Login
At the beginning of the year, I posted about my planner set-up for the year which included the Midori B6 Pocket Planner in the Clover design ($23.50, out of stock but a Birds edition is still available) tucked into my leather B6 cover from Bassy & Co ($81 and up) with my Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 Days ($21) everyday planner and note-taking notebook.
Since the beginning of the year, the pockets of my planner have become filled with an assortment of stickers, postage stamps and washi tape. I’ve gotten into collaging on my daily pages so having a few stickers to add along the way is a great option.
I am still loving the B6 size for my planner. It’s not as small as an A6, which I often felt like I needed more than one-page-per-day, but not as intimidating as an A5 which always seemed like too much space and too large a notebook to tote around everyday. If you haven’t tried B6 yet, I highly recommend it as the Goldilocks of notebooks.
This image above shows that I’ve filled about 2/3rds of the Stalogy daily planner and evidence of collage-y bits can be seen from the edge.
I added the Midori pen clip to the back of the Stalogy at the beginning of the year and have managed to keep it for six whole months without losing it. Good news since my rare Sailor ProGear Slim Stargazer has been riding around in the loop all year.
I mark my place each month and each day with the Midori gold Chiratto Index Clips ($8.50 for 8 clips). It makes getting to my current spot fast and easy.
I’m getting some mileage with the monthly pages to keep track of silly holidays like Graham Cracker Day (July 5), travel, pen shows and birthdays and such but I am not using the week-on-two-pages like I thought I would.
I had thought I would utilize the page on the right of the week-on-two-pages in the Midori for work-related tasks and notes but I have ended up keeping a notebook at work for these tasks and the pages go largely unused. Its extra sad because I really like the paper in the Midori Pocket Planner and the little illustrations throughout are cheery.
The only creature in my house that uses the ribbon bookmark is Apple. He thinks it’s delicious.
In the Stalogy, on days without a lot of activities (like a Sunday when you discover you have Covid-19), I have started adding collage elements with washi, stickers and some rubber stamps. I also bought a Polaroid Mint mini-printer to add the occasional photo to my planner.
I often treat my planner more like a log book of what I did, what I ate, where I went, who I saw, what I read, watch or listened to, etc. so adding photos in is a good way to log activities. If you want to be able to add photos to your journal or planner, many people recommend the Canon Ivy which is currently available. The Polaroid Mint has been discontinued. Both the Mint and the Ivy use Zink 2″ x 3″ printer paper. The color output is not great but the printer uses instant film technology and the printers don’t need ink cartridges making it a little easier to use. So, it makes fun, little retro-looking images that add some much-needed personality to my planner.
Usually, on Sundays, I try to pre-decorate a few pages. Since I am doing a (sort of) page-a-day for my planner/journal/logbook I just add a few decorative elements to add some interest for the week but I am not locked into using a whole page for one day. Some days, I might use two or more pages. I’ve found this open method so much easier for me since there is no pressure from day-to-day. Some days are super busy and active, and some days I skip altogether.
I don’t know how to solve for the largely unused Midori Pocket Planner. I thought about removing the monthly pages and pasting them into the Stalogy but I would want the whole year’s worth of calendar pages so where doe I put them? In the back altogether? At the beginning of each month but what about later months?
I would like to streamline a little bit but I haven’t figured out the best way to do that. As it is right now, the book is quite chonky so I suspect I will try to reduce the bulk I carry on a daily basis a bit.
How’s your planning/journal/notebook set-up serving you? Have you needed to switch it up?
Apple insisted on hanging out with me while I photographed this post so he wanted to put his paw stamp on this post. It’s “Apple-approved.”
The post Mid-Year Planner Review appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Another sample that I picked up at the California Pen Show from the Plotter/Traveler’s table was a Plotter Plain 003 Card Size Refill Memo Pad ($4.50 each). This tiny little glue bound pad with wraparound paper cover is just 2.1″ × 3.6″ (55mm X 91mm) which is just a tiny bit wider than a standard US business card (usually 2″ x 3.5″). Each sheet is punched with 3 holes to fit into your Plotter cover (or similar style ring binder).
Each Refill Memo Pad contains 80 sheets of DP paper, “DP paper” is an abbreviation for “Designphil Pocketbook paper”. The note on the Plotter USA web site says this paper is specially designed but isn’t specific as to whom it is specially designed. Is it just for the Plotter product line? Is it paper made especially to be used across all the DesignPhil products? Regardless, the paper is a cream color with a nice tooth.
Bob, the printmaker and paper genius, said “it has a lovely eggshell finish. Though some might call it an antique finish.” Thanks, paper genius for the detailed info. The DP Paper is 60gsm so it is thin and lightweight but maintains the properties we love about Japanese paper. It’s fountain pen friendly and shows sheen beautifully.
From the back of the sheet, there is no show though or bleedthrough. The paper held up beautifully. And due to their small size, these little sheets would be perfect for lists, to-dos and other notes. I think I might carry this tiny little pad in my pocket at pen shows for pen testing and notes. Often folks will ask for the name of an ink or other item we don’t have at the show so it would be nice to write it down on a sheet of paper smell enough to fit in their pocket or into their journal later.
Just for scale, I put the test sheet next to a Col-o-ring. The Plotter card size is a bit wider and a bit shorter than a Col-o-ring but it will give you a sense of scale.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Plotter USA for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Notebook Review: Plotter 03 Plain Card Size appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
While at the California Pen Show, I was able to score a few samples from the Traveler’s/Plotter table. Not that I needed any Traveler’s Notebook samples. I’ve been a loyal fan of Traveler’s for …. hmmmm… over a decade now! But it was a delight to revisit some of the classic refills. Because Traveler’s is part of the Midori product family, much of the paper included in the refills is Midori but I often forget that. This particular sample, a “Refill for a Short Trip” in Passport Size. This insert only include 32 pages compared to the regular Passport inserts that feature 64 pages but features the same high quality Midori MD paper in the cream color.
The Midori MD Cream paper has a slight tooth to it making it good for all around use and it stands up to pretty much any pen you can throw at it. I had no issues with feathering, even with my Pilot Custom 912 with the FA nib.
It’s a thinner paper so there is some show through but no bleed through at all. I have a soft spot for the Midori MD Cotton and Midori MD Light, so much so that I had forgotten how good the standard Midori MD paper was. Honestly, I don’t think there’s much more I can say about Midori MD paper that hasn’t been said already but its nice to take another look at the classics. They are classics for a reason. Thanks for the sample, Traveler’s Company, and for reminding me that I love this paper!
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Traveler’s Company USA for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Notebook Review: Traveler’s Short Trip Passport Size appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
Last week I reviewed the Midori MD 70th Anniversary set of seven notebooks and I had a lot of fun thinking about all the ways I could put them to good use. I knew I didn't want to split up the set--the rainbow stitching is everything! Normally I'd use them for school, but I'm in my last two classes now--there are no future semesters to save them for! But the thing I'm most excited about being done with school is returning to full-time writing.
Being an author really means running a small business and there can be a lot to keep track of. I have, in the past, used one notebook to track all my writerly business, but they fill up fast when you're keeping busy. Enter a big set of seven lovely notebooks...
Also enter the fabulous Lochby Field Journal, which is robust enough to contain this ambitious plan.
I assigned each of the notebooks to a different aspect of writerly business: Deadline and submission tracking, listing and outlining ideas, jotting down bits of story drafts, making notes about critiques and edits, listing publication and contract details, notes about the craft of writing, and keeping track of the classes I teach or readings/signings, etc.
Keeping track of deadlines is important for obvious reasons, but it will be helpful to keep them listed in one place, alongside due dates for other open calls for submissions that look interesting. That way I can glance at that list and make a more informed decision about how busy I am when I'm approached for a project. Since many deadlines can be six months to a year out, tracking them on a calendar isn't a good way to get an overview. This way I'll have a list I can reference to confirm that I should definitely not take on any more work in the month of April! I can also keep track of where I send work and when. Some publishers don't send rejections--you're meant to assume you were rejected after not hearing back after a certain amount of time passes, so it's important to know when that time is. Most publishers also don't allow you to submit the same work more than once, so it's crucial to keep track of where you've sent each piece.
Keeping track of ideas is also important. Ideas are everywhere, and some are more demanding than others. Sometimes a good idea tries to butt in when I'm working on something else that has a due date and I don't have time to set it aside to focus on the shiny new idea. I've always kept an idea notebook, so this isn't a new one for me, but hopefully this will help me keep them in better order. They do tend to show up on the backs of receipts or scribbled in the margins of school notes. Sometimes I need a place to just jot down a single-sentence concept, and sometimes I need to write the whole outline. This book will hold both/either.
If whole sections of a story jump into my head, but they aren't ready to be fully written yet, I need a place to write down that bit until I'm ready for it. That will go in the next notebook, Draft Bits. Stories often come to me out of order, so this is a place where I can write scenes down when I need to come back to them.
I am part of a monthly critique group, as well as a more sporadic workshop, so I need a place to write down the feedback I receive on my work, as well as any ideas I have for edits to a piece. The Critique and Edit Notes notebook will be the home for that info.
Publication information goes in the next one. This is where I'll keep track of contract terms (Do I retain audio rights to this story or does the publisher? When does the exclusive printing period end? Is it a flat rate payment or are their royalties to track?). This way I won't have to go combing through contract files every time I want to reprint a piece.
In the next notebook, I'll record bits of wisdom about the craft of writing. When I attend panels or author talks, I like to write down anything educational or interesting, or notes about what particular editors are looking for in work submitted to them.
In the last notebook, I'll keep track of my own gigs--when I lead workshops or teach classes, do readings, speak on panels, do interviews, or appear on podcasts. I haven't always been good at tracking that, and then a friend mentioned how important that info is for a potential CV if I ever want to get a teaching job or archive my work. This will give me a good way to plan for and track all those appearances.
To cram all this content into one notebook cover, I used skills gleaned from Traveler's Notebook journalers. I used sewing thread (because that's what I had--I'll get elastics eventually) to tie notebooks 1 and 3 together, with the back cover of 1 and the front cover of 3 facing each other. Then I slid notebook 1 through the first elastic on the Lochby so that the elastic fit between the two notebooks, holding them by the threads. Then I slid notebook 2 through that same elastic at its halfway point. I repeated that process by tying notebooks 4 and 6 together, sliding them though another elastic, and then putting notebook five on that same elastic between them. Notebook 7 is on its own elastic at the end. They all fit quite well! There's enough movement that each notebook is still easy to write in, and there's even still room for me to stuff a bunch of writing note scraps in the pockets of the notebook cover. The thick spine and adjustable clasp on the Lochby are my friend, here.
I'm eagerly anticipating the shift from writing research papers to writing more stories and novels. I've still written a handful, but not nearly as much as I want. For the past two years, the notebook that's been filling up fastest is the one where I list all the ideas I don't have time to write. I'm excited to start filling up all these notebooks, replacing the inserts, and filling those up, too. 93 more days. (In fact, my last ever day of class is the first day of the Chicago Pen Show.) I'm so ready.
Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.
Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!
With January almost over, it probably seems a little late to consider a planner. However, if you are ike me, you might have waited to make a decision or discovered that you needed something your current planner wasn’t delivering. This is where the Midori B6 Pocket Diary in Clover Design (currently on sale for $21) comes in.
I had been trying to do all my planning freeform in a B6 Stalogy notebook but I realized I had not built in any “future planning” for myself. I don’t mean lofty 5-year goals or anything as grandiose as that. I mean I didn’t have those month-at-a-glance pages in my Stalogy unless I drew them all out myself. Color me lazy but I realized a small pocket diary/planner could be added into my notebook cover that would provide me with a place for those planning pages. Things like birthdays, holidays, trips and other events that are not happening today. My Stalogy is for tracking the daily to-do’s — go to post office, print outs for meeting today, etc. But the sort of bird’s eye view pages weren’t there. The “I have X weeks before this project is due and I’ll be out of town for these days so….” view that a monthly calendar or a week-on-a-page can provide.
So, I went searching for planner/diaries that were still available. Trust me when I say by the middle of January the pickin’s get pretty slim. I lucked out (pun intended) when I found the Midori B6 Pocket Diary.
First, it fits into my leather cover and is the same size as my Stalogy so I can corral both books together and flip back and forth between my daily page in the Stalogy and the weekly or monthly view in the Midori.
Second, the paper quality is excellent. I know the expectation with Midori is that the paper will be fountain pen friendly but because of the size and cute graphics, I thought the paper quality might have been skimped on. Nope. Lovely paper. The paper is slightly ivory colored and the right hand page on the weekly pages is lined with light grey lines that don’t bother me too much.
The paper works well with my finer nib fountain pens which are appropriate for the small spaces available to write notes. I’m not going to use a big fat nib to try to write holidays and birthdays in the boxes on the monthly calendar but the paper withstood the ink just the same, if I needed to.
Third, the die cut tabs for the months is super convenient and makes flipping around to different months fast and efficient.
Finally, I am actually kind of charmed by the graphics. I bought the Clover designs because I like the color green but was worried that the graphics would be too busy of cutesy. After using the planner for a couple weeks, I actually like the designs. Each month has an animal featured. January is a pig, May is a deer. I am not sure what that means but I find the artwork cute and adds a bit more color to the largely green pages.
I would actually consider purchasing one of the other designs. The Birds design or the Vehicles design are particularly fun.
Should you decide to use the Midori Pocket Diary without a cover, it does ship with a plastic slipcover over the softcovers to provide durability. Overall, I think the Mirodi Pocket Diary is a good value with a lot of great features. If you miss out on ht remaining stock of 2023 editions, be sure to put a 2024 on your wish list.
DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were provided free of charge for the purpose of review. Some items were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Planner Review: Midori 2023 Pocket Diary B6- Clovers appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
Midori paper is some of the best out there, and this 70th Anniversary Limited Edition set of the MD Light notebooks is a lovely celebration of that legacy.
The set includes 7 of their A5 notebooks. The cover is light cardstock in a cream color, and the paper is ivory. The notebooks are bound with different colors of threading that can be seen along the spine, and the grid pattern inside the pages matches the thread color, which was an exciting surprise. The grids are well printed, so they are visible in the light colors and not too obtrusive in the dark colors. It's the perfect balance. The colorful grid lines also don't add any distraction when writing, though I admit I'm tempted to coordinate my pen and ink colors to the notebook's color. But that just makes it more fun.
The grid is 5mm with 10mm marks along the edge for extra guidance. It works well as a typical grid, for outlines and lists, but can also be used as lined paper for writing at either the 5mm or 10mm marks. The grid is heavy enough, though, that it can't be easily ignored. It doesn't fade into the background like some do. But it isn't meant to--this is a birthday party notebook!
The colors are dark red, sepia brown, yellow, green, light blue, navy blue, and purple. The notebooks come in a sturdy cardboard sleeve that can also work as a storage box. The set comes with a label and number sticker for each notebook.
The Midori MD paper is one of my favorites to use. It holds up well to almost any writing utensil. Sharpie bleeds through, but all fountain pen ink does very well, with no bleeding or feathering and very little ghosting. It's a pleasure to write on, and the colorful grids in this edition make it even more fun. Each notebook has 32 sheets, and since you can easily use both sides of the page with this paper, that gives you 64 pages per notebook, or 448 pages in the whole box.
The cost of this set is $45.50 at JetPens, which is a great value for the number of quality pages you receive. There's enough here to write a whole book, or a year's worth of class notes, or seven months of daily pages... Endless possibilities. Happy 70th, Midori!
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.
Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!
FreshRSS