Would you change your planner for your pen, or your pen for your planner?

[arcfide]

Let's say that you have a favorite pen that you want to use as much as you can, and you also have a planner that you like and want to use, but the two of them don't seem to get along for whatever reason. Maybe the paper doesn't quite match the ink and nib that you have, or the planner is too small or too big for the pen (such as a UEF in a big A4 planner or a big Music nib in a tiny Hobonichi). Which would you rather give up first? Would you consider the planner more important to your workflow and the pen just a tool, and thereby change the pen so that you could work in the planner that you like more? Or, maybe, the pen that you like is just too good and the ink too impressive, and you really want to appreciate that in your daily life, so you want to use a planner that will let you experience that glorious pen on a daily basis? 

 

What would you choose?

[SilverStoneMetallic]

Personally, I would alter my selection of planner for one that worked best with the pen(s) that I intend to use.

[A Smug Dill]

Easy. I'd just pick another pen to use in the planner. I have soo many pens and soo many inks from which there must be some combinations that work, unless the paper quality of the planner is just so out-of-this-world dreadful. Planners are consumables, and of a far more specialised format than some generic notebook or journal, so I don't want to spend more money and effort in acquiring and testing a pile of different ones until I find one that is better suited to my purposes and workflow than what I already settled on before, then dumping all the rejected candidates in the garbage bin. Whereas there is no instance in which I bought a pen or ink for the specific purpose of writing in a planner from the get-go, so I can always find some better use for a good pen and an enjoyable ink, including the hypothetical extreme case that the combination is so satisfying to use that I'd just find something to write, draw, doodle or scribble every day just to spend time enjoying the experience.

[arcfide]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

Easy. I'd just pick another pen to use in the planner. I have soo many pens and soo many inks from which there must be some combinations that work, unless the paper quality of the planner is just so out-of-this-world dreadful. Planners are consumables, and of a far more specialised format than some generic notebook or journal, so I don't want to spend more money and effort in acquiring and testing a pile of different ones until I find one that is better suited to my purposes and workflow than what I already settled on before, then dumping all the rejected candidates in the garbage bin. Whereas there is no instance in which I bought a pen or ink for the specific purpose of writing in a planner from the get-go, so I can always find some better use for a good pen and an enjoyable ink, including the hypothetical extreme case that the combination is so satisfying to use that I'd just find something to write, draw, doodle or scribble every day just to spend time enjoying the experience.

 

Great! But I don't think you voted in the poll! 

[A Smug Dill]

1 minute ago, arcfide said:

But I don't think you voted in the poll!

 

Because neither option fit. My planner is not more important to me than the pen I use; not spending money on more (candidates for) planners that I won't use is more important to me.

[arcfide]

17 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Because neither option fit. My planner is not more important to me than the pen I use; not spending money on more (candidates for) planners that I won't use is more important to me.

 

That's just another way of saying that using the planner is more important than using the pen with a planner. The planner option is the correct option in this case for this poll. The phrase "the planner is more important" is relative, not absolute, and relative to the usage of the pen for planning purposes, not absolute importance over the pen in all cases. Put another way, the planner you have is more important to you because it prevents you from having to purchase more planners. 

[A Smug Dill]

Fine.

[Karmachanic]

No. 

[Carloa]

Would you rather change your faith or your God if you were sure to go to heaven? 
The other way around: With monotheism, the idea of the one, the absolute, the only true has penetrated into human thinking. (The Highlander: There can be only one...)

Since then we believe in hierarchies, in best lists, in records, in optima and organize world championships and Olympic Games to find the respective male One, the respective female One and of course we believe in the great love, in the one person who will appear sometime or never and with whom you will then be infinitely happy or infinitely unhappy if you don't get him. 

 

But the thing is quite simple: all this is terrible nonsense. You can be happy with a great many fountain pens, and with a great many planners, and with infinite combinations.
The truth is: happiness has nothing to do with any of that. Happiness takes place in a completely different dimension.

 

The question is rather: Is your fountain pen/planner combination waterproof or not? 
Because the best ideas - we're back to the ultimate - come to you on the water. 
We are born in water and we return to water. It is the liquid, the great stream, the mobile spirit that does not even ask for happiness because it no longer needs it. 
Therefore, the question is: What remains when the thing falls into the water?

 

[Bristol24]

While planners are too confining in my work, I do live by my daily "call log" which is nothing more than a 5x7" journal in which I enter notes on every phone call, customer question, important issues to address, etc. It goes with me everywhere and lasts about 2-3 years.  I have used about 5 or 6 pens and perhaps the same number of inks as I refine the pen and ink combination to fit the paper.  Typically a recently restored pen often gets relegated to daily carry/call log duty.  Since that log is my go to reference, I am more interested in results rather than the look and have used everything from one of my best Parker 51s to one of my vintage combos.  The primary requirements for EDC Call log duty eliminate wet and/or broad writing nibs and the inks must be highly water resistant so I definitely change pens to fit my needs and my "planner."

 

Cliff

[ethernautrix]

I use my planner more as a record, a receptacle of details from my day after I've "done" it: times and street names and distances, maybe squeeze in a few details from a particularly vivid dream (a rat ran in a panic into my dog's mouth to hide. I woke up, and when I fell back to sleep, my dog was regurgitating the rat and I tried to help, we both wanted to help the rat -- as a recent example).

 

Because I'd prefer to contain the highlights of each day to a single A6 page, an extra-fine nib is necessary. (The overflow goes onto shreddable loose sheets or e-mail, or both.)

 

I question, why this compulsion to note "highlights?" Conclusion: Why not? I like doing it. Also, the practice has helped me to learn the names of these streets, names like Wita Stwosza, Powstańców Śląskich, Na Ostatni Grosze, Strachowskiego, WOW for Wschodnia Obwodnica Wrocławia, and so on. What a challenge to include all the names of a 40.3km bike ride on an A6 page with other information!

[ENewton]

In my planner, I use pens that work in the planner.  This is not to say that my planner is more important than the pen I use.  

In fact, the reverse is true, but most of my writing is done in notebooks other than my planner.  For personal reflections and project notes, I choose notebooks in which I can use my favorite pens (and inks) to good effect.

 

As it happens, I use mostly fine and extra fine nibs--I have very small handwriting--so it is not a great challenge to find a planner in which I can use my favorite pens.  What is more of a challenge is to find paper, whether in a planner or a general-purpose notebook, that works well with certain inks I want to be able to use on a regular basis.  My current planner contains paper that distorts the color of two of my inks; for next year, I will probably select a different planner, but in the meantime, I will use those inks only in notebooks that show their color well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ParramattaPaul]

I've been using the same Filofax personal size planner since 1989.  That's 32 years.  Filofax paper has always been fountain pen friendly.  With that, I haven't had the need to even consider the question, so my answer to the question is 'neither'.

[TSherbs]

What's a "planner"? It's "summah," and I am a teacher!  I sometimes forget the day of the week in late July. Ahhh.....

[ParramattaPaul]

2 minutes ago, TSherbs said:

It's "summah," and I am a teacher!  I sometimes forget the day of the week in late July.

This is true, and I'm retired, but life goes on.  That requires some occasional planning.  😎

[Karmachanic]

4 hours ago, ParramattaPaul said:

That requires some occasional planning

 

Agreed. I'm planning on having breakfast.

[ParramattaPaul]

1 hour ago, Karmachanic said:

 

Agreed. I'm planning on having breakfast.

Good idea. 😉

[david-p]

7 hours ago, TSherbs said:

What's a "planner"?

 

+1

 

[sciumbasci]

I tried, eh. I tried so hard. 

But I'm a moleskine man. 

[ridiculopathy]

Hm, it’s not that I consider planners more important than pens; it’s just that I have more choice of pens than planners (I still like using gel/roller/ballpoint pens along with my fountain pens). Unless you want me to say that being lazy (i.e. not printing my own planner) is important lol :’)