Quo Vadis Life Journal Infinite Review

(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 first novel, The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, now available where books are sold!)

Is there some secret system of planner that unlocks your productivity? I've heard enough people say 'yes' that I continue to have hope for myself. Certainly no one system works for everyone, so it stands to reason that we should probably try them all, just to be sure.

I used to obsessively bullet journal. Not just the basic system, but the whole kit--stencils, stickers, color-coded weather and habit trackers, counters... Basically, I had more planner than plans. I enjoyed it! It was a hobby. A very, very time-consuming hobby. As life has gotten busier, my system has devolved into a chaotic flurry of scratch paper and post-its that I'll scrape out of the bottom of my backpack, hopefully in time to do the thing written on said scrap. From one extreme to the other! And neither has really worked well.

I know I need structure, to keep the chaos at bay. But I know I need some freedom, because my life is far from routine. And, like anyone cracking open a brand new planner, I'm hoping this one will be the one.

The Quo Vadis Life Journal Infinite is a well-structured but undated journal-style planner. It borrows some of the Bullet Journal philosophy, with a dedicated index, numbered pages, an abundance of note-taking pages, and predetermined list space. It's just enough structure to serve as a guide and reminder about what's important to track, but all of the labels and headers are blank, so you can customize it in a way that works for you. The blank dates let you start any day of the year--perfect for those of us abandoning other planners in search of new solutions.

There are pages for a yearly overview, then a month spread, then each week is spread across two pages. The monthly pages have a grid for tracking and the weekly pages have a place for to-do lists or reminders. Each month also has note pages in a handy dot-grid.

I was intimidated at first. I don't like opening a planner and seeing instructions. But the instruction pages here are truly unnecessary (and I wish they had been on a removable insert instead of being bound into the book). It's not a complicated book. And the lack of labels helps open up some possibilities, too. Don't need a yearly spread? You could write goals on those, instead.

Regardless of whether or not the system works, the book is well made. It has Clairefontaine French-milled paper that can handle anything except alcohol markers. Even my gushiest fountain pen barely shows through at all. All of the interior design is done in a lovely, calming, unobtrusive grey. It has 224 pages, which is a lot for a weekly planner. Nearly half this book is open for note taking. I think that would make it a great candidate for a work planner, where meeting notes can be kept handy nearby the to-do lists such meetings tend to generate.

The cover is black faux leather. There's an elastic closure band, an expanding pocket in the back, and a ribbon bookmark. A planner like this really should have at least two ribbons, in my opinion, but that's why the stationery gods created a plethora of cute page markers. I don't usually like hardcover planners--I want something lightweight, if I'm going to carry it around everywhere. And the cover branding on this one isn't as subtle as I'd like. But all these are small trade-offs if the system itself works.

It is June, now, if you hadn't noticed. Almost the solstice. Which means almost July. It's possible you have already abandoned the idealist planner you optimistically selected last winter. If so, the chaos has probably already set in. But it's not too late to wrangle back some control over the latter half of the year. If this looks like it might help, you can get one for around $25, which is a very decent price for such a sturdy compilation of abundant great paper.

(Exaclair provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Netto de Techo Kobo (Online Planner Bindery): A Customized Bound Planner Just for You

(Original Mai-Bun article published on 10/02/2017. Written by Makiko Fukushima. Translated by Bruce Eimon)

This is the time of the year when people start thinking about which datebook/planner to buy for the coming year. Despite all the different products out there, it is frustrating when you can’t quite find that perfect one for you. (There are literally hundreds of different kinds of planners sold in Japan. There is even an event called the 100 Planner General Election, where you get to try 100 different planners and vote for your favorite one!) If you are one of those picky planner users, why not make your very own for next year?

Making my own datebook? That’s gotta be hard, no? No worries, this September, a new service was launched: Netto de Techo Kobo (Online Datebook Bindery).

This is an online service that lets you design a 200 page perfect-bound planner and have it delivered right to your doorsteps. Most custom book binding services like this require a minimum order of 100 copies. What is revolutionary about this service is that it is specifically designed for producing single copies. Each order will put you back 5400 yen (approx. $45 USD).

Oh and by the way, this isn’t a service run by a bunch of twenty-somethings working out of their garage. This is a service offered by Canon IT Solutions, a subsidiary of the company known for producing high quality cameras and printers. It was the winning project of an internal innovation contest, entered by their very own stationery fanatic, Mr. Tadashi Ono.

All you have to do is create an account and follow the instructions. The sign-up and design steps can all be done for free. You can even print out watermarked sample pages at home. Once you confirm your order and enter your payment information, your planner will be delivered to you in 3 to 4 weeks.

The following is my experience of trying this service:

Adding my touch #1: I don’t use the monthly calendar pages.

I usually use a weekly left format (horizontal date pages on the left, note pages on the right), and hardly ever use the monthly calendar pages. Most planners have monthly calendar pages taking up two pages per month. I opted to condense these to a single page per month, covering two months per spread. The system offers a template for this, so the only thing I had to change was the font and the line color to suit my taste.

Adding my touch #2: I don’t want to miss any birthdays, including those of my pets.

The service supports the uploading of CSV files with personal birthdays and anniversaries, so you can easily have these very special dates show up in your monthly or weekly pages. This is super useful! I set it up so that they will show up in both. Not only did I upload the birthdays of my friends and family, but I also uploaded work related anniversaries and the birthdays of my two cats.

Adding my touch #3: I like a simple and clean aesthetic.

I’m a fan of the weekly horizontal format. In order to keep the design simple, I started with the weekly horizontal template and tweaked the fonts and the line colors. I chose gray lines, removed references to auspicious days (Rokuyou), and included only the date numbers. For the right pages, I kept them blank.

Adding my touch #4: I don’t want to wait until January 1.

One nice thing about this service is that you can have your planner start whenever you want it to. So rather than ordering it and having it collect dust for 3 months, I had it start from the projected delivery date in October! You don’t even have to have it span a whole year - you can design a 6 month planner, or even one that starts on your birthday!

Adding my touch #5: Making room for my Washi-tape collection.

Since I like to collect washi-tape, I designed a section to catalog my new acquisitions. I designed a format where I can paste both the tape and the labels. I specifically made sure there would be enough space for both the front and back labels. This is an example where I didn’t use one of the provided formats, but designed my very own format and uploaded it as a PDF file.

Adding my touch #6: For my list pages, I used pink lines.

I like the grid format in general, but I usually don’t like the color of the lines used in most notebooks. Since I get to use whatever color I want, I chose a faint pink line. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! It is awesome that I get to choose the colors of the font, the lines, and even the background for every single page.

Adding my touch #7: I made special pages for my two cats.

I uploaded pictures of my two beloved cats, Cookie and Anko, so that I could have pages specifically devoted to write down my favorite memories of them. The colors turned out really nice. I know there are a lot of people who like to paste pictures of their pets in their planners , but this way I don’t have to worry about the bulk from the pasted photographs. It is also a nice way to carry with you the pictures of your loved ones wherever you go.

This is a planner that gives you complete freedom with the format and the content. What I showed you was very specific to my likes and needs, and what you end up designing is going to be completely different from mine. How fun is that!?

Until now, a planner was something we had to choose from what was available at the stores. Yes, there are filofax-type planners where you can pick and choose your refills, but it was impossible to customize a perfect-bound planner to your liking. Of course, you would always have to write in all of your birthdays and anniversaries, and you were bound by the lines and space provided by the publishers.

Netto de Techo Kobo flipped all of these “norms” on its head. Why not make your one-and-only planner that fits you like a glove?

Recommended for:

• People who aren’t quite happy with the planners available in stores.
• People who have a meticulous attention to detail and know exactly what they want.
• People who don’t want to be bothered by having to enter their birthdays and anniversaries into their planners every year. Information Netto de Techo Kobo | Canon IT Solutions

Baron Fig 2017 Planner Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

2017 is quickly approaching, and it's time to get organized. I've had my flings with weekly and daily planners in the past, and they've mostly been abandoned after 2 or 3 months into the new year. The Baron Fig 2017 Planner is a format that I've enjoyed in the past, and I'm aiming to give it a solid try in the new year.

The Baron Fig Planner looks like any old dark gray Confidant that you may have seen. It's sleek and sharp, and it has a classy cloth cover that makes people stare and ask questions. It also features a sleek silver bookmark for keeping track of the weeks as you move through the year. Overall, this is a Confidant on the outside, but a useful planner format on the inside.

Features

This is a planner, so there are several features that are expected, but the Baron Fig also includes some extras that are welcome additions to the standard weekly planner.

First off, the standard planner format. This is a weekly planner, meaning it has a two-page spread for each week of the year. On the left side of the book, you have Monday through Wednesday. The right side of the book contains Thursday through Sunday, but Saturday and Sunday share a section. It's a great format that mimics what I've seen in other planners from major retailers (Day Runner, Moleskine, etc.)

The right side of the book has a gray index marking to show the current month. This makes it easy to flip between months in the book to quickly find something you need in the future or past.

Apart from that, each day is labeled, and there's a handy week number listed in the top right of the right-hand page. Overall, this is pretty standard for planners.

At the beginning of the book, you have a small area to write pertinent contact details, followed by a quote from Heraclitus:

Time is a game played beautifully by children.

I'm not sure what they're trying to say here, but I'll assume that this refers to the way children perceive time as an endless and limitless resource that we can control and spend at will. Adults, as I understand it, are supposed to plan and manage this time responsibly, hence the need for a planner.

After the quote page, you're greeted by a well-laid-out "year at a glance" calendar over a two-page spread. I'll be referring to this many times over the year, though I'm disappointed that the format starts the week with Monday instead of Sunday. This isn't a die-hard preference of mine since I understand other countries and cultures view the beginning point of the week differently, it will take some adjustment on my part to remember that the calendar is slightly different. This would make sense if the notebook came from outside the US, but I'm a little baffled as to why they chose this format from NYC. Either way, it's really handy for gauging the larger picture.

After the big picture 2017 view, you have a two-page spread for each month of the year. This is great for planning out events for the month, and it also adopts the Monday-first mentality.

Immediately following the monthly view, you're dropped into the first weekly view for the planner. This is the real meat of the notebook and likely where you'll spend most of your time. The first week starts on December 26 and ends on January 1, so you get a few extra days in 2016 to ramp into the new year. This is a nice touch.

The days are roughly 3 inches by 5 inches (except for Saturday/Sunday, which are divided length-wise), and there is plenty of room for making a few notes. If you are looking for a planner that will allow you to map out 8 - 14 hours of your day, this is not the planner for you. There's not enough space (for my writing, anyway) to plan out each hour of the day. For that, you're better off looking at other planners such as the Hobonichi Techo. For me, I'll use this notebook for daily goal planning and accomplishment logging. At the end of 2017, I want to look back at this notebook and get a sense of what I was working through each week of the year. It's more of a logbook as opposed to a detailed planner.

Of course, if you don't operate to a strict schedule (say, you track to 3-5 major tasks each day), then this is a great area to write down and track your tasks and goals for the day. As with any planner system, it is exactly what you make of it. Baron Fig have simply provided a construct for you to operate within. You can choose to be as detailed or abstract as you like. That's the beauty of a system like this. In a way, I really like that they haven't included every hour of the day in the planner. It forces you to step back and look at your day as a whole instead of as a collection of menial, micro-managed tasks. (I'm not saying menial tasks aren't important, but maybe they don't belong in this planner).

Lastly, after you run out of weeks in the year, there are about 26 pages of blank dot-grid pages for notes. These pages at the back of the notebook are unnumbered, but you could easily number them to make note references in the planner section. These notes pages are all bound into the notebook without any perforation.

Another thing to mention is the included insert that displays the entire year on one Confidant-sized card. This will find a place on my desk over the year, and while I'm sure it will be misplaced and re-found several times, it will be an invaluable tool in 2017.

Paper quality

Now, once you get past the function of this notebook, you'll be pleased to note that the paper that Baron Fig uses is the same kind they use in the rest of their notebook line. This shouldn't be a surprise, but it's worth noting since some manufacturers inexplicably change paper lineups between special edition releases. What you've come to love (or hate!) in the regular line of notebooks, you'll get the same quality here. For me, this is a huge positive since the paper handles every kind of pen or pencil with ease. It may not be the most fountain-pen-friendly paper in the world, but it does a really good job of handling different nibs and inks. It's a little scratchy, but I love that feedback. Other people may disagree, and it's probably fair to say that this notebook isn't for them. Again, the Hobonichi features Tomoe River paper, which is one of the smoothest, well-behaved fountain pen papers out there.

Gel inks. ballpoints, rollerballs, pencils — these will perform extremely well with this notebook. Fountain pens — your mileage will vary, but I've been very pleased with all of the Baron Fig notebooks I've used in the past.

Conclusion

The Baron Fig 2017 Planner is going to be a staple on my desk over the coming year. I'm excited to give it a year's worth of abuse and see how it lasts through next December. I'm happy that the paper is of a caliber that accepts all kinds of pens I feel like throwing at it, because, let's face it, I'll switch pens about once a week through 2017. There's still a couple of weeks left to order a planner, and I really recommend the Baron Fig if you want a planner notebook that features a clean aesthetic, good paper quality, and a nice macro weekly layout. Either way, time is running out for you to make a 2017 planner decision!

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