Editing The Pen Addict 511/transcript (section)

== Planner Misuse ==


'''Brad:''' If I could just before you go into a big story here, like just in case it helps you. I did notice, I think in mid-March, that I had been writing 2021 every single day into my theme system journal for three months.

'''Myke:''' Like once you saw it, that's what it was. Yeah. And I just would look. You just brought it to life. Yep. Every single day.

'''Brad:''' Hmm. So, you know.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Yeah, it happens. It happens. And to me, what happened, to recap for new listeners, a lot of existing listeners know this, I have been using an A5 Hobonichi Cousin this year, and it has one page per day. And that one page is dated. So, it is a dated planner that I'm using. So, for, you know, Wednesday, it says, you know, whatever today's date is. And that's the day you write on. And generally, those things match up with the reality of the situation. So, on today, Wednesday, April 27th, I would write things related to today, Wednesday, April 27th. So, my problem lies when I took a vacation earlier this month, at the beginning of April. First week of April, I took a vacation. And I brought my planner with me. So, it was a very busy time in my life leading up to my vacation, right? I went to the Atlanta Pen Show. I had my daughter's prom. And I left for vacation in the span of, like, 24 to 48 hours. So, I was very busy. Brought my planner with me on vacation, not to use as, like, I was going to work on vacation. It was, like, a real vacation. Like, I was not doing work. I had planned ahead, gotten everything done that I needed to, aside from podcasts, which is, it actually works out very well for me. So, for the end of that vacation week, nothing, no entries happened in my planner, right? Blank pages. Completely blank pages for the last half of the vacation week. Cool. I'm good with that. It's the first pages I had not finished in my planner for 2022. Like, that's a good, I've been on a good run. Yeah. I've been on a really good run. I had, every day of the week, I have updated my planner, you know, in, whether it's planner information, you know, like tasks, to-dos, notes, business, work, life stuff, or a few little journal notes, or could just be pen and ink testing, right? Because the Hobonichi people, one of the reasons why people use it is because it's got this really nice Tomoe River paper. So, great. Finish vacation. Come back the next Monday. Start writing in my planner. Cool. And I go to town for about two weeks straight, like, after vacation. Like, hey, things are going great in my planner. Picked it up the Monday after vacation ended. Ignored the blank days I had at the end of vacation. I was like, here's the end of these blank days. I'm going to pick, there goes that Monday, right? Whole week of planning, great. Next whole week of planning starts, and all of a sudden, I turn the page, and it's, why am I seeing Sunday, May the 1st, as the next open page in my planner to write on? And I stopped dead in my tracks, and had to reevaluate my entire existence because I've been living on the wrong day for two weeks straight without noticing. I thought it was just one week. I was like, I'm going to be in the wrong week, but I continued that for two weeks straight, and then that's where I broke my brain. That's where I started to have a problem. I would have gotten, it probably wouldn't even have been a show topic. If I was like, oh, you know, I screwed up the week, whatever, did the wrong week on there. It happened with the vacation thing. The problem, where I really have a problem with it, is the two-week issue, and it took me until I ran out the end of the month a whole week ahead of time. At no point did I match up the actual date that I was writing on to the date that was actually happening in the real world, right? What does that say to you?

'''Brad:''' You didn't need, for two weeks, you weren't even paying attention to the date. Like, what does that mean?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, well, because I never do, because I look at the last page I filled out, which would have been, let's just pick Monday. Okay, is today Tuesday equals yes, then right. Never matching up the number to the actual date, just the day, right? So, it was basically, I was programmed, you know, is today Tuesday? Yes, okay, then we write on Tuesday's page. Except I had been on the wrong date for two weeks. For somehow, after vacation, I grabbed an extra three pages, right, this thin Tomoe River paper, and just flipped them to the next Monday, thinking those were the days that I had missed. Hey, these are the blank days from vacation, right? So, I actually grabbed an entire extra week before I restarted the planner again on what was. I was writing on Monday the 18th for what was, actually should have been writing on Monday the 11th. And then I did that all the way up until this past Monday, which was two weeks, a two-week span before I realized that, oh, we have a problem. So, I shared my challenges on Twitter and on Instagram. I got some good advice, Myke, that I wanted to share with everyone in trying to correct this situation. So, I put an image up on Instagram where I changed the 11th. So, what I'm doing to fix this, Myke, is I'm going to fill in the week that I skipped, and we're going to go back in time. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no. What are you talking about? I can't not have... I can't continue down this path that I'm on.

'''Brad:''' Well, no, of course not.

'''Myke:''' But just skip a week. No. What do you mean no? I have things to write down today and yesterday and Monday.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, but start from the actual real date.

'''Myke:''' Those were already filled.

'''Brad:''' Oh, yeah, of course.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, you're with me now.

'''Brad:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' This is a problem.

'''Brad:''' Huh.

'''Myke:''' So, I had to go back to the real blank week that happened. I had to get in the time machine, Myke. Hang on a second.