Episode 60 Highlights + Notes:
1- Planner Matchup #1: A4/Letter sized planner with weekly and daily pages, “as much space to write as possible”, undated, and with goal-planning content
My ideas: Plum Paper (Does come in 8.5″ x 11″!), Levenger Custom System using their Circa Discs, Curation (A4), Amplify, Golden Coil, Other Custom System. Admittedly nothing really checks every single box mentioned but some places to start.
2- Planner Matchup #2: Something similar to the Hobonichi Cousin that has different paper
My ideas: Wonderland 222 (though has same paper), NOLTY, Custom System (ie Inkwell Press, Cloth & Paper, etc)
3- INK + VOLT Mini-Review –
Note: INK + VOLT contacted me and offered to send products for review.
INK+VOLT is a woman-owned planner company that launched in 2014 via Kickstarter (and I remember that launch!). Their products lie flat very nicely and look quite professional.
If I could change anything about their planners I would add a few more lines, but that may just be personal preference.
The paper is fairly smooth, bright white, and has a luxe feel. There are goal-setting pages, weekly vertical layouts (3 boxes with very subtle labelling “morning” “afternoon” and “night”) and over 80 pages of perforated dot grid notes pages, which is pretty fantastic — one could use these for setting up dailies on busy days, a series of bullet-journal style Collections, or simply meeting notes.
This planner is a great fit for someone who wants professional-looking elegance in a bound book with booth weekly layouts + goal-setting content.
Oh! And I LOVE their menu planning pad. I’ve used quite a few, but theirs is my favorite. I will be re-buying when I use it up.
Episode Sponsor: the wonderful Organize 365! Check our their home organization offerings (organizing programs and the Sunday Basket which I have bought myself and use) – love the founder Lisa + her energy + ideas!
WEEKEND MINI-REPORT
We were both off, which was amazing. I was really tired and cranky for parts of it — I honestly think it takes me full week to recover every time I am on call. I slept A LOT (like 9-10 hours both Friday and Saturday nights!) which was excellent. And I experimented with a different (free) YouTube workout star, Caroline Girvan, just to see what her workouts were like. I did her EPIC Beginner Lower Body workout on Saturday and was absurdly sore yesterday.
I am going to attempt Upper today – wish me luck!
Saturday, A&G had gymnastics and Annabel moved up to “intermediate” which was nice (she was the oldest in her beginner class, because 9 is on the old side to be starting gymnastics).
Sunday, Josh helped C with this monthly project he has (that is basically parental torture) and then we went to Frost Science and ate a super-late lunch/early dinner outdoors there at 4:30 pm. I guess we are currently in the pandemic stage where we are fine doing indoor thing as long as they are not obscenely crowded and as long as masks can remain on (ie, no eating).
I did update my book list and cleaned out (mostly) my gmail. And I am feeling positive about the week! Happy Monday . . .
8 Comments
I love the look of this planner! I would have said I’m not a planner person. What drew me to your website was your conversational and genuine feel to your posts. The sharing of experiences. But overtime and the realization that planning makes my days and weeks feel more intentional, has me using planners regularly now. I love the look of the dated INK+Volt! I like the mix of structure and unstructured pages.
I’ve used a dated ink + volt for two years. I like it for all the reasons you outline. (And I only use book bound planners.) I don’t end up using the monthly challenge pages most months. And I wish the book had more room for the daily stuff….it’s enough that I can get the basic architecture of my days but not enough detail so I need to supplement with some sort of daily to do sheet. Would love a version that’s a bit bigger or that had daily pages. From what I’ve seen here, the Hobonichi is the closest fit but I’m not crazy about the paper or the grid marks.
I love your reading list! Under future ideas you have both Hamnet and Sparks Like Stars, both of which I absolutely adored and recommend very highly. I also have Bird by Bird on my to be read list. Yay for books! (Side note — I noticed that somehow the wrong author snuck its way onto Sparks Like Stars on your list! It’s by Nadia Hashimi.)
Oh no! Thank you for the heads up, I will fix it!
I saw that Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is on your future ideas list, and that book and the whole Neapolitan Quartet is an absolute masterpiece. So highly recommend! Thanks for sharing your list.
I love the Ink + Volt aesthetic and have really enjoyed using their productivity/planning pads. I have a few of the variations and they’re perfect if you occasionally want daily planning but don’t need it often enough to warrant a full daily planner. My Wonderland222 weekly is great for most of my days, but on an especially full or particularly open day I’ll pull out an Ink + Volt pad and enjoy using my fun pens on their nice paper.
I hadn’t heard of Caroline Girvan. I like that she has a program that is well laid out. That is what I really need as I don’t like to decide what I should do when working out! I have a beachbody membership now but when the year expires, I will have to check out some of the free options out there.
Yay for getting some extra sleep over the weekend, though. Your body needed that after a tough week of call! I am in desperate need of a really good night of sleep right now. I caught my boys’ cold so between them being up during the night and me being up a lot to blow my nose, I am so worn out. I really hope this isn’t a bad winter for cold/flu. :/
So excited to check out the Nolty line! That said, I ordered my 2022 Hobonichi Techo cousin avec and will be looking here for inspiration for how to play with layouts. Thank you 🙂