Papio Press... Quick Update

Yesterday, I posted a review of the Papio Press A6 notebooks (see here for details) and noted that although the packaging indicated that there was one lined and one plain in the pack, actually, I had two plain notebooks. I had no problem at all with that, but mentioned it to Stuart, from Pocketnotebooks (who had sent me the books) and he mentioned it to Harry, from Papio Press.

I was out all day today, helping my Mum get to hospital etc. and jokingly said to my hubby on the way home, "I hope I have good post today!"

Well, I did!

When I got in, I had a parcel I wasn't expecting, with some lovely labels on the front (there's a sticker hiding my name and address...). Apologies for the quality of the pictures - it was late when I took them and the light was almost gone.

Unexpected parcel...

Anyway, when I opened it, I found a fabulous surprise from Harry at Papio Press...

Inside...

A replacement set of notebooks, a handwritten card apologising for the original pack not being quite right and a freebie 2017 calendar as an apology (none of which had been needed at all!).

Front of the card

Note to me on the card

Front of the calendar
(sorry for the flash flare)

Label in the calendar showing the contents
(again, sorry for the flash flare)

It was a really lovely surprise and a super touch. Thank you!!

Papio Press A6 notebooks - Review

Tigers by Papio Press

I'm delighted that Pocketnotebooks.co.uk has given me a couple of notebooks by Papio Press to review. These are a new stock for Pocketnotebooks.co.uk and Papio Press are a UK producer.

Small notebooks tend to fall into four main camps, as far as I can tell - functional but not terribly pretty; not all that functional nor all that pretty; pretty but not all that functional; and pretty and functional. Which camp would these A6 notebooks land in?

Well, you can tell from their covers that they have to be in one of the pretty camps! The team behind them - Harry and Zanna Goldhawk - are illustrators and the covers are just delightful. But, would they be functional as well as so easy on the eye?

New Traveller's Notebook Cover

I know. I possibly don't really need another one, but... I finished my next book and wanted to reward myself. Good enough reason, right? And because the next book is about to go off to publishers, I 'needed' a cover to hold the books I'll use to track how the submissions go. You all understand.

I'd been hankering after another one from Meadowgate Leather - see this post to see which one. Unfortunately, the owner is unwell at the moment and his Etsy shop is closed. I will no doubt order the one I want once he's back to full health and the shop is taking orders again.

In the interim, I saw one in the Etsy shop Inspired Journal. I can't see the exact same one there now, but this one is very close.
These are the pictures from the Etsy listing of the one I bought:

Anyway, it arrived recently and it's beautiful! It has no pockets or anything - just a leather cover with a leather lining (i.e. two pieces of leather stitched together). It's a sand colour - more yellow/orange than the picture above (gorgeous) and has a red and white elastic closure and the same for holding the booklets (the same as is shown above). There are four elastics inside. The elastic for holding the booklets is too thick for the job and I will swap it out for some narrower red or black elastic. The size is almost A5 - it's designed to hold Moleskine cahiers, but they're horrible, so I'll either make my own booklets for it from some paper and card cut down to size, or I'll trim up some A5 booklets. I tried two A5 slim notebooks in it and they weren't too bad, so I may stick with them.

Anyway, here are pictures of mine (click to enlarge):

Exterior:

Gorgeous colour!

Interior:

The 3mm thick elastics are too thick

With booklets in (probably not the final booklets - these are my diary and notebook from my everyday TN):

It really is a beautiful cover. It's on the floppier side, so if you prefer a firm cover it possibly isn't for you, but the workmanship is wonderful. The seller was very helpful and shipping was reasonable and didn't take too long (just under two weeks from Indonesia to Scotland).

Washi

As many of you may already know, I'm not the kind of person to decorate my planner all that much. I like it fairly clear of decorations, stickers, washi etc. So it might seem surprising for me to be doing a post on washi tape.

I actually have huge numbers of rolls of washi tape! Some of it is patterned and could well be used to decorate a planner, but what I want to focus on today are the kinds of tapes that make up the majority of my collection and what I use them for. In the pictures below, there are some of my new purchases and some that I've had for a while.

Spotlight Stationery January Box - Review

I've been a subscriber to Spotlight Stationery's boxes for a year now. I sometimes skip a box, not because they're not excellent, but because, frankly, I already have so much stationery that I could probably set up my own subscription service!

I really like the Spotlight Stationery boxes because they have sensible stationery in them. They're not full of 'cute' things or lots of rolls of washi tape; they contain notebooks, pens, pencils and cards. Not that I don't love washi, but I like to choose that for myself.

The contents of the boxes are kept secret until delivery so it's always a surprise to see what's in the box. Each box has a theme and some of the money goes to support a charity. The current charity is Gloucestershire Young Carers. Each month, there is a selection of four postcards from new illustrators.

The latest box to arrive dropped through my letterbox at the end of January. The theme was textured finishes.

So, what was inside??

My Planning System (2017) -Part 3: Putting it all together

Over the last few posts, I've told you what paper-based items I'm using for planning 2017 and given you a bit more detail about each of them. I realise it was a huge amount of information and probably seemed impossible to follow. So, here is a walk-through of what I do each quarter, month, week, day. Some of you might feel that doing something daily, weekly and monthly is over-kill. Quite a bit of me wonders if it isn't too much at times too, but, this is the system that has (mostly) kept me on track for the last 5 years and maybe some of you will find it helps you too. If it doesn't, no problem! Every one's unique.

My Planning System (2017) - Part 2: Weeks to Days

In this post, I outlined what I would be using in 2017 for planning. These are:

• A book outlining Goals to Projects to Next Actions
• A monthly planner
• My TN with a week + notes diary and a notebook in it
• An A6 Clairefontaine notebook for day planning

In the last post, I gave a bit more detail on the first two elements of my planning system. Today, I'll outline how the last these parts fit together.

My system is essentially the same as it was in this post, but with different paper-based products to achieve the same results! (Incidentally, that post is my most popular post by a country mile!! At the time of writing, it had well over 45 000 hits!).

At close of play yesterday, I had outlined how I got from Goals and Projects to Next Actions and a Plan for the Month. How does this then relate to the other two parts: the TN and the A6 Clairefontaine?

My Planning System (2017) - Part 1: Monthly Planning

In my last post, I outlined what I would be using in 2017 for planning. These are:

• A book outlining Goals to Projects to Next Actions
• A monthly planner
• My TN with a week + notes diary and a notebook in it
• An A6 Clairefontaine notebook for day planning

In this post, I'll outline how the first of these parts fit together into my planning system. This is essentially the same as it was in this post, but with different paper-based products to achieve the same results! (Incidentally, that post is my most popular post by a country mile!! At the time of writing, it had well over 45 000 hits!).

The core of my system is exactly the same as it was in that post, published almost 5 years ago. I have a set of life-areas, and within those life-areas have a set of goals and those goals are broken down to projects. The steps needed to achieve the project are then listed as  next actions.

One thing I've not been good at and need to reinstate, is having the following, clearly visible when I am working on these goals and projects.

Is it my dream?
Is it essential?

Time is finite

When I first posted about my system, my life areas were: Writing, Health and Happiness, Chimwemwe and (Work) with work in brackets as it wasn't really anything I wanted to do, but had to learn how to live with. I have since left that job (hooray!) and so my life-areas are just the three now. Within Health and Happiness there are a number of areas (exercise, social life etc.) but those are the three things that I want to spend time and effort on.

How these goals to next actions are then dealt with, takes a bit of time to explain. Grab a cuppa!

What will I be using in 2017?

I've pretty much settled into a system now and so I'm all set up, ready to go for 2017. In this post, I'll tell you about the components of the system; in the next post, I'll show you how it all fits together.

The System:
One carry-around. This is my Meadowgate TN and it contains a week + notes diary, a monthly insert and a notebook
An A6 daily planner
A separate notebook with Goals to Projects to Next Actions.
An A5 day per page diary to write up my day in

Back in a Ciak (again...)

A5 day per page Ciak diary

Most years, I've had an A5 Ciak which I've used as a daily diary/journal. It's not used for planning, but used to record the day and also my thoughts. One year I made the terrible, terrible mistake of buying a Moleskine. I still shudder when I think about 2013.

2014 saw me back in a Ciak, as did 2015. This year, I won a Quo Vadis Forum page per day diary. I've been struggling womanfully through the year with it (see this post and this post for how well/badly it's been going). I won't buy another though. It's been okay to record highlights of the day and a quick summary, but what I really want is somewhere to not only do that, but reflect on the day too. I used to do that in the Ciaks and will go back to it next year.

As ever, I got my Ciak from The Journal Shop (no affiliation, just a happy customer). I was amazed to see that they were only £4.99 when I got mine. And... I had a 20% off code so in fact, I got it for £4 which is just amazing! They are normally about £15 and seemed to be back up to about £13 when I next looked.

Why do I love the Ciaks so much? The paper quality isn't fabulous and back in 2012, it was the paper quality that pushed me to a Moleskine (which was then even worse than the Ciak). I'll try it out, but I'm not convinced it will cope with fountain pen, but then I'm not sure there are many A5, day per page that do cope with fountain pen. Ciak seems to have stopped claiming that it's okay for fountain pen.

One thing that I demand from a diary/journal is that Saturday and Sunday each have their own page and don't get forced to share a page!

Separate days for Saturday and Sunday

I also love the horizontal elastic closure which is snug enough to hold a pen against the edge of the pages.

All in all, I'm pretty happy to be back in a Ciak for 2017.