2020 is the Year of the Planner

Hello Readers!

After nearly a 6-month break from blogging, I owe an explanation. 

My excuse:

I'm a mom now! 

What an amazing journey this has been. 

But what does it mean for this blog?

Well, not much. 

You will be relieved to know that I won't be morphing it into a blog of baby updates or parenting advice. This platform will still continue to highlight my travelers, musings, and artistic creations, though, my new change in life circumstance means that I haven't been doing much traveling, musing, or creating these days, so the frequency of posts will decrease. 

As always, content is not created in a vacuum, and because I regularly post about my life and learning, you will see my daughter make a cameo here and there as she is now a big part of my life and learning. 

However, this post will not be about her debut into this world or the dramatic change that took place when I became a mother almost one year ago...

This post will be about...planners. 

Because as 2020 approaches, I've been obsessed with planners. 

For the last 12 years I have regularly documented all the happenings of my life: relationships that have begun and ended, travels, moves, new and old jobs. For a long time all this information was contained in a single planner, but now that my life has become more complex (not just with my baby but also my business) I now require not 1 - but 3 - planners to keep track of it all. 

Here is how that looks. 

1. Delfonics: Life Planner

I've been using Delfonics as my main planner for the last 10 years. Until this year, they could only be purchased in Japan - not even online from a Japanese website. So it was impossible to get one unless I had a trip planned, and only if that trip was in the last 6 months of the year, because they didn't release their new planners until then. 8 out of 10 years I was able to make it to Japan to get this planner. One year I was in Taipei, and I bought a Leuchtturm planner, which I didn't care for, and another year I ordered a Volt journal. At the time, I swore I would not use Volt again, but as you will see, the planner makes a come back in 2020 (more on that later). 

Why I love Delfonics is because of the layout. On the left side of the page, I record my appointments and happenings. On the right side I record my task list (though that will change this year). 

I also use Delfonic's monthly layout to record my finances, as well as my travel schedule. 

For 2020 I was able to order this stylish Delfonics planner online from the Delfonics website. They only ship within Japan, so I had it mailed to a friend and she mailed it to me. It took this company 10 years to get online, so hopefully in one more year they can do worldwide shipping.

This year Delfonics will be used exclusively for my appointments, finances, and personal happenings. 


2. Volt Journal: Business Goal Planner

I used Volt as my main journal in 2018 and was unhappy with the weekly layout. I told myself I would not use it again (and went right back to Delfonics), but as my business grew and my schedule and tasks became more complex, I began to miss Volt. Their layout really focuses on Goals, with Yearly Goals, Monthly Goals, and Weekly Goals. I found the focus on goals really helped me, as opposed to the endless to-do lists I usually create.

I decided to give Volt another go in 2020, where I will use it to track my goals, but instead of recording appointments on the weekly layout pages, I will use those to keep track of my daily to-do lists that support my Weekly Goals. 

I will also use the monthly layout for my communications calendar (social media and article publishing). 

In this way, Volt will become my work planner. 

3. Rollbahn: Travel Planner

Rollbahn is also made by Delfonics and has been around for years, but it took me a while to warm up to this notebook...

1. I hate spirals
2. I hate yellow pages
3. I hate grids

So why on earth did I buy a yellow, grid, spiral notebook? Because Rollbahn is awesome. Once you touch it, once you open it, you truly never want to use another notebook. 
I plan to use Rollbahn for my travel planner. Whenever I'm on the road, I like to keep a small notebook with me to record observations, notes, to-dos, etc. I have used a multitude of blank journals over the years, and I prefer Rollbahn to them all for a few reasons:

1. I can fold one side completely under the other (hence the benefit of a spiral)
2. The pages are thick enough to write on both side without seeing the ink through
3. The grid helps me keep my notes formed

In 2020 I have a lot of short business trips planned and I look forward to using Rollbahn through them all! 

Well, that's my planner plan for 2020. And for those of you who were hoping for more photos of my baby...stay tuned. 

NaNoWriMo Almost Complete

At least I got to try all the Starbucks holiday drinks I wanted

NaNoWriMo is as much an exploration of me as it is of any creative content I produce. I learn as much about myself as I do about my novel and about the writing process.

This year’s NaNo proved especially hard for factors I hadn’t really anticipated but should have. It may be a sign of things to come.

While I set out to write 50,000 words for a novel in three parts, by the end of the month I had only written 42,000 words for two parts of the novel, the third one left untouched. It was not a frantic scramble at the end. I basically gave up with several days left in the month.

What happened?

1.     I was 7 months pregnant and the third-trimester fatigue stated to sink in.

2.     Demands from the business were harder to set aside in the evening.

3.     The flu: this is what sealed the deal. I got a terrible flu the day after Thanksgiving and it wiped me out for a week. I couldn't’ even write in bed and by the time I felt better I would have had to pull an all-nighter to meet my goal. Maybe in a non-pregnant body this would be possible, but my pregnant self can’t stay awake past 11:00pm.

All four versions of the holiday cup

I am proud that I was able to get to 42,000 words though. That’s nothing to laugh at. I also learned some valuable lessons about myself and my relationship to fictional writing amidst building a consultancy.

1.     I already have to write A LOT for my business: newsletters, articles, emails, and jus the act of writing all day in that setting makes the act of novel writing exhausting. In my other jobs, the hours of my day were occupied by meetings, simple emails, teaching, and doing endeavors I would otherwise not consider creative. But with my business veery act of writing is an act of creation, and I only have so much energy to create in the day. If I had a less creative job, I would look forward to novel writing more and more, but that’s not the space I am in now.

2.     I don’t like working at cafes anymore. Wow.  A big shift for me. Cafes used to be my writing haven, but perhaps because of pregnancy and fatigue keep me home more often. I wrote most of my NaNo words from the dining room table or my office. Getting dressed and going out to a café to order a decaf latte just seemed like too big of a pain when I could just write form home.

3.     I don’t like Starbucks anymore. Since I wrote there in November, I avoided the dreaded Christmas music. This year, I did sample all 5 of the drinks I wanted to try, but I found them all too sickeningly sweet and lacking in quality. Starbucks coffee itself is pretty bad.

4.     My novel is no longer the BIG thing I want to accomplish in my life. It has taken a backseat to my business and my baby. Priorities, priorities. I love my creative work, but right now I don’t have the mental focus to devote to this endeavor. I need to get my business going and get ready for motherhood. It does’t mean I wil never finish my novel or write again. It just means that this will project will have to live on the back-burner while the other areas of my life flourish.

Day	Date	Place	Goal Words	Actual Words
Thursday	1	living room table	1,000	705
		living room table		1,013
Friday	2	Starbucks		618
		Starbucks		331
Saturday	3	14th Street Café	4,000	666
		14th Street Café		1,360
		Astoria Coffeehouse		1,094
		Astoria Coffeehouse		886
Sunday	4	Blue Scorchers	4,000	1,072
		14th Street Café		878
		14th Street Café		725
Monday	5		1,000	-
Tuesday	6	Starbucks	1,000	489
		Starbucks		579
		Starbucks		198
		Starbucks		94
		Starbucks		287
Wednesday	7	Little T	1,000	76
		Little T		761
Thursday	8	office	1,000	158
		office		217
Friday	9	office	1,000	3,343
Saturday	10	office	4,000	1,386
		office		2,996
Sunday	11	office	4,000	1,461
				3,372
Monday	12		1,000
Tuesday	13		1,000	-
Wednesday	14		1,000	-
Thursday	15		1,000	-
Friday	16		1,000	-
Saturday	17	living room table	4,000	917
		living room table		200
		living room table		797
		living room table		1,868
Sunday	18		4,000	-
Monday	19	living room table	1,000	2,087
Tuesday	20		1,000	-
Wednesday	21		1,000	-
Thursday	22	living room table	1,000	1,180
		living room table		286
		living room table		1,457
		living room table		1,240
Friday	23	living room table	2,000	1,740
		Good Coffee		195
		Good Coffee		1,428
Saturday	24	living room table	2,000	831
Sunday	25		2,000	-
Monday	26	Good Coffee	1,000	375
Tuesday	27		1,000	2,500
Wednesday	28		1,000	-
Thursday	29		1,000	-
Friday	30		1,000
			50,000	41,866

NaNoWriMo 2018 Progress Report

After getting off to a bang on November 1st and plunging into my goal of writing 50,000 words this month, the enthusiasm has tapered off and now I have hit the halfway mark – November 15th – short of my goal.  I am only a measly 1,235 words behind schedule, which I could write in a half hour if I really focused, but these last few days have been so tough. I thought I would breeze through this year’s Nano attempt since I am officially self-employed, but while I am the master of my schedule, I am not the master of my body, and being 8-months pregnant has taken its toll energy levels and attention span.

So far my writing environment has consisted of:

-       Starbucks (trying to sample all the holiday drinks before the christmas music kicks in and working there becomes unbearable)

-       My house: dining room table and, surprisingly, my office (which is supposed to be a sanctuary for my business)

-       Cafes of Astoria, Or. This year’s “writer’s retreat”  was a little underwhelming, but at least served as a nice escape from the city.

Challenges

-       I don’t have any collaborators this time around. With all the collaboration I'm doing for my consultancy (meeting with other consultants and prospective clients), and all the collaboration I'm doing for my baby  (meeting with other new moms), I don’t feel like investing the energy in meeting new people for Nano right now. I wish I had current friends that are participating but sadly I do not.

-       Pregnancy fatigue is real. While my second trimester was the best I’ve felt in my life, entering the third trimester has made me feel lazy, tired, sluggish, and unmotivated. My mind and body are so synched that when I feel tired, I can’t get up the mental strength to force the create process.

-       I discovered I HATE writing in the midday. Even though  I work for myself and enjoy taking long breaks in the afternoon to read or do housework, it is impossible to write for my novel. I  have to switch gears majorly and can’t get back on focusing to work. Alternatively, if I'm too wrapped up into work, I never get to writing for my novel, it always gets pushed to the evening.

-       Mornings are not working for me either– I cannot wake up that early and when I get up at my regular time, I need to get right to work. People are waiting for my response and I need to be active during business house.

-       Nights were working well but not working this past week. I had two evening events which completely wiped me out, and on the other days, somehow I also didn’t manage to get anything done at night.

Successes

-       I got started right away on day 1 and made good progress. I almost didn’t write that day but I forced myself to because I knew if I couldn’t get this off the ground on the first day, then I would set a sluggish pace for the entire month.

-       I had a conference on November 2nd and didn’t think I would write on that day but I did. In fact, it was a fruitful time for me. The conference was so intense that I welcomed the mental retreat into my novel.

-       I am writing much faster this time around, clocking in more words per minute than I ever had before. I think this is due to having a good outline for my novel already, so I don’t have to get stuck on plot points, as well as just growing more efficient as a writing professional.

-       I kept on track with my word count and wrote almost every day through the 11th of the month.

-       I wrote more on the weekends than I thought, owing to some particularly crucial scenes that needed to be written out all in one sitting.

-       Not too far behind my word count….1,235

-       My novel is structured really well and I’ve been developing a lot of fresh content.

You might notice the word count broken up into segments over the course of the same day. This has to do with the corresponding scenes or chapters, which is helpful for me to track on the more-detailed spreadsheet I keep but don't publish online. 

Day	Date	Comments	Goal Words	Actual Words
Thursday	1		1,000	705
				1,013
Friday	2	Conference		618
				331
Saturday	3	Writers retreat	4,000	666
				1,360
				1,094
				886
Sunday	4	Writers retreat	4,000	1,072
				878
				725
Monday	5		1,000	-
Tuesday	6		1,000	489
				579
				198
				94
				287
Wednesday	7		1,000	76
				761
Thursday	8		1,000	158
				217
Friday	9		1,000	3,343
Saturday	10		4,000	1,386
				2,996
Sunday	11		4,000	1,461
				3,372
Monday	12	Marketing event	1,000
Tuesday	13		1,000	-
Wednesday	14		1,000	-
Thursday	15	Workshop evening	1,000	-

				-
			26,000	24,765