Recently I have felt like just kind of using up all I have and starting a set of inks.

A few favorites will be back, that I know. But other than that just use all of it up and get all new inks when that happens.

I’ve been having a great time not buying new ink for the last year or so. Outside of cardigan for my Kaweco’s I’m not buying new inks.

It’s kind of nice to just see bottles and my storage getting emptier.

This is one of those topics that probably everyone disagrees with me no matter what I say.

My cleaning practice has gone between “almost never doing it” to “always doing a full clean” and many different points between them over the years.

At the moment my way of doing it is to do a very quick cleaning of my pens when I refill them, at least the ones where I don’t use a cartridge. But do a full on flush until the water is clear cleaning either when I change inks or every 3-4 refill; then I often do a full clean on everything.

While I usually have different inks in different pens, I often end up changing things around on most of them when things change.

My quick clean for piston or vacuum fillers is to just draw in some water and push it out again, while with converter / cartridge pens I first flush some water through them with a bulb syringe and swirl the nib in some water.

In the middle of trying to be all digitally and all of that I ended up getting a pack of Index Cards while getting some other stuff at a book store.

Just because.

I have kind of been doing my own ugmonk-ish thing for a few weeks, as I have in the past.

It works surprisingly well to just write down what are the most important 5 things on a high level right now. When it changes etc I flip it or find a new card.

I left paper planning because I was basically just doing the same digitally as I was doing on paper.

After a few weeks off I started to see how I used to do things and started to think about doing that again.

So I started to move some things back to paper that isn’t much of a point in having digitally. Plus doing some stuff that is better to have on paper.

Like what days I follow a strict diet, when I’m going into the office. What tasks I’m doing what days etc.

So far it is working okay.

I’m always being pulled between different formats for my working notebook. As the one I always have in front of me to work as my short term memory.

ADHD is awesome sometimes. Usually it is. But I hate some parts of not remembering shit, but nice to not remember spoilers.

What I like about small pages is that I’m wasting less paper when I decide to just start on a fresh page and move things over and that I’m forced to be a bit more focused.

What I like about bigger pages is that it is easier to have a capture section or divide things more like fun

I’ve been using Travelers Notebooks a lot over the last few months. More than in a long time. I think it will continue until I actually get a plotter.

The thing I prefer about them compared to a regular A5 is that them being narrow makes it easy to fit them in a lot of pockets etc that would not fit a A5 notebook. Like the front side pockets on my BrainBag.

I’m going to order a bible sized plotter as soon as I have room for it in my budget. The initial plan is to just get the binder, some basic refills and accessories.

What have made this take forever is both expense and the added complexities of me having to order it through different channels than their store, because their “international” shipping is limited to US + Canada.

All my “systems” digital and analog have this weird tendency to just be additive. I make it to solve a system, and then I just keep adding things until I end up in a place where I just need to scrap it all and start from scratch to get something to works for me again.

I’ve been in that place with my planning / goals etc over the last year to year and a half. Trying to avoid starting from scratch a bunch of times.

But it was where I just had to go a few weeks ago. I just moved most things digital for now, leaving me with capture, hit lists and “working things out” as my paper stuff for now.

Funny thing is that I often end up doing this and getting back to the initial idea of how I used do things dropping the time warped misconception of it.