Episode: 3933
Title: HPR3933: Planning for a planner.
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3933/hpr3933.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 17:36:24

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3933 for Wednesday the 30th of August 2023.
Today's show is entitled, Planning for a Planner.
It is hosted by some guy on the internet and is about 48 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Scotty and Bumblebee discuss disbound planners, agendas, ink pens and more.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
I'm your host, some guy on the internet and I'm here with...
Hey, Bumblebee sir.
And today we're going to be talking about Planning and Organization.
So, B, I remember once before we were talking about planners and notebooks and things of that nature.
And there was a specific type that you mentioned that you enjoy using very much.
You want to go ahead and tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, sure.
So, I prefer disbinding planners.
There are several brands out there.
The most, I guess, popular common brand is the Happy Planner specifically.
The reason why it's so popular is because of the disbinding.
The disbinding just makes everything so much easier to remove pages to add pages.
If you've ever had a plan number four and it has just like a book binding, not as spirals are terrible.
Spirals get jumbled up, they rip pages out, all of those things.
Regular viral books.
The ones with like a harder...
Them's fighting words.
My opinion, I don't like.
But the ones that have the really hard bound on the back,
try to write all the way to the center.
It makes it very difficult to write in the center.
When you have the disbinding, you can literally tear out the page,
write whatever you need, and then put the page back like nothing happened.
Similar to a binder without having the clunkiness of one.
Okay, so I do understand the flexibility and functionality of this.
What was this called the disbinder type?
Disbinding, yeah, disbinders, disbounders.
Disbound planter, okay, so I do understand that.
Do they make these things in hard and soft covers?
Do you get the options like that or do you have to build your own?
Yeah, so they do have a laminated cover.
They also have cases that you can get them personally throughout the year.
When I'm doing schooling, I have the laminated cover,
but then I have that whole entire case inside of my,
that whole entire planter inside of one of my cases,
because I constantly throw my planner in a book,
in a bag, in a whatever, I throw it in just,
I don't want it to ruin it.
But for the most part, they're really sturdy.
Like they're not going to fall apart on you.
As long as you don't overpower them.
So with disbinding, they have all different size discs.
The rings, the discs that come with them,
they're all different sizes, depending on what brands.
But for the example purpose, we'll talk about happy planters specifically.
So they have the mini version,
which are for the mini planters.
They're much smaller than they have the classic size,
which is roughly a medium size planner.
That is the average that people use.
The most common one is the classic size.
Then they have the large, which is for the bigger planners.
And then, of course, they have the expansion size,
which is a very big one.
I think the expansion size is like,
is like almost an inch and a half,
or something they're huge.
I use those for my excessive pay.
They don't leave the house with it.
Yeah, I don't.
So I use the expansion size for like all of my excessive paper.
So I have lots of notebook paper that I buy,
whether it's on clearance,
whether it's regular notebook paper,
that I get from loose leaf notebook paper.
I put it all in there.
And I use those really big rings.
And when I need extra paper for my planners,
I pull it out of there.
So that's what I use personally for those.
And then I use it for like stickers and stuff
because happy planner makes it
so you can have like and make it cute and pretty.
Happy planner is primarily based on
it's very feminine.
It's very girly.
It's very whatever.
I do know that are coming out.
I believe for 2024's planner.
I believe they're coming out with more masculine size styles.
But I do know there are other stores that specifically have
the discount, but they're more masculine if people care about that.
All right.
So if you wanted to get into this style of planner,
a disbound planner,
it would probably in your email,
it will probably be good to use a different brand
other than happy planner at the moment.
Is that what we're learning?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So I know staples specifically is a really good place
to go to to get those.
So staples have one or the covers of the disbounds are made out
of just leather.
They're like black leather and that's it.
They might be a little bit more on the price your side
from what I looked at,
but staples has two puns all the time.
So just FYI, but staples is a good one.
And so is Michaels, I believe.
But all the other stores like Hobby Lobby, Walmart,
I know even Ross believe or not sells them happy planner specifically,
but you can get what us happy planners call them is the guts basically
the inside of the planners.
You can get the guts of any planner and get a very plain Jane one
and just go buy a cover somewhere else.
They actually sell on Etsy specifically just plain Jane covers.
You don't have to have a style or anything like my covers just pink.
There's nothing on it.
It's just pink.
Yeah.
I like a plain Jane, you know, I'd rather have just a solid color,
probably not even a name or anything on it.
Just I know what it is and that's all that matters.
But for the exactly the guts that go in this thing,
what sort of options do we have there?
Oh my God, it's we don't even have all day to talk about.
I mean, so let's just talk about what I use my planner for.
And that will give a lot of people examples.
They I use mine for journaling.
So they have for happy planner specifically.
They have these things called weeklies.
Most planners do have them there for the weeks.
They even have daily's like on one whole entire page will be for one whole entire day.
Like today's Tuesday.
So be literally all day for Tuesday.
I think it's excessive to have one whole page for one day,
but they do weeklies as well.
So you can do journaling.
It's it's lined and everything like that.
They have once for normal planning where they're either box formation.
They're they have them vertically all the way down.
They have boxes that are horizontally.
I use mine for school as well.
They also have like half sheets that you can shove in the weeks
or throughout the months to make lists throughout the day
or throughout the week or whatever.
I have regular notes that I use and I also use them for my budget.
So I use we talked about my cricket before.
I use my cricket to design pages for myself as well.
So on you can go on any sites.
I know you're opinion about Pinterest.
Once once I get one second because I mean this we we're just kind of blazing
through a lot of stuff here.
You you design your own pages to go in this thing.
Yes, I do quite often.
I could actually just work with just basic notebook paper.
Like just lines horizontal lines going across and I'll fill in the rest.
You know that's I like it's simple and then I'll draw whatever I need
for whatever you know whatever I want.
How how is it that you use this like what are you creating?
Okay, so when I make mine I use it to make a specific budget for myself
because I like the happy planner budgets,
but they're not specific enough for me.
I don't have children.
So most of those are like daycare and all this that that's irrelevant for me
because I don't have children.
So in some stuff is like I need stuff.
I'm a house.
I'm a homeowner.
So I need to have quarterly.
I also think of my taxes.
So I want to be overly specific with my budget.
But I also want several things blank so I can fill it throughout.
So I'm paying attention to my said budget.
Also I do it for school.
So every single semester I'll make several pages that talk about my schooling.
So I'll have let's just say I do biology.
Okay, biology 101 or whatever I'll put biology 101 in one block
and then I'll write the room number, the information about the teacher,
whether it's her email, her phone number, the classroom she's in.
If it's online, then the link to go to her website, etc, etc kind of get my drift.
And then there's been times where I've actually laminated these.
And when you laminate them, then you can write on them with expo marker
and then erase it when you're done.
I will say expo marker expo the brand dry erase marker.
Oh, a dry erase marker.
Okay.
All right.
Expose the brand.
Got you.
Yeah.
So personally, yes, you can make your own the only problem with making your own.
Happy planner and all these other brands.
They're paper pound.
So you know how paper each paper has a pound to it, right?
So how thick the paper is.
Well, the happy plan of pantopers are a little bit thicker than regular,
like copy paper, but it's thinner than like card stock.
So it's in the middle.
And frankly, those pages are not cheap.
So depending on what I'm making, depending on what pages I'm doing,
either I'll just do card stock or I'll just stick to regular paper and not care.
But I would have been doing a lot lately is I'll buy the notebooks
that happy planner has.
So happy planner has just plain notebooks.
They're still disbound and everything.
Well, then I just print on those.
I'll literally just throw them in my printer and print on that paper.
And so it ends up being cheaper.
You can get like a whole notebook for like $6.
And it'd be like 50 sheets or something.
When you're printing on these things,
are you using special software to be able to fit to the dimension of the page?
Like how are you selecting these dimensions to print?
Because I'm assuming this isn't eight and a half by 11.
No, so to know.
So for let's say the size of classic, the classic is seven by nine inches.
So I literally just use regular, you know, windows.
I mean, I don't do anything fancy.
I get sometimes I use my cricket for certain things,
but 90% of the time I just use Microsoft Word.
I make a regular PDF, whatever documentation I'm making,
fill in everything that I want.
And when I go to the printing portion,
I say document size as eight and a half by 11 and then paper size.
And I just change the size of paper.
I already pre-changed them.
So I just click classic happy planner,
because I've already changed that in my computer because it was already sized.
And then it just prints it out normally.
Oh, so you got the presets in there for your already had the presets.
I already have them for my mini as well.
Now see that is amazing.
I didn't even know you could do that.
Like I didn't know they sold like a bare bones paper that you could just
basically chuck in your printer.
And then, you know, here you go.
Now you got more specific pages to your lifestyle.
Well, technically happy planner sold them as their doodle series.
So a lot of people were doodling in their books.
So they sold paper that was for doodling.
So there's a lot of people that that doodle as notes.
I'm one of those people.
So you're hacking the pages then pretty much.
I buy it and use it for whatever I want.
Also, I do the ones that are the most simple.
So like right now I have one of the books in front of me.
And I have it divided to what the pages are.
So for an example, I have one whole divider as lined paper,
like just all lined paper.
And then the next section I have that they're bulletins.
They sell bulletins and then I have grid.
And I also have the plain one that I told you the blank page.
And then I also have dotted paper, which is a whole bunch of dots on it.
The dotted paper, if you can't find the doodle paper
because they kind of stop the series.
It apparently didn't sell as well as they hoped.
So the dotted paper is okay too.
Because when you print on it and it's black,
it's really hard to see the dots anyway.
It doesn't really make, it doesn't make a big difference.
It really doesn't.
Yeah, they make the dots very, very dim.
Yeah, they're very light.
Like the one that I have is like this very light, light, light green.
And it's like light sage or something and you barely see them.
So I like using these specific pages,
even though I prefer a small planner for when I'm on the go.
Because it's the mini planner.
It's just because it's so easy to dump it in my purse or dump it in my school bag.
It's much easier for my notes planner.
Okay, for the ones that I use for notes for school,
I prefer a classic one just because I want to see some bigger.
So those pages are perfect.
I sometimes will cut the classic ones to fit in my mini,
which goes to the other point that I was having another good investment
in my opinion for any discount planner is getting the whole buncher.
You can buy the happy planner brand or they even have other ones
those really big black ones that you can get.
But that's a really,
that was one of the best investments that I bought when I got this.
They're pretty cheap like they're no more than 10 bucks.
And you can even buy them on like Amazon
and all those things.
And that changed how I did my planner.
I like to call my planners my Frankenstein planners
because I don't have to keep it for what they designed for you.
They don't know you personally.
They make it for a general amount of people.
For my planners, I have,
I'm going to try to explain this as clear as I can.
Let me do it because I think I think I can explain it a little bit here.
All right, so they make planners for ordinary boring people
but because you're a super amazing,
you know, you need to be able to upgrade their nonsense
to, to, you know, stellar level.
So is that what I'm understanding?
Absolutely.
You know how fabulous I am.
So for mine specifically,
I have, like I said earlier, I do weeklies.
So when you open for like the week of the first, okay, today's Tuesday.
So when you open it up on one page,
it'll say Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and on the right page will say Thursday, Friday,
and then Saturday and Sunday will be next to each other.
And that's what I do weeklies.
But if you turn the page over,
I'll have the exact same of this week again,
but it'll be horizontally and they'll be lined
because I use my planner for several different reasons.
So I add several different things.
So even though it's repetitive,
the ones that are blocks,
I'll use for like,
I don't really have them for summer
because I don't do school in the summer,
but I'll have the blocks for school
because I'll put several different classes of school assignments, et cetera.
And then the next week or the same week,
but the next page will have lines
because I prefer to journal.
It keeps me on track what I've done
because I can go back several weeks or several months
to be like, oh, that's what I did.
That's the date that I did it on.
Or it's good therapy for me,
writing down gets things out of my brain.
So that is not normal for most planners.
You can't, most people will have two planners
although have like a diary or a journal
and then they'll have a planner.
I like to have everything all in one, you know?
Yeah, I'm loving the idea of having it all in one
because I got a planner and my notebook.
You've seen my notebook
that I have to carry around for sketching and all that.
I'm thinking about this,
this disk bound style
where you could kind of,
because one of the other things that I'm thinking about
is basically having like an eternal planner.
Once you get a case that you really like for like the covers
or whatever,
as months go by
and you no longer need like say,
you know, we're in July now.
I no longer need January through April.
So I can take those months out
and then, you know, replace them with future months
that are absolutely.
You know what I mean?
So your final just rolls in the infinite planner.
That's excellent.
Yeah, so what I do personally,
speaking piggybacking off of you,
I most of the happy planners will have like a bird's eye view
of the year.
So it'll have like 80-bitty months
that will be like January all the way through December,
depending on which ones you buy.
They have them from 12 months to 18.
I you can buy the 18 months
and just take all the months out if you want.
I usually only buy the 12 months
because I get bored and want a different planner.
But anyway, I will use four months at a time.
So I'll keep the birds eye view
because I like to look and be like,
oh, when is Thanksgiving this year?
What date is it?
So then I can plan ahead or whatever day I'm thinking of.
I can look at the birds eye view.
Why I'm still planning?
I don't have to literally go back
and go and get et cetera, et cetera.
And the good thing about the disk planners
is let's say you have another planner
that you had last year.
It's expired now, correct?
Well, you don't have to throw it away
because you can use the Defiders.
You can use the Discs again.
You can use, if you love that cover,
you can use the cover again.
So much of it is reusable.
I actually use the pages in there
and I cut them up and stuff.
I will cut them up.
I'll use them as practice pages.
I do it all the time.
I literally have two disk bound pack that I use.
And if I like how it was set up,
then I'll just copy from there.
But I keep four months at a time
because I put so much in my planner.
So my planner is a mini planner,
but I have the classic size rings on them
because I like a smooth turn.
If I had the mini rings, it would be too stiff
because there's so much in them.
So, but so you have to think about that.
When you do that because if you have two big of rings,
most of the cases with Happy Planner will not fit.
So you have to keep that in mind.
So my mini planner case does not fit the classic rings.
It won't fit.
When you try to put it in there and close it,
it won't button it.
So because I just have like a leather case,
you put the back of the cover in the slide.
Like it's like a slip, you slide into it.
And that's how it stays inside the case.
So during the school year,
can you repunge the holes on it?
No, no, the case is different than the cover.
So there's a cover on it that's laminated.
And then there's cases that they give you
that is like a leather bound.
Oh, it's a cover.
You're right.
You just cover the whole thing
and then there's a button to keep it sealed
and you can't see it.
Like if you don't open the button,
you can't see the planner.
So I just do that to keep everything safe.
But to be honest, there's been several times where
I don't even use the cover and I just, I'm fine.
No pages come out.
I mean, as long as you're not like
thrown it at your car while you're driving,
you should be fine.
I have thrown it in my book bag,
I've thrown it in my purse.
I've done all these things.
Disc bound is really good at keeping them in there
because the difference between
Disc bound and a regular binder
because Disc bound is similar to a binder
besides having to pop open the binder.
There's only three hole punches in a binder.
Depending on what disc you get,
the mini one itself is seven discs.
Seven.
So there's seven pin points to not lose a page.
You know, there's so much that keeps it in the book.
Yeah.
So, so it's in my personal opinion,
it really makes it have a lot of stability
to keep it all together.
One of the things I'm thinking about with this, right?
Mm-hmm.
So as with the design that I've already spoken about,
you know, taking the previous months out
and loading in new months ahead
so that way I can manage it the way I want,
is do they, do you have a recommendation
for how to store all of the months
that I've already taken out?
Because I, you know, my understanding is
in my regular planner that I buy from the store,
there'll be certain weeks where nothing important
is happening so those pages are basically going to waste.
And I want to reduce that.
So by getting this Disc bound planner,
I'll be able to, you know, customize it more
to get more out of my planner.
So once I've, you know,
once I've already completed X amount of months in a year
and I take those out,
how are you storing this?
Do you just use regular file cabinet
and you just say, okay, you know,
this is the first half of this year.
I'll just stick them in the Manila folder,
Manila envelope or something
and just kind of tuck them in the cabinet
or how are you storing this?
Mm-hmm.
I don't agree with the cabinet thing
because out of sight, out of mind,
becomes really real, okay?
If you aren't looking at it
and you don't remember that it's in that said cabinet,
you're not going to remember about them.
So my personally, I have a bookshelf.
So where my cricket is and all of that stuff,
I have on the bottom shelf
all a whole bunch of my planner stuff.
I also have a tote with other stuff in it too.
But what I do, okay, let's say I buy a new,
the planners that I buy,
I'm actually buying a new one at the end of this month
because, or the mid of this month,
because I do school.
So our school months, they normally sell them
because you know when school starts,
they put out planners in August.
So you can get a planner starting from, I think,
like July all the way up to like next June
or something like that.
Yeah.
So my planner right now is still, okay,
I still have August.
So I will buy one soon,
even though it'll be like a little bit of it.
So what I do is I, as the months go,
I still keep the previous month, okay?
So let's say we're in October.
I'll still keep September in my book
until I'm done with October
because you might want to go back.
What did you do last month first?
Because last month is the closest.
How I store them is I put mine back on the discount.
I've been doing happy planner says 2016.
So you can only imagine how many discs I have,
how many covers I have.
But speaking to people that don't have that option,
like I do, you can go to happy planner's website,
Hobby Lobby, Walmart, all those places,
even like Amazon, Facebook, Marketplace,
they're really cheap.
You can buy just normal discs,
just the discs themselves, just extra ones.
You can sort that way.
Let's see, you don't want to do that, okay?
For the longest time before I had that option
or thought about it, I use Ziploc bags.
That's what I did.
I got gallon Ziploc bags.
Unless you use the mini flavor, the mini pages,
you can just do a court size bag.
And then I write on the page the date.
So I'll write March through September 2022
or whatever it is.
And then you'll know where those are.
And then you keep those specifically in one spot.
But keep them somewhere where you're going to know about them.
Unless you know for fact,
I'm not going to look at these anytime soon.
Then you can store them in your whole filing system
that you talked about.
There has been certain years
that I've gone through this recently.
In the beginning of this year,
I actually, since I moved recently,
I went through a whole bunch of my boxes
that I had a whole bunch of my planners that I kept.
Well, you don't want to keep paper forever, okay?
Unless it's important stuff,
you don't want to keep forever.
So I don't need to know about that random day,
about that really funny joke
that happened that day on that Tuesday that I ate, okay?
But certain things,
certain memories you want to know about,
certain heart breaks you want,
whatever, just scan that stuff in after a while
if you really want to, okay?
But after a few years,
you don't need to keep them as individual items.
But you can take other things out of them, okay?
I cut them up, okay?
A lot of items I cut up.
So some planners, they don't sell anymore, okay?
Like certain styles, okay?
There are certain ones that they sold that are like
really, really cute on florals or this or that.
I'll cut off the florals
and I'll be able to use that as a decor from my annex one.
Some of them have where I can just scan them in
and print them out again,
covering them up with whatever I do with Microsoft Word
and I can print them out using those pages again.
So it just depends on what your preference on
keeping old papers.
If you really don't care what happened that year,
then if you want to chuck them in the recycling bin,
go for it.
But I like to know what happened.
I have a lot of stuff from my mom and my grandparents
that I need to know that information for years from now.
So I have to keep those information.
Some of it has like medical information
of symptoms that I had or X, Y and Z.
So it's good to keep those notes later on the light.
That's what I'm thinking as well,
because like in my notebook, especially,
I have tons of crap that for one,
I cannot just throw away that information
cannot just be expelled for anyone to see.
So ultimately,
it will either be maintained properly or destroyed.
There is no just throw away.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And then other things that I did.
So before I started doing notes in my happy planner.
So my many happy planner,
I use a lot more than anything.
And I have been saying that.
So what I do, like,
let's say we're talking about school, okay?
So they have a PDF or whatever of your school schedule, okay?
I'll print it out to size and shove that in my book.
It's now the exact size.
It doesn't have to be any to have by this.
But then stuff like that,
the same thing of like when you have a textbook, okay?
You don't want to look around a whole entire textbook.
So they have some textbooks that you can
dumb, not all of them where you can print some of the pages out.
And I've done that for my classic size.
So then it's only as small as my classic.
And I can choose what chapters to put in it
and take out and blah, blah, blah.
Key word, not all schools let you print out the books.
So some of them you can't,
but I've done that in the past or my own personal notes
that I've typed out.
I prefer handwriting notes because it helps me remember.
When you write,
that's another benefit of having a paper book
because the studies have shown in medical history
the more you write, the more you are to remember.
If as an example,
let's say you had a dentist appointment on the 15th
and you got a call today and said,
hey, here's a reminder for your dentist appointment.
You're like, oh, let me put that in my phone.
You put in your phone totally forgot about it.
You know?
But if you have a planner that you're looking at
on a regular basis,
a paper planner that you're looking at on a regular basis
and you're writing stuff down all the time,
you're more likely to remember
about that 15th appointment than you are
if you write in your phone.
One of the things I want to put out there
is I know that everyone learns differently
and everyone can actually benefit
from different technology.
So we're not saying that you must be able
to use a paper planner in order to benefit.
For those of you who can get away with using digital,
that's your thing.
Nothing wrong with it at all.
We're only speaking to the benefits of paper.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And the thing is is because I do say things in my calendar.
I really do.
You know, I have like my work schedules
because there's times where I go out and about
and let's say, let's say I went out to a party
to my Billy Bob Joe's party and my family.
Okay?
I'm not going to have my purse with me most likely.
I'll probably have like my phone, my keys
and that's probably it when you go into a party.
You might have, you know, for women,
you might have a little bit of things.
You know, for a man, you might have
just your wallet and your phone, you know?
So it's good.
It is good to have some of them on your phone.
But primarily the down dirty and in between
is in this little book.
And personally for me,
it's not as easy to that stuff to get deleted.
You can't delete anything on a page.
I mean, you can erase it.
If you use a pencil, it can get lost.
But my biggest thing for why intentionally
choose paper is for security.
You're not hacking in to my paper book.
All right.
Now I can be careless and just leave it wide
open on the table and then leave the room.
You know what I mean?
So that can happen.
Yes, I'm not saying that you cannot be made vulnerable
due to just not taking care of your own property.
Responsibility.
You know, but ultimately I know whenever
I put secrets in this book and a hand write them in there,
I do not have to worry about rather not
that was over a secure connection.
You know what I mean?
Any of that nonsense, you know,
hey, was that was I actually on a VPN at the time
that I logged into my notebook?
Like no, I just actually opened it up
and get the job done to be on my way.
And you know, and I don't have to charge it,
which is another benefit.
When you have to charge your headphones,
your watch, your phone, you know,
everything else around you,
it feels good to just be able to take this thing out
right in it, close it, and it's there it is.
You know?
Mm-hmm.
Another good thing I was thinking,
I was talking about earlier about how you can buy
certain covers and all this stuff.
On Etsy, they sell if people are okay with Etsy.
But Etsy, they sell specific things.
Like if you look up disk bound planners
or planners in general on Etsy,
you can find a plethora of items on there to really help.
I actually.
I thought you had to be a woman to go on Etsy.
Ha, ha, ha.
I found some, they have like specific disks.
So they actually started making disks.
The Happy Planner has disks,
but they have like a heart through them
or they actually have a Disney version
where it's making mouse and all those other things.
But they actually started making solid ones,
which I prefer the solid ones.
They actually have some.
No real reason.
It's not functionality.
It's just preference.
It just looks better in my opinion.
That's the only reason.
It's like instead of wanting a flower cover
or a cover with hearts,
it's basically the difference of that.
Or how we are not going to rip your pages
and nothing like that.
No, it doesn't even touch the pages.
It's just literally a heart in the middle.
It's just for decoration purposes.
I prefer just the solid one just because
I like having it for all seasons and stuff.
And that's another thing that I've done.
You can get so many,
there's so many places where you can get these things.
I actually bought some products from Dollar Tree,
believe it or not.
And they have like,
it's like obviously an off brand
and you know, the pages are not as thick and everything.
But they're cute.
Like they're functional, you know, as well.
This all the disks.
Yes.
But again, remember,
they're not as good quality
because it is Dollar Tree.
But they have,
I have bought an actual planner from there.
And I did like kind of review myself.
And if I was on a budget
or I was trying to experiment
with the disk planner to see if I would like it or not,
they sell one of the planners.
There's no weeklies.
It's just all months.
And then they have like other packets with it.
So like you'll sell,
they'll sell,
there's the planner.
Then they'll sell the notes by themselves.
And then they'll,
they sold packets of the weeklies
and all of the et cetera, et cetera.
And even Dollar Tree has sheets of stickers
that have like make call,
appointment ads,
make things easier for your book.
So, you know, for people that don't have,
yeah, like for people that,
I don't have the,
I guess, ugliest handwriting.
But sometimes when I'm doing my planner,
I rate really quick.
So I do cursive with print often.
Yeah.
I've seen your terrible chicken scratch,
bubbly nonsense.
My handwriting is not chicken scratch.
You have room to talk.
But yes, I do do both.
And so sometimes when I'm doing my planner,
I look back and I'm like,
oh, this looks hideous.
And for you to be more willing to do things,
having those stickers makes things look more neat.
And when things are more neat,
they're more willing to use the item.
And I think that's why digital planning is so popular
because it looks neat.
It looks organized.
It looks x, y, z.
It's convenient.
It's in your hand, et cetera, et cetera.
But I like the feeling of I made this.
I did this.
But the one from Dollar Tree is not that bad.
I know they still sell them.
I actually saw them said I recently.
They also have,
they have great,
that's another thing.
A great pen is a really big deal.
Because...
Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned that.
We definitely need to talk about the pens.
Tell me,
what's your preferred pen for planners?
So let me say,
okay, so I'll talk for different stores.
So at Dollar Tree,
they have a set of three null points.
No, no, no.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Before you go into the different brands...
Uh-huh.
Are we talking specifically for notebook,
like writing,
or are we talking about for like doodling
or anything like that?
No, not doodling.
I want to doodle.
It's just for journaling
and for planning specifically.
Okay, all right, go ahead.
Okay, so if you are journaling,
just like actual writing, you know, I guess words,
and you have lined paper,
Bullpoint pen is the best,
okay?
Yes.
In my personal opinion.
Bullpoint pen is the best.
Bullpoint pen is the best that has a clicker on it.
Either a clicker or a turn.
For some reason,
the ones with caps,
the ink does something different.
It's like the ink isn't covered.
I don't know,
but in my opinion,
I feel like they leak too much.
Okay, now we're hidden in a fight
and we're as territory now.
You gotta be careful here.
I'm saying my opinion.
If you don't like it,
or if you prefer capped pens
and I'm all for it,
then,
but the ones at Walmart,
there's a pack of three
and it's Walmart's brand.
It is a clear pen that writes in black.
It is an fantastic,
cheaper option.
They're great pens,
but they do have a cap.
So it depends where you go.
The ones at Dollar Tree that have cap,
not great, in my opinion.
All right, I'm just going to put this out here
that she's totally wrong.
And believe nothing,
she has to say from this point forward.
That's what I feel like.
I have had so many pens
from Dollar Tree leak everywhere,
from just,
I don't know if it's pressure,
or it's not heat,
because...
Yeah, I was about to say,
how do you store your...
your beli-gruffles?
I have them in a pencil pouch.
Okay, all right.
Well, do you keep them
in proper temperatures as well?
Because that is another thing
during the winter time.
In our climate,
you know,
it sometimes drops below
and that can damage certain pens.
The ink separates
in there and all that kind of jazz,
as well as during the summertime,
when it's blistering hot,
you just leave them in a car
that could also cause changes in it.
Well, I go from my house
to the car to a building.
So whether it's school,
whether it's the front house,
whether it's X, Y, and Z,
so I don't leave...
When I have my planner,
99% of the time,
it is in my bag.
When I take it,
like right now,
it's sitting on my desk with me.
Right.
And my bag is sitting next to me,
next to my desk,
that have the ones,
because I have pens on my desk
that I use when I'm at my desk.
And then I have,
in my bag,
I keep those pens in that bag.
Correct.
So I don't have to,
you know,
use them there.
Yeah, I'm with you 100% there.
I was just mentioning that,
like, if you had a pen
that you just left in the car,
and it just stays in the car,
you know, in our climate,
like, no,
that's a terrible thing to do.
But for me,
when it comes to journaling,
the best that I have been able to use
and benefit from
is just your standard,
big ultra-rounding static grip
is just a simple,
very, very simple,
does not leak.
You don't get that extra spillage or anything.
You don't have to worry about dry times.
It's just fantastic.
And yes,
it does have a cap.
And I prefer having the cap, okay?
And I use multiple ink colors.
I'm a big man.
Don't get me wrong.
I try to go for big as often as I can,
because yeah,
it's just been reliable.
It's affordable.
And I haven't had problems with big,
but I have used other brands,
you know, inexpensive brands
that I just wanted to try out,
especially when it went by a colored ink,
because I write in markdown.
So I use a markdown format,
even in my handwritten journals.
So whenever I get to explain markdown,
what do you mean by that?
Markdown is basically a note-taking format on EC,
on a digital note-taking format,
or how you would space
and begin lines.
I'll use some links to that as well,
because I don't think I ever actually talk to you about markdown.
But it is basically just formatting.
Okay.
Yeah, I do a lot of different colors as well.
Like, that's my thing as well.
So, I mean, I'm a girly girl,
so I have like pink and purple,
and yellow, and blue,
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like, I have all the different colors.
Yes.
And I use that.
And I get all of them.
And I use that as well.
Yeah, and I use that as well.
I always, the reason why I have all the colors that I use them
is because I don't want to just stick to one color,
and then that one starts to go down too much
and then to run out.
So then you get, you know,
I just, depending on what the issue is,
I want to make sure that that issue is
a different color that needs to be spotted immediately
when I look at the page,
so it doesn't really matter which color it is.
In the beginning, I attempted
to identify certain situations
with a specific color,
but ultimately, as long as the root thing
is a different color, you know, it's fine.
So, I was trying to think of the brand
that they have at Walmart,
so I just quickly googled it to see the brand.
It's called RSVP.
It's a pack of two pens,
and it's a dollar for two.
It's technically 96 cents.
It is, well, from where we are.
It has a cap, like I was saying earlier,
the one at Walmart is good.
The ones that at Dollar Tree specifically
are not the ones with caps I didn't like.
They're like the clear ones with like the black cap
that are like, you know,
they sell like a hundred
and a pack for a book or something crazy.
Those ones are really good.
The RSVP ones, those ones are really good.
What I recommend for journaling
and for any planning,
I know this might trigger some people.
No gel pens,
gel pens, leak gel pens,
bleed through pages,
probably not the happy planner pages
that are thicker,
but they run the dry time everything.
Even after they're dry,
you close the page
and you just move the book
and it's like smeared
and after your page is like black now
and it just tear.
Exactly.
So my opinion is no gel pens,
but they do have sharpie
came out with a new pen.
Nothing.
And it is technically a marker,
but it is a pen
and it's like it has no dry time at all.
It does not bleed
through the happy planner pages.
There's no bleed through it.
It is fantastic.
It's more expensive though.
That's the thing.
If you're talking about more expensive,
then those are more expensive.
What's the millimeter on that thing?
Oh, God.
There's no idea.
No idea.
I think it's like 0.7 maybe?
Okay.
0.7 is okay.
I don't do anything
greater than the 0.7.
Yeah.
I think it's 0.7, I believe.
Those are not bad.
Yeah.
I don't...
That's another thing
for journaling specifically.
0.7 is probably the bar park.
Like 0.7 to probably 0.9.
Okay.
They have other pens
that are like that.
You're basically talking
crayon at that point.
They do have pens
that are like 1.4
and those are technically ballpoint pens.
Wow.
But they are just too thick
for me in my personal opinion.
If you want to be able to write
and make things neat,
I recommend 0.7 size
ballpoint.
Yeah.
0.7.
And I use to be able to get away.
It's good.
Whenever you're doing something
like a college rule
and you got that fine space,
you can go with a 0.5 in there
to make the best of it.
Or if you're dealing with a lot of math
and equations,
so you're doing like super and subscript
that kind of thing.
0.5 is great.
But for journaling,
0.7 is like that sweet spot
really ideal.
And I don't know
about this 0.9 business.
She's talking about,
I'm thinking about calling the cops now
and she's talking about this.
But, you know, yeah.
You are just a hater
because I made fun of your cap
pens.
Well, I'm going to stand by
my cap pens
because they're fantastic.
And I recommend them for everyone.
Now, I will also point out
Uniball also makes some decent.
Here's the thing.
These Uniball has a,
I don't know the brand name
of this.
I know they make the 7-0-2's,
the Signia 7-0-2's,
which has fantastic grip,
but they're gel.
They feel so comfortable in the hand,
but they cannot use it for journaling,
especially any kind of contracting work
or anything like that
because they leak
and it just paint.
I remember back when,
when I was doing
a union work back in the day
and we were, you know,
going over TAs and things
of that nature
and just checking off things
or whatever
and shuffling paper around,
you just,
you had this very comfortable,
wonderful pen,
but it was ruining everything.
And it was just like,
ten disaster.
Yes, it's a shame
for it to be that comfortable
and such a wonderful pen,
but man is just terrible.
So my recommendation
for gel pens personally,
like specifically gel pens,
is only use them
when they're not going to be
in contact with another sheet of paper,
then it's fine.
Like, if you
and also to be honest,
anyone that's left-handed,
because when you're left-handed,
you're going to constantly wipe
over when you're writing,
because you're writing
from left to right
and you're literally
your whole hand is going to smear
over the ink constantly.
So if you're going to journal,
you're going to close the book
and no matter if you leave your open page,
I feel like it never dries.
And then you're constantly
going to be smearing it
as you're writing.
With right-handed,
we're not smearing it.
With gel pen,
it's just gel pens
or gel pens are made for coloring.
My opinion.
You give them to your children
to color in their book.
That's about it.
I remember having gel pens
as a kid that had sparkles in them,
like glitter.
I'm going to find the name
of this other
uniball type pen.
It's not a gel pen,
but it writes really well,
like it flows really well,
but again,
I would not recommend it
for serious journaling
just because of dry time.
With this one,
it's not so aggressive
as a gel pen,
where it's just like,
no matter what you do,
this damn thing is never
going to dry,
just screw it
if you ever close it.
You know what I mean?
But this,
I can't,
I'm looking for the box
in my file cabinet,
because I know I bought
a brand new pack
of the black one.
I keep black and blue
as the primaries,
and then I have one
pack of color
that I keep with me as well
for the other colors.
But I also have a small ruler.
I bought the
staple cells
this small ruler pack
that comes with a
tractor, a straight ruler,
and a few, you know,
angled ruler,
all of that stuff,
like 90-something cents.
So I keep it,
yeah, I keep that
with me.
So when I'm actually,
but, you know,
drawing in my,
in my book to,
to better organize it,
because when it's just a note book,
it doesn't come categorized.
You got to create
your own categories
and everything in there.
So,
that's why I have that.
And having a pen
that flows really well
to actually draw a quick line
that'll dry in reasonable time.
And that's why I wanted to,
I like this pen,
but I can't find a box
where I can give you the name.
But I'll look for it online
and leave a link in the show notes.
All right, ladies and gentlemen,
that'll do it for part one.
Stay tuned for part two,
where Bumblebee and I continue
the conversation.
I apologize for the abrupt end.
However,
the show was becoming
incredibly long,
and I feel like
to better serve you all,
you will be best to
cut it as best I can
into two parts.
So, this is part one,
you will be
offered part two,
a little bit later on
on the schedule.
Thank you once again.
Take it easy.
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