that your future self would tell you you're not failing at it.
It just didn't really work out for you.
You gave it a good try. You did everything you could to
make it work. It just wasn't the right thing
for right now. And that's absolutely 100% OK.
I very much agree and I definitely think we're going to
have to have a future episode about like those half used
journals, notebooks, planners and such that we kind of
realized weren't really for us, maybe not for that season or not
at all. But we'd love to ask you Planner
Pals, have you have you ever made a switch in your planner?
Have you jumped planners to a completely different one?
Have you made tweaks or changes? What kind of things prompted you
to get to that point? What were the deciding factors
that made you decide? Yeah, OK, it's time to make a
change. Let us know either in the
comments here on YouTube or you can hit us up at Instagram at
Planner Pals Podcast, or you can hit us up on e-mail at
plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com. You got them all, Jess.
Good job I'm. Like did I?
I'm like, I can't remember. We haven't done this for a
while. Wow, our next episode is going
to be so fun. It actually kind of piggybacks
perfectly. It's almost as if we planned
this. We're going to be talking about
planner peace versus planner chaos and the ability to live in
both or one or the other and it being totally OK.
So it's going to be a super fun episode.
I can't wait to chat with you all about that next time.
Just thank you so much for another fantastic conversation
today. I think this topic was very
good. I feel like at this time and
moment in the world, we also needed some of this positive
affirmation in a world of not always getting positive
affirmation, especially on the internets.
Yes, we want this to be a positive space and we very much
value having you here, Flanner pals.
As always, thanks for watching and we're looking forward to
hearing from you.