Bullet Journaling has been my method of keeping track of my writing business for the past three years. My journals have evolved from simple lists kept in a composition notebook to my current fountain pen friendly A5 grid journal where I store a full year of task lists, publishing plans, travel details, and habit trackers all illustrated with zentangle doodles on practically every page. Not only does my bullet journal keep me on track, it provides a space to practice my artwork. It is a flexible system that I find much more rewarding than the system I used in my former Filofax. I keep my old Filofax, but it has become the editorial calendar book for my blog, No Wasted Ink.

In August of 2016, I attended the San Francisco Fountain Pen Show that was held at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay Hotel. One of the featured events of the convention was a Planner Meetup. Normally, my bullet journal never leaves my desk, but for this event, I packed it into my luggage and carted it off with me to the event.

The Meetup was well attended by at least 30 avid paper planner enthusiasts. All of them were stationary hoarders and most used fountain pens in their notebooks. I was greeted to a plethora of Filofaxes of many kinds, leather bound notebooks, moleskines, and other planner systems. There were boxes of scrapbooking supplies that were dumped into the center of the tables for everyone to look through and take a few samples. One of the attendees had put together packets of scrapbooking supplies and gifted them to everyone that came.

There were a good number of men who attended, but most did not reveal the inside of their planners. I believe that there were daunted by the decorators in the crowd and did not wish to show off their simple task lists and notes. I had to prod a few of them to see inside their planners. They should not have been embarrassed. What I saw inside was functional and all of their journals were of fine quality leather and paper. Sometimes less is more.

My journal was the only bullet journal in the meetup, which surprised me. Everyone else used preprinted calendar style planners. My hand drawn illustrations were thumbed through by many appreciative planner nerds. I found myself answering questions about zentangles and how difficult it must be to illustrate my notebook. I assured everyone that practice is all that is needed to draw zentangles and that tutorials are all over the internet for free. This was the first time that anyone other than myself has seen my illustrated bullet journal and the response to my work was gratifying.

The Planner Meetup at the San Francisco Fountain Pen Show was a great success. Although we were allotted a scant ninety minutes for the meeting, most of the attendees stayed longer. There was simply too many journals and notebooks to see and conversations about planners to enjoy. I am sure that a planner meetup will be on the agenda for next year’s convention. If you are a planner or fountain pen enthusiast like myself, I hope you’ll consider joining us in San Francisco next year at the convention.