Focused - 102: Analog Productivity with Brad Dowdy

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

The Pen Addict Brad Dowdy joins in to explain how he struggles to stay focused and discovers that he's a time blocker. We also get very nerdy about pens and paper toward the end.

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hi, Mike. Hey, David. How are you? I am great, and I'd like to welcome to the show today your friend and mine, the pen nerd of the universe, Brad Dowdy. Hey, guys. How are you all doing? Good, good. Brad is the founder of the Pen Addict website,

makes the Pen Addict podcast here on the old RelayFM. But the reason we wanted to have Brad in is because the intersection between analog and digital tools and productivity and focus is something a lot of people are talking about these days. Mike just wrote about it over at Suite Setup. And we're going to put a link to that in the show notes as well. But we thought, well, if we're going to talk about analog stuff, we got to have the guy. So I'm glad you could be here today, Brad. Yeah, I'm super glad to do this. I've already told my listeners that I was coming on here and they're well-versed in my struggles with focus. So I told them that I think I'm walking into

an intervention today and I, I'm not really sure what's going to transpire. Well, um, we are going to talk about focus and productivity stuff at the end. We've already decided we are going to nerd out on analog tools, but we're going to do it at the end of the show. So if you're, if you're waiting for that, we're going to do at the end of the show, if you're not at all interested in that stuff, you can just turn off at the end of the show. So if you're waiting for that, we're going to do it at the end of the show. If you're not at all interested in that stuff, you can just turn off at the end. But either way, Brad, tell us just a little bit about kind of your empire and what it is. Yeah. So I started a blog called The Pen Addict. It's at penaddict.com. I started that in 2007, just as a hobby. I was an IT guy for most of my career. I had a 15-year career at a data

center working in various IT capacities. So I was well immersed in the digital world and had this analog thing as a hobby. I'd always been into pens and stuff since I was a little kid and always cared about what I wrote with. I'm the guy that would bring his own stuff into the office because the stuff you get out of the office supply cabinets never good enough for me. It's garbage. Agreed. Yeah, it's garbage. Don't use that. Bring your own. So I was just doing it. It was it was basically like discover this whole world of pens that weren't available to me like at OfficeMax or Staples and wanted to share more about that and find out more about that and kind of share my journey. And that just grew and grew and grew over the year. We started the Pen

Addict Podcast with Mike Hurley in 2012. And then as of January 1st, 2016, I quit my day job and the pen addict and all of the other things that go along with what I do became my full-time job. So now I am working for myself. It's basically the pen addict blog, the pen addict podcast. I'm part of a stationary company that makes pen cases and paper goods called notco so we make little pen cases and note cards and notebooks and I'm also part of a company called spoke design that makes machined mechanical mechanical pencils and pens so I kind of got my my tentacles and in all the things stationary related. And yeah, this is what I do. I talk about pens on the internet is basically what I do.

Well, I think it's interesting that you talk about your lack of focus, but then you describe this very methodical course you've taken from somebody who likes to bring nicer pens to work to someone who has a media presence in that field. And as also you're in the game, I mean, you're selling products. I stood at your booth once. Yeah. Yes, you have many times, many times. So yeah, you know, I think we all strive to like do what we do better. Right. So there's a constant worry is like, am I doing the right thing am i

doing it enough you guys talk about it all all the time and it's there's never not those questions no matter how long you've been doing it or how you know air quotes successful you've been been doing it um there there's always questions on how you can do it better yeah i mean i think i feel like there's a sub theme to our show it's that you never actually make it, and it comes up every time. Exactly. I want to ask a question about that specifically then, because you're right, that is a question that comes up all the time. Am I doing the right thing? But you mentioned that at the beginning, you had a tech job, and you just liked using nice things.

But now, pretty much everything that you do is focused around the analog. I know there's a lot of people in our community that do a lot of things on the computer for their day job. And so the analog is a refreshing change of pace. But what sort of progression did that take where the right thing to do just seemed more and more in line with the analog versus the digital. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Because when I looked around my office, I was mostly the only one who did the majority of their work on paper. And the reason, I guess, was twofold. The primary reason, which I think everyone is already saying

in their head, is that you just think better when you can slow down, take your fingers off the keyboard, and grab a pen or a pencil and put it on the page. So when I was working, I was in a data center. I handled a lot of storage and had to do some networking stuff. And it's just all back-end stuff. And so I really had two notebooks some networking stuff. And, you know, it's just all back end stuff. And so I really had two notebooks that I used. I used a Rhodia A5 pad, dot pad on my desk. That was just my notes. You know, hey, I got this phone call. I have to do this task. Or hey, you know, here's the three things I need to focus on today. And then I'd have a large notebook. At the time, it was the Doan Paper Idea Journal. That was a gridded page to where I could diagram, I could draw, I could sketch, I could think, and I could plan. And I never thought there were good enough tools

for me to do that at the time digitally, right? I think it was more of a frustration than on trying to capture a visual aspect that I was trying to create on the computer than it was on paper. So that's where a lot of the work started. Now, it might have to finish in, you know, whatever application we're using at the time, whether, you know, is Visio or whatever project management or, you know, however, we're going to is Visio or whatever project management or however we're going to relay that information. But I don't recall ever starting a project on anything other than pen and paper. Have you ever felt the desire to go back and see what's there? Because I imagine that the tools that are available have changed quite a bit. And so maybe it originated as there isn't an application that

can do what I needed to do. But I don't know if it was me in the back of my mind, I think, well, maybe things are different now. I do think about that because I'm very still to this day, I'm very interested in technology, you know, not necessarily as much as y'all or some of our mutual friends. But, you know, I'm very interested in what the latest apps are and how they can help me do my job. And is this a better tool for what I'm doing right now? So I would be interested. I think if I took myself back to my job today,

I could see something like an iPad being a huge benefit, an iPad with Apple Pencil being a huge benefit to how I used to work. And I see why that has gained so much popularity. That would be like the perfect fit for the way I did my job taking place of that large notebook. And then I would have, you know, the access that I needed to, you know, find more research and do other things all in one device. So I totally, totally get that. Yeah. You know, it's funny the other day, and I know we're going to talk about tools at the end, but recently I stumbled into this whole new world of these digital notepads. And I'm not talking about an iPad. I'm talking about things that use e-ink or a variant of e-ink there's a bunch of manufacturers making them now and i got you know i got far

enough into it that i even like looked at some youtube videos i'm like wait wait wait i have my system i don't want to mess it up but yeah there's a lot of cool tools out there now so for the the shiny new object syndrome then that i assume that you still deal with you just kind of channel that towards analog then and that yeah you only have so much shiny new you can chase I mean pretty much but like I'm willing like I've probably tried like every like task management app out there right trying to figure out I I cannot do everything analog which you know what will come up I'm sure at some point in this podcast how I actually do things but I have to have some type of digital tool to manage task lists, to do list, you know,

project highlights, things like that. And like there, there is definitely a combination of analog and digital. I would say the majority of my work as far as, you know, trying to plan things out is still analog, but there are apps I cannot do without. Well, that might be the place to go into then. How do you actually do all the things that you do? Because you mentioned the blog, the podcast, NotCo, which I've got one of your pen cases right here with the rollout six pen holder. I love it. Spoke design. And what do you do in order to balance all those things and make sure that things aren't falling through the cracks? That's such a good question because it's really hard to

answer. I do have a general framework for what a week looks like for me. And that's pretty much as far as I go out. I don't really go out farther than what is up this week. So to manage that, I know... So I'll know Monday, I have to do X. And Tuesday, I have to do X. And on through, really through Sunday. I don't work most Saturdays. I do work a lot of Sundays for at least, you know, part of the day. So I'm not working every day of the week, but I'm doing some work probably at least six days a week. So I know that ahead of time what my week looks like. And I plan all that out in a planner that I'm using right now. It's by William Hanna. It's a disk bound system, which Mike is now familiar with that type of system. And David, I think you used, did you use the Levenger disk bound systems before?

I still do. I have so much to talk to you about about this later. David is the reason that I'm using a disk bound system. Yeah, it's like, that's one of those things that i held off on right it's like i don't really need that is that going to prove to be beneficial but what this does for me it allows me to keep my main task sheet open on my desk at all times so this is an a5 size y'all have to put a link in the show notes so people can realize that don't know all of my little lingo that A5 is, think of it as like your, I don't know, like your five by eight type of notebook, right? It's, you know, about the size

of like a black Moleskine. Yeah, like a black Moleskine, right around that size. So it's a good medium sized notebook. So on the left of that, everybody in the world knows what a five is except Americans. And America, you got letter size and compact and a five is like, yeah, you don't you don't want to get me started on my belief of of paper size standards. But that's a whole that's a whole thing on our show is my my stance on paper size standards and that we need them. So yeah, on the left side of the page, I have a block that's lengthwise across the page for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, all the way through Sunday. So each little section, I write down the priority tasks for those days. Like Monday could say that my you know, my review is due on the pen addict, that I have to do shipping for knock that, you know, I have invoices to pay for

that, uh, for this project or, you know, that type of thing, like what's due today. And then that'll go out through my whole week. And in general, most weeks, I could print that out, right? It's pretty set on what I have scheduled every day of the week, at what times, what's due, because we'll publish four reviews on the blog, a giveaway, a couple of just generic posts, like, hey, after we post the podcast, that's another post. And so there's probably like, nine to 10 blog entries every week. So that has to be scheduled. And then I have to manage the shipping of knock products and spoke products, which I do at my house. So that has to fit in the schedule. So where those times go,

you know, for this week, I'm recording four podcasts, you know, I'm recording with you guys, I'm recording my show, and then I'm doing two Penetic member podcasts. So that goes on the schedule. So it's, it's kind of a puzzle that I've just kind of figured out over the years. Okay, here's my windows for working. And here's the puzzle pieces that fit in these windows. When those windows, when those time slots get full, I can't take on any more projects. Because even though like I work many days, I don't work a lot of like 10 or 12 hour days, right? Like, we all have families, we all have kids, I'm very fortunate that I can stop in the middle of the day for two hours to go to a meeting or take the kid to the doctor or do those types of things.

I work in blocks. So I know what blocks I have to fill and where I can get the work done. And then I know the blocks that don't work for me. And I don't schedule anything around them. Okay. Well, I just got to stop there. Brad Dowdy is a time blocker, guys. You heard it right here.

Uh-oh, is that what I am? No, I think that's a very good way to be realistic. One of the hardest things to do as you start thinking about being focused is figuring out what's important enough to take your time and what's not. And you have created a system, knowingly or unknowingly, that actually puts constraints on your day. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, good. So like, I cannot physically work eight to five. And well, it's not physically, mentally, I cannot mentally work eight to five and stop for lunch, right? I don't do that. My schedule set up like to avoid that because i know at some point i'm not going to be

as good at my job so i'll block it up into two different things that might extend further in the day but they have bigger gaps in the middle of the day so there's no like continuous work window every day but the entirety of the work gets done during the day. That's not a bad thing, by the way. I think a lot of people struggle with that, so I do want to call this out real quick. With knowledge work specifically, you can't compare it to working a standard 9 to 5. All of the research behind effective knowledge work shows that even the people who

are really, really good at it, they're really doing about four hours of work in a day, not eight. So really, you've got to measure it against the production and the things that you're able to do. And I think that's something everybody has to figure out for themselves is where is that point of diminishing returns, where I'm going to get the diminishing returns where I'm going to get the blog post scheduled, I'm going to get the stuff shipped, but I'm not going to worry about the fact that I didn't get eight hours in today. You know, that's not a very effective measure of true productivity, I would argue. And it's one that will always make you feel like a slacker and feel bad. Yeah, that was a challenge when I

started working for myself is taking a break and not telling myself, well, I'm not working. This is an opportunity to be working. I should be working. And that's like exactly the opposite of what I should be doing. Yep. So with the blocks that you set aside for the things that you need to do, you mentioned you do that on a weekly basis for the things that you need to do. You mentioned you do that on a weekly basis for the things that you've got to do on specific days. Do you do that on a daily basis as well? When it comes to Wednesday, are you looking at the things that you have to do on Wednesday and rearranging blocks at that point? Generally, yeah. Even though they're pretty much fixed ahead of time, right? So I'll know that, for example, the podcast runs at 10 o'clock.

I'll know that, for example, the podcast runs at 10 o'clock. So I'll have gotten up and had breakfast or coffee or whatever. And I won't dig into any projects before the podcast. So that's time that I'll spend doing email, catching up on smaller tasks, things like that. And then the last hour before the show, I'll go back through the show prep. And then by the time we record and post and everything like that, that's my entire morning until the early afternoon, until afternoon sometime. So I know that going ahead of every week. So I generally don't have to rearrange that on the fly. And then I'll know that Wednesday afternoon for a couple hours, I have to focus

on shipping. That's pretty consistent. Sometimes the shipping window does move around. If something pops up, like if you guys wanted to record on Wednesday afternoon, that's where this would fit. And I could move the shipping to Tuesday afternoon and those kinds of things do move around like that. So, and then I'll finish that block up on Wednesday. Then I know on Wednesday night at 8.30, I always have a member podcast to record. So from like 8 till about 9.30, I block that up for that. So yeah, they don't move around too much during the day. I know that pretty much in advance how it's going to play out. I don't think I would be very good planning it on the fly.

I don't work well that way. You say that, but I'm hearing somebody who has a lot of structure to his week. Yeah, my week, I will admit my week is very structured. The problems are when I get off track, right? Like I will beat myself up for not doing the, the work during the window, even though there might've been a good excuse or there might've been a bad excuse, whichever excuse there is. And then having to figure out now my week is so tight. Now I have to frustrate myself further by rearranging that schedule. Right? So that's the challenges that I have. One of my things, so I'm a time blocker as well. I call it hyper-scheduling, which was a huge mistake because people misunderstand that to mean that I'm saying, okay, you get seven and a half

minutes to go to the bathroom. And occasionally somebody writes a blog post where they talk about this schedule that they have that is like that. And I think that's kind of missing the point. To me, the idea is exactly what you're describing, saying, here's a, you know, you've got so many blocks in a day. Let's say three blocks in a full workday. You know, where am I going to apportion those? And I'm not saying exactly what I'm going to do during that time, but I'm going to be working in this sphere of influence for that time. Or there's this one thing that's been bugging me, and I'm just going to stop everything and work on that. And I think that is so productive and

such a great way to actually move the needle on stuff that's important to you. So you're criticizing yourself, saying, well, I'm not good at the list. You're actually doing it right, in my opinion. Yeah. So the problem is when something throws off the norm, and I can give you a really perfect example that happened today. I had a dentist appointment at 9 a.m. That only comes up every six months, right? So I don't realize that till about a week before when they start texting me. It's like, hey, you got a dentist appointment. So I didn't get my normal morning routine in of... Today, I would have published a giveaway post on the blog. Every Tuesday, I give something away to the readers. And that's every Tuesday for the past, I don't know how many years, like three years consecutively. And then on Wednesday, someone y'all know, Jeff Abbott, he writes a review for The Pen Addict.

And Jeff had sent in his article for the week like Monday night. So knowing I had the dentist this morning at 9 a.m. and on Tuesdays, I always stream at 10 a.m. So I knew I didn't have much time to do work. I said, well, I'm going to go in and edit Jeff's post this morning. And I did because that's the only thing I'm going to have time for. So I went and did the post. And then I published Jeff's post today instead of tomorrow and forgot to publish the giveaway post today, which now I have to schedule

tomorrow. So I get thrown off when there's these one-off things in my schedule, right? So it totally screwed me up. Just that little once every six months thing appeared today, and it made me make a bunch of mistakes, like this cascading thing of mistakes. It was kind of funny. I laugh about it because none of these are serious mistakes. Like I didn't break anything, but I was just like, you dummy. This episode of the Focused podcast is brought to you by Blinkist. Read 3,000 plus books in 15 minutes or less. Start your seven-day free trial now.

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Blinkist has a special offer just for our audience. Go to Blinkist.com slash focused to start your free seven-day trial and get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership and up to 65% off audiobooks, which are yours to keep forever. That's Blinkist, spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash focused, F-O-C-U-S-E-D to get 25% off a premium membership and a seven day free trial. Go there now. Check it out. Blinkist dot com slash focus. Thanks Blinkist for your support of Focused and all of RelayFM. Before the break, Brad, you had mentioned how things threw off your plan for the week and you had mixed up the review and the giveaway posts. But it occurs to me, as you were telling that, I'm like you where if I don't stick to the plan,

I can tend to beat myself up because I'm such an idiot. I messed this thing up and don't I know by now that the reviews go out on Wednesday. But it occurs to me that the way you do your planning with the planning for the week, even though for the daily plan got messed up, your weekly plan is still intact. So maybe you're your own. The blocks just got moved. Yeah. So I don't think that's really a catastrophic failure there. I think maybe you need to give yourself a break.

Maybe so. I'm staring at my calendar while I'm talking to you. It's all written right there, what needs to publish when. And I've done this for years in a row, and you still screw it up. I've said this before and I don't, I just can't remember who told me this the first time, but these calendar blocks, it is like making soup in the sense

that you can throw the ingredients in a different order if things change. But I do think there's something to be said for if you're trying to stay focused, being aware of what it is that throws you into disarray. Like for me, it would be answering email before like 10, 30, 11. If I, if I let myself fall into the email hole before, you know, and give up those early morning productive hours, it always wrecks my day. And another one for me is if I fail to do what we call in the show the shutdown at the end

of the day where I go through and clear out email and plan the next day. If I don't do those two, if I go to email early or if I don't do the shutdown, there is a huge price to pay in my own focus. What about you? Are there things for you that you feel like are your kryptonite? Yeah, I'm totally trying to initiate the shutdown protocol at the end of the day. That's always a hard one. And I've gotten better over the years. Like that's something like, you know, my family's very much on me for that, right? He's like, you don't have to check email. It's like after dinner or whatever, like there's no reason to, to even bother to look just in case something came in. That's now going to send you like in a spiral of thought, whether it could be

good or bad, right? It's then I'm not no longer present when I was trying to have my family time. Just a tiny bit of advice on that. Use some, if you've got technology, a way to force yourself into it. Like I have a keyboard maestro script on my Mac that literally shuts all my apps at 4.30. It just shuts it. And it's like, okay, I don't have a choice. It's like the bomb is going to my apps at 4.30. It just shuts it. And it's like, okay, I don't have a choice. It's like the bomb is going to go off at 4.30. I have to get everything done so I

can do the shutdown. And I had to force myself to do that. And I still sometimes don't manage it. But every time I do it, it pays off. And every time I don't do it, it costs. So David has chosen the focused nuclear option. Yes. And I'm getting to the point where I don't need to use a nuclear option anymore, but I still have it enabled because I can't be trusted. Yes. I'm trying to use the focus analog option. So at the end of the day, I'll take a note card and just write the remaining things that are stuck in my head. And they're usually not work-related, right? By the end of the day, my mind's starting to wander and I've thought about other things. And I'll just have these other ideas I want to capture.

So I'll take a note card. And I started publishing these on Instagram. And, you know, just I call it one of my readers came up with the name Analog Download. Trying to figure out how we're getting the things out of our brain onto a piece of paper. And they came up with the name Analog Download, trying to figure out how we're getting the things out of our brain onto a piece of paper. And they came up with that name and I liked it. So I do, it's essentially just a brain dump of nonsense to tell myself, your day's over. These were the things that were left over that are currently rolling around your brain. And then when you write that card, they've all come out and now you're done for the day.

Like that's kind of where I've ended my day. I've been doing that for about two months now. It works very well. I really enjoy it. My brain tends to be my worst enemy just in the way I work, just getting distracted and things like that. What do you do with the cards

after you've posted them on Instagram? Because I've seen those. I like those a lot. Do you go back and review those at any point or do you just pitch them at that point that just downloading it onto the card was enough? Downloading on the cards enough, but I don't throw them away. Right now, I just have a stack of them. It's probably like two inches high now. I don't even know. But I don't have a good storage solution. I keep talking about trying to find a good storage solution, just like a good card box or, you know, library card catalog file, but I don't go back and review them. If for some reason I've triggered something that either needs to be explored more, or if I have

some every now and then I'll might, I might have a new sketch design at that time for a product design, right? I will, I might put it on the note card, then I might put it into a notebook that I do refer back to in the future, the cards. I haven't referred back to them ever, I don't think. So is the belief that you might need them at some point, that why you hang on to them? Or do you intend to go back and review them? Like you see the value in creating that process, but you just haven't yet? I'd say it's more the latter. I think there's some probably interesting stuff in there that if I took them as a whole, or took, you know, say, let's today I review last week's cards and see is there anything I need to pick up on? I think

that would be valuable. So yeah, I see the value in there in the existing data, if you will. And I've set it aside until I know how to answer that question better. And then when I figure that out, they'll be there. Okay. And just the idea of writing it down is a therapy in a sense of getting it out of your head, putting it down. I mean, that was one of the big takeaways for so many of us when we first read the David Allen Getting Things Done book, just the feeling of getting everything out of your mind and onto a trusted system. Just the unburdening yourself and doing that as a daily practice has got to feel really good as you finish your day. Yeah. And I should probably do it like three times a day,

to be perfectly honest. I get really, really wound up in my head and distracted on work, just getting off on tangents. And honestly, we all know that you definitely have enough note cards to do it through tangents. I'm good on note cards, not code.com. And it's just a good, the note cards are the best for that type of work, which is why I don't use a notebook like in a journal style of keeping those notes. That would not work for me at all, in a journal style of keeping those notes. That would not work for me at all because a notebook to me is added pressure to write where a note card is no pressure to write. Sure, that makes sense.

During the day then, you mentioned that you could do this multiple times per day. Do you jot things down either in a text file if you happen to be on your computer while you're doing the work or on a separate note card notebook somewhere or do you just kind of put your head down do the work and then at the end of the day you clear the decks no i i will stop and i'll write notes in two places one uh digitally i have fallen in love with taught, um, that has served to be a very useful application for the

way I like to be in the middle of work, have a complete offshoot idea that needs to go away so I can continue with the work and I can put it somewhere to go back later. Right. It's like, I'm working, this thought is worth exploring, but it needs to not be explored now. So, TOT has worked well for that. I just keep it in the menu bar of my laptop. And then I bought the app for the phone because I found it so useful. And I'll just write my notes in there where ideas go, quotes go, just notes, just random stuff. And then I keep a notebook that is just chock full of ideas, of writing, of topic exploration. Like if I'm, I could be sitting there doing a pencil review and I could be listening to music in the background. And the song could

trigger some idea about something. And it stops me in my tracks, which is kind of bad when you're doing work. But then I can take that idea, open this one notebook I have. If I open this notebook, there's little pages of complete idea explorations. Like, okay, I had this idea. Let me write a page or two about it. And then the same notebook has drawings all through it. It has quotes that maybe I heard someone say in a podcast that I want to remember. It has pen testing. So I keep this one notebook is essentially the only thing that I would even refer to as a journal of mine. It's just kind of with me all the time. And anything can go in there except like work stuff, like tasks, to-do lists. None of that stuff goes in

this notebook. There's a separate place for that. This notebook is for like ideas and exploration of ideas. And then they might become work later, then they can go somewhere else. But that's where between taught digitally, and then there's just this one random notebook that I keep. It's like the same A5, you know, moleskin size. That's a new thing for me as well that I just started this year, because I've never found no paper type systems work for me as far as like journaling goes or as far as planning goes, other than like what I use with my William Hanna notebook, just the weekly planner. I don't, you know, bullet journal or commonplace journal or morning pages or any of those things. None of that type of structures ever worked for me. So you created the anti-bullet journal.

The anti-bullet journal. Kind of, I guess. It's like, you know, I don't know how to explain it. Like you open up one page, there's two quotes that I wrote down. There's a list. You go to the next page, there's sketches of nibs where I'm trying to explain to myself how certain nibs work. You go to the next page, it's notes on a project article that I wanted to write about a site called Fountain Pen Companion. But not things you have to do. Right. No, none of it's things I have to do. See, now to me, that sounds like the traditional commonplace journal that, you know, like the

founders used to carry around where they had a little book, they carried around, they wrote all sorts of stuff in it. And they, you know, they didn't feel kind of bound to having a particular format. Like one day it may be, you know, you know, how to fly a kite with a key hung to it or whatever, you know, but that sounds to me like you're describing a commonplace journal. Maybe I should look into that definition a little bit more. Maybe it is falling into that and I'm not totally, totally aware. Yeah. Oh man, you're not inventing something. You're going back to the, you're going back to, you know, ground zero here. I mean, I use pens and paper, pens and paper. I mean, that's the most ground zero there is. But I do think the idea of having different contexts, whether it's digital or analog for different ways you work and think

can be a really powerful idea. I mean, you've got taught, you've got a digital tool, you've got a, you've got your commonplace journal. I'm just going to call it that for the rest of the episode. Sure. But you've got these things where you go different places, and it allows you to process things in different ways. I have a certain set of pages that I write down quotes that I hear that I think I want to think about again.

And I go there, I write them, and then it's off my plate. But then I know where to go to find them when I need them. And as somebody who does a lot of digital stuff, I think this has real value. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. That's exactly how I do it. And I'm not a work in quiet, you know, peaceful mind type of worker. I have to be like, I'm just as I could, I could probably do my job in on like a factory floor and like, give me, you know, like a laptop and a notebook and I'd sit there and be fine. I have to have some type of other stimulation going while I'm working. So, you know, the pros are, it makes me work better. The cons are sometimes it stops you in my tracks, but when I

do get stopped in my tracks, maybe it's for a good reason. And maybe that's something I can write down. And maybe that's something I can explore later. But like, it has to go, right? It has to go at that time, whether it's in the digital file on Todd in a notebook or whatever, so I can get back to work. So I do understand that and do use these tools for that reason. So you mentioned that you could do your job on a factory floor. That's intriguing to me because that seems like when you talk about focus, a lot of it is having to do with your environment and designing it in a way to limit distractions and interruptions. And if I'm hearing you right, you're basically saying that in any sort of environment, you're so connected with the work that you would be able to do it. So what are the things that cause you to lose focus? I guess the world we live in.

That's a big one right now. Right? Like, it's been really hard to like to work in this environment that we live in, because you have to think about other things constantly other than the work you know and that's something everyone's experiencing not not just me um you know so trying to figure out the balance of making sure i'm i'm up to date and knowledgeable on what's going on with the world while being able to work. In the past, it's just been maybe not being as rigid enough with my schedule, giving myself too many openings that bleed into not working. And then putting pressure on actually getting to the work when I need to do it.

So sometimes just like I could stop for lunch, you know, and then, you know, say from 12 to 1, I'm, you know, eating lunch, taking a break, catching up on the internet, doing whatever. And then not being rigid enough to go back and say, okay, 1 o'clock, let's go punch out these task list items. So your afternoon and evening are in better shape. And instead of just like passing the buck to say, well, I can do these later. So yeah, definitely a little bit of procrastination in there. I've mostly got over some of the procrastination just because my schedule is full and I like it that way. I like a full schedule. I like it when I'm working. But I also enjoy it when I'm not working. So it's trying to figure out that balance to have the best of both worlds. Is there anything that you use as like a focus SOS to help you get back when you realize that

your focus has been broken? Like, for example, I know there's a lot of people, and I do this myself sometimes, where when I need to write, there's a specific like Monument Valley soundtrack or anything by Tycho that I'll just put on and then it kind of gets me in the mood. And once I get started, then it's easier for me to keep going. Is there any sort of lifeline like that, that you use when it comes to, I got to focus right now? Yeah. I know when the most serious work I have to do, if I have to focus, there can't be anything really but music, but the music could be loud or quiet or anything like that. But I can't hear other people talking necessarily like in a

podcast or whatever. I could work in a coffee shop where there's that ambient chatter, but I couldn't work on anything where, you know, someone else's is relaying information. So music is it for me. Um, when the most focus needs to happen, I do tend to go to the quieter stuff. Like a band called Seagurus is one of my main writing soundtracks. So when Seagur Rose comes on, it's time for me to get serious because it's essentially just almost background ambient type music. But honestly, I probably need more defined stuff for when that's not working. If that doesn't work, if I have to commit a couple of hours to writing and getting this one task done or whatever the task is, and I'm still not getting it done, I don't have anything that kind of pulls me back in.

I'll just stop. Sometimes I will just stop. I don't have anything that kind of pulls me back in. I'll just stop. Sometimes I will just stop. I won't fight it. I'll just quit and put it down for an hour or two, and then I'll naturally come back to it when I'm ready. I think that's actually a pretty brilliant strategy. I think there's a lot of people who try to force themselves to do things when they don't really need to do them. Just because they put this artificial pressure on themselves, they got to check the boxes on their task list so that they had a productive day. When sometimes you're just not feeling it and it's fine to just say, I need a break. And then come back to it later and it's going to be much easier.

You're going to crank that thing out, write those 2,000 words in 20 minutes as opposed to four hours. Retreat is not surrender. It's okay. Yeah. And I'm fortunate to be in that position, right? I work for myself. Not everyone can say, you know, forget it. I'll be back in two hours and then we'll knock this out when my head's right.

Like I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. So it's certainly a challenge. And I do that, that comes up a lot where I'll just have to stop. And then I have this weird sensation of when I go back to start again, like I don't set a timer. Like it's just happens. I could be 30 minutes. It could be two hours, whatever it is. It could be the next day. And then when I come back to pick it back up, I'm like, usually I feel different, like mentally, like I'm more like in the zone and like, boy, I really like writing this. We're going to bang this out right now and we're good to go. And then not even think about why I couldn't do it yesterday.

Yeah. And that's why you need to back off when things are like that. Yeah, that's why you need to back off when things are like that. I think it's such a great idea to have other things you can go do, or maybe just go take the dog on a walk. You know, it's okay. Totally. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Focus at Will.

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in two focused hours than you typically do in an entire day. I know I've been there myself. Sometimes I can crank out 1,500 words in 20 minutes. Sometimes I know I've been there myself. Sometimes I can crank out 1500 words in 20 minutes. Sometimes I sit at the keyboard for four hours and I get only 500 words done. And that's really frustrating. So Focus at Will helps me achieve those levels of intense concentration more often. Their subscribers include entrepreneurs, freelancers, writers, designers, students, and include people that work in large corporations like Google, Tesla, Apple, SpaceX, and Microsoft. Listeners of this show can get 60% off of a Focus at Will subscription. That is a great deal. Just go to focusatwill.com and use the code FOCUSED, F-O-C-e-d at checkout that's focus at will dot com and use the

code focused at checkout to get 60 off our thanks to focus at will for their support of the focus podcast and all of relay fm brad let's talk a little bit about analog productivity. Yeah. I think for a lot of nerds, myself included, I grew up of an age where analog was the only technology. I didn't have computers in schools. We had pencils and paper. And then as the digital tools came out,

it was just so obvious to me how superior they were in so many ways. It's searchable. You can make a copy of it. It's, you know, there's just a lot of things about digital tools in relation to a lot of the stuff we're talking about that makes so much sense. So I was slow to the idea of coming back and using some analog tools, but I got there. And I thought it'd be fun to talk to you about how do you see that line between being productive, I'm holding up air quotes, and using analog tools? It doesn't matter what you do, that you have some type of connection to analog because just by default, you're going to think about problems differently.

You could be like the most ace programmer ever and just locked into your laptop or your keyboard and your monitor setup and your digital apps to time everything and to manage it all. And you could do that for years and years and years. But I firmly believe that if there was a pad and a pen or pencil sitting on that desk next to your iPhone or iPad, that that's going to help you generate even better work just by accident, right? Just by being there to allow you to explore, you know, your problem you're having on your screen or to come up with a new idea. Writing that down in a text file is not the same. It just isn't. And the way people process that, even the most computer digital people on the planet,

I just think there is so much value to having just the most basic. You don't ever have to listen to the pen addict ever. But if you just have whatever notepad, whatever copier paper and a pencil you can find in the drawer and you have it there, you will feel different about the work that you do. I promise you. It's hard to put in words if you haven't done this type of work.

But it makes a difference in how your brain thinks. And there's, you know, there's all kinds of research on this and it's valid. Like it's, it makes your brain work differently than, you know, sitting here on any type of device. And the value that provides, it might not be seen on the same day that you pick up that pencil and scribble a circle on the page just because you're stuck on a problem. But tomorrow, that circle might turn into a few words and an idea that you explore a little bit more. And then tomorrow it might turn into, well, here's this complex problem that I have. And, you know, what I just wrote down, that's not going to solve anything, but, you know, six months from now, I've run that through my brain and I can come back to that or I see that or I do the next task differently because of that.

And it's hard to get that type of feeling writing in a text file or using an app. I just I firmly believe that. I totally get it. And only do I get it through the experience of trying it. Because like I said, I'm of the age where these digital tools came in while we use the old stuff, right? And all the failings of the old stuff. So just like going from records to CDs was such a change, I felt like, you know, going to these digital tools was such an improvement. And then the iPhone even amplifies that because the iphone fits in your pocket right so you've already got the world's smallest you know infinitely expandable note card in your pocket um but um i listened to you guys i tried it i start i felt like it was

making a difference but then i still resisted at one point i gave up the analog tools again and then i realized that i was missing something. And it really took me going through two or three attempts. But for me, I can say that the big difference is for someone who does so much work digital, having the analog, having that context shift we were talking about earlier, gives my brain space and it does make a difference in focus. about earlier, gives my brain space and it does make a difference in focus. Yeah. And it really doesn't take much and you don't have to go overboard and become a pen addict. You just have to allow yourself this little bit of exploration every now and then. And the benefit of those few minutes scribbling on a piece of paper today, you know, will benefit you,

you know, two years from now, you know, if you keep up the habit. I'm not here to convert anybody. I'm the biggest digital fan outside of anyone on the RelayFM network that I know. But, you know, it's in combination that I'm able to do my best work. These tools are here for a reason. I don't do well with certain things in an analog format like calendaring. I cannot manage a calendar on paper. I use a digital app for that. But the things that this piece of paper gives me outside of the calendar are just super, super valuable. People need to kind of figure out where the line is for them. benefit of the analog supplement, I guess, to the digital system has been recognizing which types of ideas, thoughts, patterns, problems are worth being inefficient with. Because when you're

talking about developing an idea, it's not a short path between A to B to finish product. And you do need to give yourself time to noodle on things and to connect dots in new and interesting ways. And using pen and paper for me, that's kind of the ideal case there is that it forces me to slow down and it forces my brain to be engaged. That was kind of the thing as I was taking a bunch of notes digitally, I recognized that I could jot things down because I'm a fast typist, pretty much word for word, any talk that I would attend. But then you could ask me two hours later, what was the talk about? And I wouldn't remember.

Right. asked me two hours later what was the talk about and I wouldn't I wouldn't remember right so I got really good at being efficient in capturing what was said but I wasn't internalizing any of it and that's kind of what got me into sketchnoting and I've now kind of evolved to the point where I want to do everything that I can analog because I recognize the benefit of the additional connections that your brain makes, not just in doing the definition of the task to be completed in front of you, but really it's quality over quantity in a lot of cases. Yeah, at a minimum, it's the best step one there is out there, right? Like the initial idea is throw them on paper, make a mess, draw arrows everywhere. Like that doesn't necessarily work as well. I

mean, you know, you can, you can argue there's, there's plenty of iPad apps that, that could do that. But, you know, the actual, you know, getting ink on your hands type of situation by just throwing things on the page before you start and exploring how you feel about something. I don't know. I work in a, I write in a very non-technical manner. I write more in a, you know, talking about like how I feel about things. So I sometimes have to explore that on the page and I'll write, things. So I sometimes have to explore that on the page and I'll write, just handwrite, you know, whatever idea I'm having in this notebook. And that'll turn into an article later or a topic later that I want to discuss, or maybe it's something I want to discuss on the podcast that I need to flesh out. I can't do that in Ulysses, right? Which is where I write on

everything in Ulysses, but I i can't i'm not the type of person that benefits from exploring my words in a digital interface yes exactly it just works better on paper and even even a mind map i've done a lot with mind mapping and and that i like that on the ipad specifically because you can touch your nodes and you can move them around. But it's not the same as doing it on paper. Yeah. I do a lot of technical writing. We mentioned the article that I published recently about my hybrid system.

And there's an image in there where I, the published one is actually the third version of it. So it's very inefficient when you're talking about creating like a diagram of your productivity workflow. But the process of drawing that by hand made me more attached to it. I'm more, it sounds crazy to say it, but it feels like I'm more emotionally invested in the system that I created on the paper because I've gone through different iterations of it and blood, sweat, and tears went into that.

And I can't just circle something and swap it out with a different app. I'd have to redraw the whole thing. And sometimes I guess, you know, there could be a case where you get stuck with some things that maybe you shouldn't, but I, it's still new to me and it feels really good. And I totally get what you're talking about with that. Yep. That makes, that makes complete sense. And like we did a big 400th episode, you know, kind of pin addict 101 episode. And I basically had to build a mind map for how we're going to discuss this. And I wrote it all on paper first, and then I put it in my node. And, you know, in my node was essentially the version three. So I could share it with Mike and share it with our readers, because I really didn't want to scan my notebook

notes for that to share with everybody. But to kind of give people an idea of what we're going to talk about, I put the final version in my note and shared it. It's all collaborative. Like these analog and digital tools all work together and they benefit each other so much. Well, I mean, even for me, one of the biggest negatives of trying using paper was speed. one of the biggest negatives of trying using paper was speed i yes i can input so much faster with a keyboard or now my voice i mean voice dictation has got so good that um why on earth would i stop and scribble out because my writing is slow but you know i think that to me ended up

being the reason i really stuck with it. Because slowing down the pen allowed the brain to process more. And the hang-up was never that I couldn't input text fast enough. The hang-up was between my two ears. And now by slowing myself down with the pen. And to be fair, I mean, people are saying, well, are you going to give up on me focus? Of course not. I have 150 clients. I've got three podcasts. I use all these digital tools for a lot, but there's a small portion of my life that I use analog stuff for. And we'll talk about that later.

But you don't have, this isn't an all or nothing thing. But if you're out there using a lot of digital stuff, I think you want to try focus, try a different context for yourself. I think this is worth a try. Yeah, absolutely. try a different context for yourself. I think this is worth a try. Yeah, absolutely. And just so, I mean, just so people know, I live in Todoist. I live in Ulysses. I live in Fantastical. I live in my email app. You know, I am super digitally wired in. You have to, like all my work is done through the internet, but it gets there differently. Like it starts on

paper for me because that's how I work the best. And then we go from there. And the thing that's holding up the creation of the articles and all the work that is visible is not the efficiency of a tool like Ulysses. It's what are the words that you're going to create and no application is going to do that for you. Yeah. When I open up Ulysses to start typing, the article is essentially done, you know, not in a verbatim way, but in a creative outline type of way, right? Like I know what I'm writing before. I'm not, I've never opened Ulysses and put in a title and said, okay, go. Like I just don't work that way. And then the cursor just started moving and the words appeared.

Yeah. So like the analog side of my brain, that's how it gets me to the end result. I also think there's a lot to be said about the joy that comes with analog. I mean, just the word analog, there's kind of an emphasis on all the feels. But as I mentioned in the article that I wrote recently, that's kind of the thing that got me thinking recently about but I just couldn't do the normal work. I just emotionally couldn't couldn't muster up the motivation to to do what I used to be able to do. And so I found myself leaning into the analog tools more and more just because they brought me joy. And the happier I got, the better my output was. happier I got, the better my output was. So it wasn't a matter of not knowing what to do. It wasn't that OmniFocus was holding me back, but the inefficient practice of taking the things out of OmniFocus and putting them on paper pen as I plan my day and I limit myself to the five things I'm going to do today. I've got the five blocks next to my time block schedule. That helped me to be more, quote unquote, productive than the application was allowing me to be. And I think that's the kind of thing that we undervalue a lot is our emotional

state when it comes to being focused and being productive. Yeah, you made a good point that if I think about it, I am very inefficient in the fact that I write everything down twice, right? So all my stuff's in all the digital apps, but then it gets written again in my paper, and then I refer to the paper and the papers where things get modified and manipulated. It's inefficient that I've done that twice, but it's efficient because that's how I work best in the end, right? It's in that wind, yeah. Yeah, I won't remember to go, oh, what's in Todoist at two o'clock?

Like if I, you know, I can set my alerts or whatever, but I think you understand what I'm saying. I'm not going to constantly refer back to the apps i don't live in apps enough to have them run my life where i pretty much do on paper yeah and and there's a couple nuances to that i mean like i would that was kind of the the raw um productivity thought i was bringing to the table when i first approached analog tools is like it's slower. But then you've got to think about two things. Number one is, is it slower? Because the process of writing it out by hand and then writing it in your digital form, how much time did that take versus if you had just looked at a blank cursor and not taken the step first of

writing it out? So you may find it was actually faster. And the second and probably more important point is which end product would have been better for you? And this isn't true for everybody, but does the process of writing it out and then going to the digital form, does that make a better end product? And everybody has to answer that question for themselves, but you may be surprised at the answer for yourself. Yep, I totally agree. And I found that pretty early on, thankfully, like that part of how I work has not really changed in years and years and years. So that's been good. It's just, you know, fitting the rest of the puzzle around all that stuff. you know, fitting the rest of the web without anything to protect your privacy, you risk hackers, ad companies, and more collecting your data. And it does happen to people like us, which is why I recommend ExpressVPN.

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I don't have to think about somebody else's Wi-Fi getting me into trouble. I recently had a doctor's appointment, and at the doctor's office, they've got so much equipment in there. There is no cellular coverage. You have to use their Wi-Fi. I just flip the switch. I'm on ExpressVPN. I'm all good. So why not protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three-d that's expressvpn e-x-p-r-e-s-s vpn.com slash focused for three months free with a one-year package take back your online privacy today with expressvpn.com slash focused and our thanks to expressvpn for their support of focused and all of RelayFM. All right. Okay, guys, I have to admit, I'm not sure this is really on point for the Focus podcast.

This is the part I've been waiting to talk about. All right, let's get a little nerdy for a while and talk about, so let's say you're listening to the show and you're like, hey, I want to try this out. The answer is not to go buy a $300 pen. Please don't. And some very artisanal paper that's made by 40-year-old eucalyptus leaves.

It's probably something much simpler. So, Brad, if somebody's listening, how do you get started with this stuff? completely serious when I say, you know, your lowest barrier point to just writing your ideas down is what you have with you. You can find a piece of paper in your house and you can find a pen. So that's step one. Like people who are completely into digital, who don't want to spend anything on analog, but say, hey, I listened to this guy talk about pens and paper for an hour and God, it was boring. But in the end, I think I might try just grab something around your house. That's okay. But for people who want to, you know, say, oh, this is a nice pen or a nicer pen than what I'm used to. You know, this is better than the pen I stole from the bank or this is better than the paper I found in, you know, my kid's backpack.

There's a few things you can look at. Number one, I would at least, at a minimum, pick up a good gel ink pen. You can get that anywhere. You can get them at your grocery stores. You can get them at Staples. And you can find something like the Uni-Ball Signo, which is a very popular pen. And it will be better than 99% of the pens that you have available to you. And it's like a $2 pen and the writing experience you'll get from that is, is crazy good. A scale of,

okay, let's have a scale of one to 10. Put a BIC, what do you call the BIC technology? What is it? Like the roller? So the, yeah, the BIC is a ballpoint.

So like you can have the BIC ballpoint. Like the BIC crystal is the famous ballpoint. It's the clear barrel blue cap that everyone's seen. Like that's a really good pen for creatives. You'll see that in like design studios as a creative type pen because you can draw with that pen. It shades and does all kinds of cool stuff.

So if you think you're going to be doing some sketching, I'm telling I'm not even joking. I'm sitting here with like a pen that I paid $400 for. You're going to be able to draw better, better sketches and better product design with a big crystal ballpoint than I will be with this, this pen I have sitting here. But then there's, we'll get into reasons why I have these pens. It kind of goes into what Mike and David were saying, what y'all were saying about, you know, how these things, things make you feel, but yeah, the very basics, bit crystal, Pilot Precise V5, which is a rollerball ink pen a lot of people will be familiar with that

and the uniball signo gel then like that's your baseline after that you have to stop going to stores and you have to start shopping online or go to stationary specific stores right those are your off the store shelf brands that you can buy that are good. After that, you want to start looking into, you want to get into fountain pens. You want to look at companies like Pilot who make an entry-level fountain pen. Maybe you want to try a fountain pen, see what that feels like. And the easiest way to- Why should somebody try a fountain pen though, if someone's listening? In the end, it's very hard in the beginning to give a great answer why you should try a fountain pen. If you think the end result of a fountain pen being the most customizable writing experience you can have, and that intrigues you, you have to start somewhere. And, you know, there's a couple places you can start. But it's a unique feeling.

The way the nib and the ink get applied to the page is different than using any type of ball tip pen, which is your ballpoints, rollerballs, gel pens. And a lot of people find them better to write with because they don't have to put as much pressure on the page or they tend to not tense up as much when they use a fountain pen. I would never like argue someone's who says, well, I can only use the fountain pens are not for me. I can only use, you know, like more standard pen. That's great. Like not everyone will enjoy the fountain pen experience. I happen to, to enjoy fountain pens because in the end I can get something that's very specific to me. And that could be the way it feels, the way it writes, the way it looks, the color of ink it uses, you know, the way the nib is designed, all of these things that are really, you know, nice to have, right? They're not necessarily changing the functionality of the fountain pen,

but they're allowing me to express myself a little more in my writing to something like me. So that's my pitch for trying fountain pens. They're very different beast. The one thing I can say for someone who's never tried a fountain pen, do not be scared of them. All the horror stories you've ever heard about fountain pens, all the horror stories you've ever heard about fountain pens, none of that, I won't say none of it's true, but it's really insignificant in the benefits. Yes, fountain pens have some maintenance requirements, right? You have to clean them and you have to take care of them a little bit. But there's a lot of myths out there about fountain pens, like you're going to wear out the nib or you can't let someone else borrow your pen, or they're going to clog up all the time,

or ink is going to go everywhere. All of those are, you know, things you can't let someone else borrow your pen or they're going to clog up all the time or ink is going to go everywhere. All of those are, you know, things you can get past real quick if you just take a little time to learn. You will have to put in some more maintenance to them, but it's very, very minimal. Like I clean, if I have 10 fountain pens inked up right now, I'll clean them once every three weeks or so. It'll take me about, I don't know, 20 minutes

and clean them up and then put them away and ink up some new pens. And I know you have a co-host who doesn't clean them quite as often. Yeah, that's a whole issue. He's coming around a little bit. Like I've called him out enough times to where he's starting to see the light.

But, you know, kind of getting back to the person listening, I mean, a Uni-ball pen is great and they write really smooth. And if you want to, you know, and if you lose it, you don't feel like you just, you know, you spent a lot of money and you lose it. You don't feel so bad. They're disposable in that sense. What about a simple paper system to get started? If someone wants to throw a few bucks at this to

get a little better at it yeah paper is actually harder than pens to you know get people on the right track with um i wish i knew why i mean i know why i mean there's there's limitations to how some of this is produced and they're not made for all types of pens, but there's no information on that for people who walk into a store, see rows of notebooks and trying to make a determination, the differences between what's inside, right? They can tell what's on the outside, but the only thing with paper, with a notebook or a notepad or anything you're writing on is what's on the inside. That's really, really difficult for someone who doesn't, who's just doing this for the first time. The best thing I can tell you is there's a few brands that I would start with, and they are more expensive than your basic mead that you're going to find on OfficeMax's shelf.

your basic mead that you're going to find on OfficeMax's shelf. Sometimes you can find them in bookstores. Sometimes you can find them locally in brick and mortar stores. You can easily find them online, but you want to look at two brands. One brand's called Rhodia, which I mentioned earlier. Wait, wait, wait. I have to wait. I have to light a candle real quick. have to light a candle real quick okay one brand's called rodeo it is the smoothest paper you will probably use without getting into some really you know technically super nerdy pen addict type of papers right it's kind of the best mainstream paper highest quality, best writing experience for all types of pens that's reasonably accessible, right? It's not everywhere. It's not on every store shelf, but it's popular enough that it's in places you might not expect it to be. The other brand, if you're looking for your moleskin type, you want your one notebook that's like 200 pages, you know, the black

notebook, very traditional style, is a brand called Leuchtturm 1917. You'll see these everywhere. Like you can find them at Barnes and Nobles and bookstores and things like that. You can order them online. They trounce the Moleskine in paper quality. So I love Moleskine for their design, Skeen in paper quality. So I love Moleskeen for their design, but their paper is traditionally poor for the majority of pens that go in them. They're fine for ballpoints. They're fine for pencils. They're okay for gel ink pens. They're terrible for rollerball pens and fountain pens and markers and things like that. So depending on how you want to use it, you can use a Moleskeen, but if you buy a Leuchtturm, which is same aesthetic, but better paper, and as many, if not more options than Moleskine, as far as styles go to fit your

own style, the paper will work with a lot more pens. And that's what I like to recommend people buy initially is something that's not super particular, right? Rodia's flaw is that the ink might not dry as quick, but I think that's a fair trade-off for what it offers. Leuchtturm, it may not work for like the wettest, widest nib of a fountain pen, but it works for most of them. That's a fair trade-off when you're trying to get into paper. Paper is really hard. It's a lot easier to recommend good pens than good paper. Even though good paper is out there, it's just not accessible for the very beginners who are getting into this stuff because there's more that goes into the paper than the actual paper itself, right? What pen are you going to use on this paper? That determines whether the

paper is good or bad right and these things aren't on the back of the the packaging for notebooks rhodia mike hurley shared some rhodia paper with me once and it ruined me for life because it feels like writing on a stick of butter i mean it just i can't explain how good it feels writing on and i know this is like i said we've we've really traveled into nerdy country here. In fact, let's go there for a minute. So what is your pen and paper of choice? And granted, you're a guy who makes a living talking and writing about this stuff.

So everybody, don't feel like you have to go crazy. Because I think all three of us have kind of gone a little crazy. But let's share it anyway. Let's just go there. So one of my favorite pen brands and people who know me who are listening to the show know I'm going to say Sailor, which is a Japanese manufacturer. Think of Sailor like if you're not familiar with pens at all and you're in the U.S., Sailor is part of the big three Japanese pen manufacturers. Just like in the U.S., like Ford and Chevrolet and Dodge at one time were the three big United States car manufacturers. In Japan, which is the homeland of stationery to me, they do it the best and the biggest. They have Sailor, and platinum that's referred to as the japanese big three i like all the pens from

all of those companies i use sailor the most i'm using a sailor pro gear that i bought that was a very limited edition from a japanese store called bung box it's a very it's like a limited edition limited to 100 pins we don't want to link that in the show notes we don't need anyone to we don't need anyone to spend their money yet if they're not in pins on that but like that's something where like this pin is in a price point where it's more about the aesthetic than the performance right there is a um you know like there is a balance point to where you're paying more for external features than the actual writing instrument. That's why I say a bit crystal is perfectly acceptable. And I know Mike has gotten into the sailors. I've seen him. And I know where most of my favorite stationery comes from. So I'm using a Japanese notebook as well. It's a brand called Midori. If you're in a bigger city,

and you have a shop called Kinokuniya, like they're in New York, San Francisco, Dallas, there's a lot of places. It's a Japanese bookstore. They carry Midori notebooks. Those are fantastic. That's what I'm using right now as my main notebook, the notebook I was talking about, my commonplace notebook, David, that I now have to go refer to it as. Thanks for that. You're welcome. So yeah, I'm using two Japanese products. I'm using a Sailor Pen and a Midori notebook, And those are kind of my sweet spot for aesthetic and high,

high performance. Like these are, these are your high performance vehicles of the, of the pen world, right? The sailor with their gold nibs and you know, they're expensive, but the way they work and the way they look just really fits my style. I like to write small. So Japanese pens tend to have a smaller nib, which is the tip size. And Sailor pens definitely allow me to write my tiny lettering that I like to do. Now, Mike, I know, so I've, as Mike's friend, I have seen him dip his toes into the pool of fancy pens and paper. And then kind of like within a month or so, I feel like Mike had bought more pens than I have.

Let's not let him off the hook here. He's gone off the deep end. Yeah, Mike, explain to us what's going on over there. Well, it all started one day in August last year when i was in a hotel lobby with david sparks and brad dowdy and we were getting in a lift and first time i'd met you brad so we were doing the hey where you from and i'm like oh some small town in wisconsin you've never heard of appleton and you're like oh anderson pens and uh the co-working space that i often worked out of is literally a block away from anderson pens so i had walked by it probably hundreds of times never set foot in it and i

resolved right then and there as we were getting in the lift that when i get back i'm gonna go into anderson pens and see what this is all about so So walked in, said Brad Dowdy sent me, and walked out with a Schaefer 300. Shortly after that, got a TWSBI 580, and then went back and got a Sailor 1911 Fresca. And the rest is history. Well, Brian and Lisa Anderson are awesome. They will take good care of you.

And I have other friends that shop in the store there as well. And you can obviously shop online there, but it's, you're super lucky to have that option, right? That is a very, for someone that's into stationery and pens to have that option in their town these days, or at least close by is super, super rare. So yeah, to have that, I see why you got hooked so well, because you're just surrounded by it once you walk in the door. Yeah. Now, before I had done that, I felt like I had done a pretty good job resisting. Joe Buehlig had forced me to try his fancy fountain pens at Mac stock the year prior. And David was telling me about his, his, uh, platinum 3776 with the custom architect grind and how awesome it was. And I was

like, Nope, just not going to go there. And then went to the relay five-year event and, uh, decided to dip my toes in. And, I really, really fell hard after that. Now I've shared some of the stuff in that article, but I've got a fancy case that I keep them all in. I've got probably 20 pens at this point. One of the things I want to call out though, the way I picked this up from Mike Hurley, he mentioned at one point that he will get pens as like a celebration for a completed project.

Yeah. I started doing that and that helped me. I shouldn't say helped. Depends who you ask. I guess my wife might say that it didn't help, but it really infuses additional joy when I pick up a pen to use it now. And I know that I'm picking up my, I've got a ProGear Slim Lucky Charm that I picked up when we finished and shipped the Mastering Mind Maps course. You know, I picked that up and I decided to use that that day. Not only is it something that feels really good and I like the look of and it's a joy to use, but it's also like a little boost to my self-esteem, like a reminder that I am the type of person who can plan and complete a project. So right now that's been super important for me.

I love that you put that in the article, that you can have, you can attach these meanings to these analog tools and that you can't attach to. Man, Todoist really got me through that project. I am so fortunate to have Todoist and I'm going to get the premium subscription for my birthday. It doesn't work that way, right? Yeah. But to be able to say, look at this, you know, pick up this pen is like, I remember when, you know, I delivered this project and like, I had these good thoughts about this project and, you know, this was my reward for, for executing that. And like, you'll always have

that no matter, no matter what. And I think that's one of the really cool things about analog that we don't talk about that much about how the stories you can tell with some of these products, because I mean, it's, it's a luxury item, anything like over a Bic, right, over a Bic and a copy paper is unnecessary. These are all luxury items. But the way you can tie these into your life and they can help you get through your work and they can make you feel things differently and think about things differently. I think it was super important. Yeah, it's not, it's no longer just a display case that has an expensive collection. It's almost like a trophy case at that point. Yeah, yeah.

It doesn't mean anything to anybody else but me, but that's enough. I really, there's a lot of joy that comes from doing that. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, right now I'm using, I'm taking notes as we're recording here with my Sailor 1911 4AM, which I really like the translucent body and the black trim on this. Yep, I have that one. That's a great one.

I'm a big Sailor fan, so I've got a couple 1911s, a couple Pro Gears. I do have a one pen that has a custom grind, which is the Platinum 3776. It's the red carnelian with an architect grind. I've actually got another one on the way from the nib grinder. But this was my first experience with a custom grind, and I really do like it.

I don't think it's the type of thing that is a default like you need to do this. I think there's a possibility that depending on your writing style, maybe a specialty grind isn't going to give you any additional value or joy. But I really do like it. I think for the right type of person, those types of grinds can really make a difference in your handwriting. My handwriting is kind of chicken scratch to begin with it's not nearly as neat as your analog download cards so you could make the case that i don't really need that either but i wanted to give it a shot yeah i and and what paper are you using mike i have used a lot of different papers in the past i really do like the rhodia5, but as I mentioned in the

article, I'm kind of doing this hybrid bullet journal thing. We'll have to get into the specifics of that at some point, David, but it's a Ugmonk heirloom journal. It's like an A5 size with leather covers and then like these brass rings. It's compatible with the Levenger Circus system. And I wasn't a huge fan of the paper that came with it. I think it was proprietary paper and it just had a little bit too much feathering for some of my broader nibs that I wanted to use. So I'm using per recommendation from Jeff Abbott, Claire Fontaine Triumph that I bought from Anderson Pens and then punched myself. that I bought from Anderson Pens and then punched myself.

And it's not available in dot grid, which would be my preference. But I just have the blank stuff and I haven't missed the dot grid too much. So this is what I'm sticking with for the foreseeable future. Yeah, that's like the I call Claire Fontaine the premium rodeo, right? It's just a little bit nicer, just a little bit thicker page really good performance for fountain pens and yet that is the pad that jeff uses for all of his all of his pen and ink reviews on the pen addict it's great yeah i so i um i i got into the fountain pens based on on brad and mike honestly and so i tried a couple of them it was kind of a mixed bag for me like i said i i kind

of i tried it with a legitimate interest and i started to lean back into ipad and more digital tools and then realized i was i actually was getting benefit out of it i hadn't realized so i went back to paper but i've been a little more kind of mercenary about it um once i the pen i like is the platinum pen with the architect grind and i have two i have one with a medium uh architect grind one with one with a broad architect grind and honestly i can't tell the difference between them they're so close but the um but i also tried a sailor pin but i i bought it as a fine tip and i just seemed to be like fine was what you're supposed to get with a fountain pen. I didn't like it.

It felt scratchy to me. I don't know. Yeah. For whatever reason, the platinum pen, I just really like the smooth flow of it. And kind of in relation, this Rodeo paper for me is so perfect. And originally I was using those Rodeo Webby's, their little notebooks with it's rated 90. I forget what the unit is, GSM or something. What's the unit for paper?

But that is very thick paper. It's got a little bit of a yellow orange tint to the paper. So if you use green ink, it looks really nice. And it was great, except for the fact that I realized that a notebook that went from one page to the next really wasn't ideal for me because a lot of times I start writing on thinking out like I'm working on a field guide and I'll write two or three pages about some ideas for what I'm going to do and I don't want that in the middle of my my my journal you know so um I don't want a commonplace in that sense I kind of want to keep things segregated. So I tried the Levenger disk system and Levenger is an American company. I just wanted something that was easy for

me to get access to, you know, you can order it there in the U S you get it. That's so many of these, the better paper and disk systems are actually over in Europe or Asia. So I tried Levenger, and I thought it was okay. I gave up the Rhodia Webby's and used Levenger for like six months. And then one day, just on a lark, I pulled out the Rhodia, and I wrote in it, and I realized that the difference in paper was not something I could accept anymore. It felt like, you know, it honestly, and this is such a nerdy thing. And I totally understand if you're rolling your eyes right now, but it feels like writing on sandpaper

versus butter. It's just so different. And so much so that I thought, well, maybe I have to throw this Levenger system overboard and go back to the webbies. But I really liked the ability on the disk system. It works great. Cause like one of my workflows is i i i log every day and i journal every day but at the end of the day i pull it out of the disk system and i shoot a picture of it with good notes which is this great little app that basically gives me a digital version of my of my journal and if i do like stray into something that's not part of a journal i can still pull that out and take a picture of that and put it in a different place digitally. And so the disk system makes a lot of sense for me, but I just realized I really don't like Levenger paper so much so that I have like three inches of it

here I'm about to send off to a listener. But then a dear listener who heard me bemoaning this sent me a note saying, get yourself somehodia a4 pads because a4 size paper is usually taller than letter paper us letter paper but the way they make those pads you actually tear off a big chunk of it at the top and you can punch it and put into a leavener letter size thing and it works just fine um the um the rhodia A4 paper is a little thinner than their Webby paper, but I can write on both sides of it. It doesn't bleed through at all. And so I've been doing that now for a couple months and I think that's probably where I'm going to stay. Maybe someday I'll switch over to an actual A4 size disk system, but I have the

Levenger punch at this point. I do like the Levenger Month tabs, so I can kind of flip through them. And I'm kind of in a good place. The interesting thing is all of this kind of resulted in me not really being that interested in buying more pens because I got the one I like. There is a pen. I talked to you about this. It's like a $1,000 pen someday I could buy. I got two kids I like. There is a pen. I talked to you about this.

It's like a $1,000 pen someday I could buy. I got two kids to put through college. I got to stop thinking about that stuff. There's always one, right? I think you guys call it the grail pen on your show. But I'm actually intentionally kind of backing away from that a little bit because I paid $300 for this pen. I mean, this is way more pen than anybody should ever have.

And it writes beautifully. And I have three or four different color inks. I paid $300 for this pen. I mean, this is way more pen than anybody should ever have. And it writes beautifully. And I have three or four different color inks. And I don't have, you know, when one ink runs out, it's fun to wash it out and put, okay, I've been writing in Bondi blue for the last six months. Now I'm going to write in a shade of red. It's just for the heck of it. That's almost like getting a new pen. Yeah.

It is. It is. So I've kind of like backed off a little bit but that being said i'm using the pens and papers under fire now every day and i can't imagine not doing it anymore yeah that's great one little almost throwaway comment you said there just for your listeners perspective on how how deep this level of nerdery goes with pens. So David said, you know, that I bought a fine nib sailor and I didn't like it as much as my medium nib platinum. That's an hour long discussion on our show.

Just that sentence. I'm just putting that in context for your listeners who are not familiar with pens. That little throwaway comment is just hours worth of conversation just discussing that one sentence on on the pen addict so yeah that's how that's how deep this goes yeah well the way i write the architect grind is really nice and for every almost everybody listening who is it's still listening thank you but with the vertical strokes in an architect grind they're very thin and the

horizontal strokes are very broad and the way i write it actually looks nice and it's pleasant to me and what i should have done is bought a broad sailor with an architect grind but i just can't get myself to spend the money on it you know maybe i will one day and just just to see how it goes so david the pen that is coming as we record this from Mark Backus, the nib grinder, is actually a hybrid grind. So if you write with it normally, it's an architect, but you can actually flip the pen over and use it as an extra file. Can I tell you all how happy I am right now listening to this? I feel like we've gone past the rubicon here i'm not sure yeah well anyway uh this stuff is fun but you know um a pick pen or even just a nice rollerball is great uh what i did for the longest time was i i would get those um field notes

little notebooks because they're nice they fit in your pocket with a you know a disposable pen and that you can get there absolutely absolutely wow we we covered a lot of ground today guys that we did absolutely i think mike is secretly very happy that we were able to get into nib grinds i'm just i just feel hey hey we could we could keep going and really turn off all your listeners real quick. I had no idea how far Mike had gone down this rabbit hole. Yeah, it's pretty bad. I've got quite an ink collection, too. Yeah, that's the biggest problem. I mean, Mike's biggest problem is accessibility, right?

He can access the best stuff in the United States at his front door, essentially. And they're so knowledgeable about stuff too. I mean, any question I've had, they've been able to answer it. And I'm the type of person where if I'm going to figure something out, I'm going to really figure it out. And so there's always something else to figure out when it comes to fountain pens. Yes, there is. Actually, you know, I think, and Brad is not going to really figure it out. And so there's always something else to figure out when it comes to fountain pens. Yes, there is. Actually, you know, I think, and Brad is not going to be happy to hear this, but you know what kind of cured me of really this whole rabbit hole was going to the pin show.

The weekend that Mike's eyes were opened, I went with Brad. They had a pin show in San Francisco right next to the relay event or near the relay event. So I went down there and I realized how big the world was. And I realized I don't have the money or the time to go down this road. I think that's a fantastic realization. I would be all for that. Absolutely. I regret not going to that by the way because I remember you saying you were going to stay an extra day and go to that David and I'm like I'll figure it out and I'll go some other time so Joe Buleg and I

were planning to go to the Chicago show my first pen show has somebody that's going to go with me and obviously now everything is cancelled but I'll tell you the architect grind and that platinum smooth writing pen and on that super smooth Rodeo paper, I have never experienced writing like that before.

And it really is a different thing. And I never would have discovered it with all your help. I mean, Brad has got so many Slack messages from me at all hours of the day. It's been so nice to answer them. Absolutely. I love to do it and like if i can figure out the things that make you stop buying more things i've done my job pretty well yeah well i'm not saying i'll never buy another i know i know but like that's that's good like i am good with that answer that's great i think well either way uh i'll just keep buying them

on your behalf. Yeah, there you go. Well, you guys got to keep reporting back to me. That's right. This idea of a pen with a switchable nib is intriguing, but at the same time, I've been writing for a year with a broad architect nib. I don't think I've never mystified nibs,

so I'm probably okay. Yeah. But either way, we are the Focus Podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm. Brad has many places on the internet you can find him. Penaddict.com is a good place. On the Relay Network, relay.fm. Which is an excellent place.

It's a gateway drug. Go in there and have a good time. I love not only what you guys talk about, but the enthusiasm you and Mike bring to the topic. Where else should people look for you, Brad? Oh, you can find me on Twitter at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, my one outlier name, and on Instagram at PenAddict. So everything else is linked off of PenAddict.com. Anywhere you need to find me, the pen cases, the pens, it's all linked there on PenAddict.com. Thank you to our sponsors, ExpressVPN, Blinkist, and Focus at Will.

Like I said, we're the Focus podcast. We'll see you in two weeks.