Triplus Fineliners

As part of my foray into bullet journalling, I have bought a set of Staedtler Triplus Fineliners. The set I bought has 12 colours in a magnetic 'magic' case. More on the case in a moment.

The pens:
The colours in the set I bought are a nice selection:

They (as expected) have both vibrant colours and a fine line. Here are the colours written out on ~A6 Clairefontaine paper, which shows off their colours well (and after all, I am mostly using Clairefontaine in my bullet journalling).

The case:
The case is a strange thing. I find the catch to open it very stiff (and on a couple of occasions have jemmied it open with a ruler). Once it's open, it can be folded back on itself so that the top and the base are now in contact and then you can keep rotating the two bits and open it out and the pens are now on the other sides.

Closed

Back to back

Opened - with the two sides swapped

While this is quite fun, I do find getting the pens in and out of the case difficult as the clips for the pens are quite firm. It also takes up a lot of real-estate and so I've transferred all of the pens into my pencil case. The case they came in is okay, but it's too bulky and stiff for my taste. However, the pens were the cheapest in this form!

I'm using them for colour-coding the to-do/next actions in my journal/planner, but if you have been bitten by the adult colouring books craze, they would be fabulous as the ink flows well, the tip is very fine and the colours are generally strong.

All in all, I think they were a good purchase and have helped with the colour-coding in my bullet journal.

[If you buy them from the link below, I get a few pennies.]

More playing with bullet journalling

The bit of my planning that's been falling down recently has been my day planning/weekly list (which is another reason why I'm contemplating a shift towards more bullet journalling type stuff).

I've been using the ABP2 day per page from Quo Vadis as my day planner. It sucks. I've tried to like it, I really have (see here for the most positive I've been...), but those teeny tiny spaces (3.5mm to a line... 3.5!) are defeating me. When I get back from my holiday, I'm going to move to using a pocket (9cm x 14cm) grid Clairefontaine and do a combination of bullet journalling and day planning in a view. I shall do my morning brain dump into the RHS (which I will also use as general bullet journalling space) and then plan my day in the LHS, using time-boxing. The grid is 5mm so I shall have 10mm per hour instead of 7mm - only a small difference, but a significant one!

Image taken from www.bureaudirect.co.uk

It's a much smaller footprint on my desk too - 14cm x 18cm c.f. 17cm x4cm - but with pretty much double the usable space. In my weekly planning session, I'll add tasks to the appropriate day (the way I used to with the ABP2). Each morning I'll then do a brain dump, adding to that list, before planning my day on the LHS. The A6 Clairefontaine is also small enough for me to shove in a pocket if I do actually move away from my desk (which, in fairness, doesn't happen all that often).

Planning on the LHS; space for bullet journal/lists on RHS

In the past, I've bought these little books from Bureau Direct (no affiliation just a perennially happy customer!). You used to be able to buy them singly, but it seems as if they are only available in packs of 10 now, which is a shame for those wanting to just try them out. They have 96 pages, are fountain pen friendly and really cheap! See the listing here. I'm not really one to keep day to day planning - once the day is gone, I don't need the plan, so I won't feel at all upset to toss these once they're full. My writing buddy (Stuart) gifted me 30 of these small notebooks (Go Stu!!) so I have some to be working my way through!

I may possibly have (as in, I have) bought a pack of Staedtler Triplus pens too, in an attempt to pretty the thing up in some way... more on it all when I come back from my holidays!

Bullet Journalling... the notebook

In my last post (you can read it here... it opens in a new window) I said that I was going to try out a modified form of bullet journalling as a way to try and keep track of long-term goals and plans. I finished the post saying I now just needed to choose a notebook for this.

It probably won't come as any great surprise to those who know me, that I've gone for an A5 Leuchtturm notebook. There are a number of reasons:

1. I have a few of them in the stationery emporium, waiting to be used
2. They have space for an index at the front, ready made
3. The pages are numbered already
4. There is a space for filling in the date on each page (though I may not always use it for that, but for indicating the topic instead)
5. They are fairly fountain pen friendly (though there is always some ghosting/show through)

I've not done much with it yet, as I am about to go on holiday (before the madness of the book launch starts...), other than label up the life-areas and fill in the index for the pages used so far. I'm going to take it away on holiday with me and fill in some of it there.

Pictures when I come back!

Dipping my toe into Bullet Journalling...

Hello all you lovely patient people who amazingly still follow this blog, even though I haven't posted anything like as much as I've wanted to recently... It's all The Wrong Kind of Clouds' fault, and my author blog over at www.amandafleet.co.uk!

Anyway, recently, I've been chatting to my lovely friend Helen (*waves*) about my lack of ability to manage my long term plans. I drew up a plan for the year, way back in January, which charted, week by week, what I was hoping to get done. The big problems have been that a) I'm evidently rubbish at guestimating time for projects, b) a whole heap of other stuff came up that I hadn't budgeted for, c) I only put writing plans on it and none of the other life-areas (which were still getting done and still taking up time...) so it wasn't a great representation of life, and d) my levels of productivity and levels of procrastination have swapped roles and I've been b*ggering about too much!

This has really struck home now that Q1 is finished and I'm supposed to be drawing up Q2 plans and thinking about something other than publishing The Wrong Kind of Clouds (which, admittedly, has taken over my life a bit...). I genuinely have no real idea what I'm supposed to be trying to do in Q2, beyond my writing goals and wishing I were a bit thinner and a bit faster at running.

My current planning system (I use the term loosely!) is working okay (ish!) for week to week stuff, but isn't really doing much beyond that and is getting a bit scattered, too. I know how to fix that (and more on that in another post) but I'm really not doing well on my longer-term goals.

So...

I may have a go at a modified version of bullet journalling. Modified in that it will really only be long-term stuff in it and not the daily log aspects.

The sorts of things I think I will have in the notebook are:

• Index
• Year goals for each life area on a LHS with quarterly goals arising from these on the RHS of a spread (one double spread for each life area)
• Monthly goals (broken down into life areas; drawn up month by month, rather than in advance)
• Monthly reviews (done just before drawing up the goals for the next month)
• Quarterly reviews 

There probably won't be any weekly planning in there, because that will still get done in my week + notes diary in my TN, using my long term goals as guidance. That said, if I get into the bullet journalling, maybe I will embrace the whole lot and do yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and day stuff in there.

Now... just have to choose which of the zillion notebooks I have, to use as my bullet journal!

Sorry!

I can't believe that the last post I wrote on here was the one on Spotlight Stationery reviewing their January box! Their March one is about to ship.

So, why have I been neglecting this place?

Because everything went bonkers with publishing the book, that's why! I had covers to agree and sign off on, proofs to check, correct, check again and finally sign off on... just a zillion and one things to do that I either hadn't realised would need doing, or hugely underestimated the time it would take to do them.

I read a quote recently that said you couldn't run a marathon until you'd forgotten what the last one was like, because it wasn't something you would do if you knew what was ahead. I'm beginning to feel like that about the books. The thought of launching another one fills me with horror. I shall have to wait until I've recovered from this one!

Anyway, for those who are interested, this is the book:

The Wrong Kind of Clouds

I'm offering £2 off pre-orders of the paperback. Go here and use the offer code CLOUDS (it needs to be in all capitals).

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting me and to all of you still following the blog. It's been a  bit of a roller-coaster of a journey. Hopefully things will be a bit calmer soon!

Spotlight on Spotlight Stationery

Spotlight Stationery is a stationery subscription service. You can order a one-off box to see if you'd like their stuff (you will), a bi-monthly subscription, or a monthly subscription. The boxes cost £25 plus p+p (£2 for the UK).
Each month, the team at Spotlight Stationery put together a collection of stationery, using only premium brands and including things you may not find on your high street. They also include postcards by new illustrators, helping to support young artists once they've left university. The box of stationery is a surprise - you don't know what you'll get before it arrives - but they offer a no-quibble, money-back guarantee. If you really don't like what you get, you can get in touch with them.

Intrigued by all this, I ordered a box. I have to confess, it arrived a few days ago but this is the first chance I've had to do a post on it! Apologies for the poor lighting in the photos... it's Scotland and winter and never stops raining and I really struggled with or without flash to get decent pictures!

The box is approximately 235 x 165 x 23mm, or just bigger and thicker than an A5 notebook. When you open the box, inside you find your goodies wrapped in tissue paper, tied with string and with a card saying Thank You on one side and information about the support for National Star, a charity for young people with disabilities.

Box, showing the message on the lid!

Thank you card, attached with pretty string

Reverse of the card, showing the message about supporting
National Star

Once I peeled the sticker and string off (as carefully as I could!), inside was revealed a notebook and an envelope with my name on:

I opened the envelope first, and discovered a set of postcards, some information about the illustrators and 6 spiral paperclips:

The four postcards, an information card and 6 spiral paperclips

These are all lovely designs (especially the cat one) and the information card was extremely helpful.

The red and black A6 notebook is by Paper-Oh. Inside was a leaflet explaining that the notebook was a product of their passion for book binding and their obsession to make things better than what already exists. I haven't road-tested the notebook (detailed reviews of the stationery in the box will follow!) but it lies very flat and seems like a fantastic little notebook. I will of course extract a page and do the usual pen-test on it, but if the paper is good, then this will be a super little notebook.

Delving deeper into the box, I found another A6 sized notebook, with the same design on the cover as one of the postcards:

A6 size notebook with dog and crow (front)

back of the notebook

The notebook has 18 pages (36 sides) of plain paper. Again, I haven't had a chance to pen-test it and a more detailed review is to come!

Beneath the two A6 notebooks was another Paper-Oh notebook in A5 size. This one is lined rather than plain:

A5 Paper-Oh notebook (front)

A5 PAper-Oh notebook (back)

I must be utterly honest and say that I haven't had time this week to even take the wrapper off, but I'm fully expecting another great notebook, given the quality of the A6 version.

As well as the three notebooks, the postcards and the paperclips, there were two Palomino Blackwing Pearl pencils and a Stabilo worker rollerball:

Palomino pencils

Stabilo worker pen

I've been using one of the Palomino pencils all week. Full review to follow but if I'm honest, this was my least favourite thing in the box. I'd heard so much about Palomino Blackwing pencils and I was excited to try them but I am far keener on propelling pencils than ones that need sharpening and probably because I almost always use a propelling pencil, I found the Palomino not great at keeping a sharp point. I've already sharpened about 3 cm off the pencil in just a week. If you sketched rather than used it for writing, it may be much better. It was certainly good to try it out though (and at least I know I don't need to buy myself a box!).

The rollerball is very nice. It has a soft-grip feel and the line is quite wet when laid down. It certainly kept up with my speed of writing and was incredibly smooth to write with.

Group photo!

All in All:
This was a fabulous collection of stationery, beautifully presented and worth at least £25 to my mind. The Paper-Oh notebooks are certainly not easily available to me and the inclusion of new illustrators is a great touch. I love the fact that some of the money is going to charity (though I would have liked to know a little more about what kind of amount - a penny? a pound? more?) and the surprise aspect was fun. You don't have to sign up for a subscription - you can try a box out and you get contacted in advance to check that you want the next box, even if you have opted for the subscription service.

If you love stationery, like a surprise and to discover new products and artists, go and sign up for February's box!

Update on the ABP2

My planning has settled back into pretty much where I was several years ago: a set of goals to projects to next actions for my different life areas. The next actions then get transferred to a week plus notes diary, with day-to-day planning being done on a day per page diary.

Aeons ago (see here for the initial review and here for an update about its flattability), I bought a Quo Vadis ABP2 day per page diary, to use for my day planning (as a more up-market version of the reporter's notebook I had been using for the task through the latter part of 2015).
In case you haven't clicked back to see the earlier posts, this is the layout inside:

Even at the start I had some reservations about the line spacing (3.5mm!) and those reservations haven't disappeared. When I started January, I thought I would give the ABP2 at least a month and see how I got on, using it for planning the day.

It's actually worked out better than I thought it would, but is far from good. I've been using the RHS to write out my daily list of stuff to do, plus as a scratch pad to jot things down if needed. I'm using every other line and so far, haven't run out of space.The LHS was supposed to be used for time-boxing and I have used it for that, but it only works if I only have one thing to do in any hour and preferably have several hours in which to do only one thing! If I had a series of half-hour long things to do or half-hour appointments, it would drive me insane with the spacing.

Most days have got stuff I can't show you without redacting lots, but here's a day I can share:

It works, but only because the tasks I have for the day can be squeezed into the spaces. There's a lot of wasted space across the top of the page, with the multiple languages. There's also more wasted space at the top of the LHS because I don't start on tasks much before 8.30 in the morning and there's wasted space at the bottom of the LHS as I've usually finished my tasks by 6pm. I've noted TV to watch in the later timed spaces, but even then, that's not great as the spaces finish at 9.30pm and there may be more than one thing on at any time (and I need to record one of them). I'm not using the bottom section other than to remind myself what I'm making for dinner (but that could as easily go in the space on the RHS and give me more space for time-boxing on the left, were it not all so pre-printed and inflexible).
The amount I'm generally using on a daily basis is about 6.5cm, out of the height of the LHS of 11cm, or the height including the space at the bottom of ~13cm. Just half of the space there. In the reporter's notebooks, I used 18cm for the day, so I'm down to about a third of what I was using.

At the moment, most of my days have big, chunky things to do and I can block off several hours for each task, which is making it bearable. If I had a lot of smaller appointments or tasks, I would have to use another piece of paper to plan out my day.

Overall:
I wouldn't buy this again. There's a larger version of it (ABP1) which might have been better, but that's not easily available in the UK and to be honest, the reporter's notebook worked so much better than this! I had much more space to time-box in, the RHS had space to note all my tasks and use as a scratch pad, the paper quality was marginally better and they were much cheaper! I also felt fine about tearing out the pages I'd used and tossing them at the end of the week when I did my weekly reviews, whereas the ABP2 is bound. (I'll toss it at the end of the year).

I may be back to a reporter's notebook if my days stop having a few big tasks per day and start having lots of small tasks to plan.

Page per Day Challenge #3

I wrote here about winning one of the day per page diaries for the Quo Vadis Challenge and the wrote here about my first foray into using the diary. Now we're a bit further in, how's it going? Am I still using it? Or have I already failed the challenge?

Well, I'd put it down as a hit and a miss!

Yes, I am still using it every day (though in all honesty, sometimes I'm writing it up the following day). I'm still doing what I set out to do - a quote, the weather, a summary of the day, what I'm currently reading, and some tracking. I had to move away from fountain pens as everything bled through like crazy, so now it's all being written in biro or Staedtler triplus fine-liners (that I got free from Cult Pens).

This is about the dullest day to show you (so I don't have to redact anything!):

I'm outlining what I've done over the day in the top boxes (around the date). The space below that is used to record the weather. I have a quote in every day and then a quick summary of the day. This day got a sticker but they often don't!
There's some tracking at the bottom, and a note of what I'm reading. I'm keeping a list of books read at the back of the diary (using the pages intended for addresses).

I've added a bookmark with a Celtic dragon charm on it, taped to the spine:

So, that's the hit part... what's the miss?

I miss being able to journal to process things. I get that this is a diary to record highlights and I'm generally doing that (though some days are better than others), but I've often used a diary/journal to empty my head and process things, or just to write in more detail about something. So, as well as the little Exacompta Forum shown here, I'm using a Nanami Seven Seas Writer (given to me by a dear friend). As I am in the Exacompta Forum, I'm writing in it in two columns. Unlike the Forum, I'm not writing every day - just when I have something I want to write about. Unlike previous journalling, I'm also sticking a few things in (the Russian stamps from my TN for example), though not much, it must be said. I'm going to try and do more of that and make it more visual in general.

What I'm writing in the Seven Seas journal is too personal or private to be able to show you very much. Here's about the only page I'm prepared to share (mostly because it's covered in stamps!):

So, a hit because I'm managing the Page per Day Challenge, but a miss because I'm overflowing into another journal and doing several pages some days.

How's everyone else doing the Challenge getting on?

Impatiently waiting....

... for my first box from Spotlight Stationery to arrive!!

Full review when it does!

My new Traveller's Notebook is here!

Traveller's Notebook from Sunleaves on Etsy

It's arrived! It came all the way from Russia (and had some fabulous stamps on the package!).

Stamps - removed and stuck in my journal

Hang on (some of you might be saying...) - don't you already have a splendid Traveller's Journal from The Stamford Notebook Co.? Well, yes I do... but this one was because I'd decided to put my goals to projects to next actions in notebooks and wanted to keep those all together (but didn't need to keep them in the carry about TJ). If you seriously can't remember me wittering about it, check out this post and then this post and then come back.

I know. I probably could have just left the plans in the booklets and done without a new TN, but... no... does not compute! So, I bought this one.

It arrived splendidly wrapped, in a box with shredded paper (inside a postage bag with the fab stamps!).

Inside that, the TN was inside a cardboard package, tied with string and the string attached to the cardboard with a seal:

Once I got into that bit (and you know, I amazed myself by stopping to grab photos...), there it was:

The TN from Sunleaves

My photos, taken in winter in Scotland, aren't getting the colour quite right. It has a slightly greener cast than this - pretty much the colour of Diamine Steel Blue ink if any of you have that. It's absolutely fabulous!! Neither of my pictures are showing it especially well, but my initials are also embossed on the bottom right corner - very subtly actually. Unless you knew they were there, you wouldn't see them immediately.

The cover is fairly stiff. Not quite as stiff as my Stamford Notebook Co. one, but fairly firm. Inside, the reverse of the cover is natural and not fluffy suede (thankfully as I don't like fluffy suede). The leather smell is gorgeous (if you like that kind of thing).

Interior

As you can see from the picture, there are two elastics and also a leather cord for a bookmark, tied to one of the elastics. I have to confess, I have already removed the notebook elastics as they were too thick, and replaced them with some 1mm elastic from my stash.  The elastic it came with was the same as the closure elastic (3mm) and just far too thick for the notebooks:

Original elastic (3mm)

It wasn't just that the elastic was too thick and made the middle of the booklet bulky, the knot was impossible to work around. Anyway, elastics changed, all is well.

Apart from the fact that the notebook elastics were too thick, they were well made, with plastic on the ends to prevent any fraying. As you might be able to see in the picture of the interior, the closure elastic has ends like a treasury tag which lie flat along the spine - no lumpy knot in the middle of the back! I took another picture (after I'd changed the elastics) to show it better:

Closure elastic
(like a treasury tag)

The cover came with two notebooks - a lined one and a squared one. Each has 48 pages. I haven't done my customary pen test yet as I'm not using them - I'm using the Midori 013 notebooks in it at the moment. The notebook cover is cream card with a linen-effect texture. The spacing of the lines is TINY in the notebooks. I quite like narrow ruled but these are 4mm. Yep - 4mm spacing - both the line spacing and the squares:

4mm line spacing

4mm spacing for the squares too!

I may well be okay with the 4mm spacing in the squared notebook, but I'll struggle with the lined, unless I only use every other line. (Though my friend Helen (waves! hello!) has very petite writing so I may send it on to her if she has need of it...?)

Well, that's the overviews. Likes and dislikes?

Likes:
1. the colour! It is absolutely gorgeous! Deep and rich and beautiful. It's closer to colour J on the chart than K (I ordered K) but I'd been torn between the colours anyway, so I'm perfectly happy!

Image is from the Sunleaves site on Etsy and reproduced
only to indicate the colour range offered
No copyright infringement intended

2. the closure elastic: It's a) thick and b) I like the way it's attached to the cover.

3. the cover: it's thick and sturdy and doesn't have fluffy suede on the inside.

Dislikes:
I'm less of a fan of the vertical arrangement of the notebook elastics. I'd rather they were lined up horizontally, so that the length of the elastics inside was the same, with a bit of horizontal space between them to allow for the thickness of the booklets. I tried to thread the replacement elastic so that the lengths inside were still the same length but offset, but that led to warping of the cover and the booklets sitting strangley, so I re-threaded it so that one booklet has its elastic coming from the two inner holes and the other booklet has the elastic coming from the two outer holes. How do others cope with this?

Elastics for the notebooks arranged vertically

In the Stamford Notebook Co. TJ the elastics are attached horizontally

With hindsight, I also wish I had asked for it to be a little wider than standard. Two Midori 013 notebooks fit in absolutely fine. A third in as well would cause the edges of the notebooks to be flush with the cover and probably get bent. Maybe the inserts with fewer pages than the 013 insert would be less bulky and so three would fit okay?