If you’re a follower of my noteboook porn tumblr, Fuck Yeah Notebooks, you’ll know that recently I’ve been discovered Notebook Youtube. Against my better judgement, I’ve been drawn into the world of Planning. I swear to you I’ve resisted. I have! But they got me in the end. I happened to me, dear reader, it can happen to you! Run, while you still can!
It all started when I discovered Midori Traveler’s Notebooks. Turns out, they’re gorgeous and amazing and individual and customisable. And because I am obsessed with stationery, I soon became entrenched in this world of notebook inserts, and washi tape, and stickers. I’ve loved stationery since I was a childling, of course, especially fountain pens and notebooks, so finding myself in the world of “stick a lot of paper in some leather and cover it in stickers and tape” was only a matter of time.
I have a planner that I love. I found it last year on Kickstarter, and backed it out of a desire to find some direction in my life. I’d be happy to use it again next year, but I also wanted to carry a little something around with me. So, I picked up a three-month weekly notebook for my MTN – which, by the way, has also become my wallet. But then, from MTN-based youtube, I stumbled into Filofax-youtube.
Filofaxes are…. pricey. God they’re pricey. They’re like $400 here in New Zealand, and most currently available styles are a bit “corporatey” for my taste. So I thought I was safe. I thought I was immune to their charms. But then I discovered Kikki.K. And looooook it comes in lilaccccc with a black lining and it’s so prettyyyyyy. I’ve been seduced, dear reader. Seduced!
But INSERTS. Inserts are a problem. You see, as mentioned, I’m rather enamoured with my current planner. I like the hour-by-hour set-up, where I can record what I’m doing at each moment of the day, and both reassure myself that I’m not constantly wasting time and motivate myself to work. I like looking at a day and seeing where and how I spent my time. I like my to-do lists. I like my notes section. And if I’m to take up with a different planner, I need those sections represented.
It took some searching, but I may have found the answer in DIYFish Life-mapping inserts. This is To Be Determined; I’ve bought two months worth to try them out and I printed them out today. They’re very clever! The month and week summaries fold out to line up with the day, so you can see all three at once, and there are monthly task charts you can fill out to see how much you got done – a good way to ensure you keep up with “write every day” or “exercise every day” personal requirements. I’m looking forward to seeing how that motivates me when it comes to NaNoWriMo next month. How sweet it would be to see an entire line of coloured boxes. But they might end up being a little too small, a little too fiddly. And on that will depend whether or not I enter the world of refillable planners.
Meanwhile, I’m doing battle with a poem or two. It always feels like a battle, with poems. You throw lines out there and then try to match them up with other lines, and turn words around to make them fit, and war with lines to pare them down to the right number of syllables in the right place. I think my concern over repeating myself or dragging things on too long has resulted in a tendency to cut poems off at the knees. One in particular seems far too short, over before it’s begun, so it needs more work. I like it, though. It has some good lines. If I can make it behave, I might submit it somewhere. It’s about time I made another submission. Though I must admit the waiting periods do wear on one. Three months is the standard – but if you make the cut, at least the pay is good.