[00:00:00] Hi Christina! Hi Evan. I'm very excited about our topic today. You made something, you made another thing if the folks can believe it. Do you want to tell us about it? Sure, I made a paper planner. It's an undated weekly planner.
[00:00:21] Some people when I say that I made a paper planner, if they're usually, if they're a planner user, no immediately what I'm talking about. Some people are like a calendar that you hold in your hands. Somebody was like, people still do that.
[00:00:39] I was like, yes, in fact lots of people. And I had one person asked me, what else it would be me not of instead of paper? No, I was like, no, like, no, like, people's digital. I like it. Yeah, that is going to be the next one.
[00:00:56] It's a lead. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, so the paper planner, it's called the Open Concept Agenda. Beautiful. I am a proud owner of a copy of the Open Concept Agenda. It's a beautiful thing. I really like it. What inspired you to create the Open Concept Agenda?
[00:01:18] I designed the planner with a friend. And it was born partly out of the two of us having used other planners and being like, I don't like the planner that I'm using for this reason, or I wish there was a planner that did this thing.
[00:01:36] And then sort of jokingly being like, hello, we should just make our own planner and then doing it. Similar to how this podcast came to be of like, we should make a podcast about bisexuals and then actually. Yes, very much like that.
[00:01:55] And one of the kind of underlying things was I, and this is true of the friend that I designed the planner with as well, her name is Mercedes. But like, I have really been trying to cultivate a different relationship to time and productivity
[00:02:13] and to not be like every minute has to be like full of activities, which is kind of how I was living in like the pre-pandemic era. And then things got like very thrown off and I was like, oh, okay, I am not doing things in person,
[00:02:33] but I am doing a million things on the internet. So then I was like always at a screen and feeling really obsessed. With like, I have to get things done. And I started to notice that a lot of productivity tools are designed in a way
[00:02:54] that kind of like encourage that. Like if you look at to do list notes paths, they're like the as long as you're armed, which is like not like the to many items. Yeah, it when there are lines on a page, your brain is like,
[00:03:11] I have to fill these, which like a daily to do list, you can maybe what accomplish five things in a day, depending on what those five things are and the shape of your day is,
[00:03:23] you don't need a list with space for 25 different line items on a daily basis. But like so many planners and like productivity tools are designed in a way that's like, do as many things as you can. It's quickly as you can and that's really stressful.
[00:03:45] And I really wanted something where the design was going to encourage me to plan my day in a way that felt better to treat my to-do list differently, to be to treat myself like a human when I was planning as opposed to treating myself like a robot.
[00:04:07] That's probably for the best, yeah. Yeah, I know that we have talked before as you've like, you know, kind of study different planners and really gotten familiar with this space that a lot of times planning and productivity tools,
[00:04:21] whenever they have like something that's like a fun little extra, it's just like additional surveillance of like how much water did you dream today? And things like that which like if that works for someone great, but like I'm not interested
[00:04:35] in tracking you know, every single thing that I do because I am after all a human being. Yes, yeah, so many planners are like, how much water did you dream today? What did you work out? Like what was your workout? What's your meal plan for the week?
[00:04:52] And like none of those there's not a problem with any of those things individually, but it becomes part of this like this self surveillance and also this idea of like yeah, you should be your life should look a certain way. You should be adhering to these certain things.
[00:05:09] And I don't know stuff like that makes me feel bad if it's in my planner and I don't use it. I feel like I'm like wasting it or I look at it and I'm like, well, I didn't work out today
[00:05:21] because I suck. Which is the only reason. Yeah, yeah, so something that I really thought about was like is there a way to give people space? If something that's important to you is like no
[00:05:40] I legit need to drink more water like to give you the space to to do that without being prescripted. Like giving people space for what's important for them, rather than telling you what should be
[00:05:54] important to you. Yeah, yeah, I think that you really struck a great balance with like providing a nice structure. Like it's not just like a blank notebook, you know, for a video trying to figure
[00:06:05] out there's good structure but it also like you said you're not imposing like you have to do, you know, these kinds of activities you have to use your planner in this specific way to plan
[00:06:16] this specific kind of lifestyle for yourself. There's so many different ways to use it. We've even talked about, I think people in the podcast know that I am on a health journey
[00:06:29] with lots of things in my body not working properly and I'm usually just that I use the planner to keep track of symptoms and keep track of like energy levels and things like that to like
[00:06:38] can you use that to keep record? Which was a great idea. So it's kind of a lot different ways you can plan at my partner, bought a few copies and used to fund for himself and give a few to
[00:06:49] some of his employees also to like use for whatever they want. So all different kinds of people using and enjoying the open concept agenda. Yeah, and that was like making it something that could
[00:07:01] be used in different ways by different people was something that we talked a lot about in the design process. Like every time we would make a decision then we would sort of test it against like
[00:07:12] okay but what if you want to use it in this way or for this thing and we also beta tested it so we send it to a group of folks, had them use it for a couple of weeks and then
[00:07:23] interviewed them about what they liked how they used it, what didn't work and actually like changed it based on that feedback which was also a cool experience I had never done something like that before
[00:07:34] but I think that made it better and more flexible getting to like actually here from people how they use it and have it not just be like here's what's in my brain or here's what's in my
[00:07:49] my partner's brain but like getting a variety of perspectives. Yeah you can even like use it in different orientations like I use it just as like a book that you could also turn it
[00:08:02] long ways and use it that way if you want more of like a long column situation. And for most of the pages the only like text on the page is a question of the bottom that says
[00:08:14] what do you want to remember from this week? So rather than an invitation to surveil yourself further. It's invitation to reflect and also like people can use that for whatever they want in this period of the open and concept agenda. Yeah I usually use that for like
[00:08:33] sort of lessons that come up during the week when I'm like oh right that's a thing that I should remember in the future or like if somebody else says something really smart I'm like oh I'm gonna
[00:08:43] write that down but you could also use it if you're like I dropped something off with the dry cleaners and I need to pick it up. I don't know why the dry cleaner was the first example I thought of
[00:08:55] I'm not going to the dry cleaner but maybe someone else is like maybe um you can use it for reflection if that is what you're looking for to keep track of things but also just like
[00:09:08] further you know to do list type stuff that if that's when you are looking for yeah absolutely and we've talked about this a little bit already but what do you hope the planner will do for
[00:09:21] the people who use it? I hope that people who use it are able to do the things that they want to do and not feel bad when they don't do the things that they said they would do. I have used
[00:09:45] planners for many years but in a very on and off way based on like what I had going on and where my energy was at and there were like many times where I would use a planner for a couple months it
[00:09:58] would go really well I would stop using it for a couple of weeks and then I'd like feel shitty about that and then not want to use the planner because I felt guilty about having not used it and so then
[00:10:09] it was like I used something that was supportive to like turn it against myself when it was no longer supportive which is not great um relatable content though and so like that was definitely part of
[00:10:26] of designing this is like how can the design encourage people not to feel that way which is like why it's undated um but like ultimately I hope that that is kind of the experience that people have with the
[00:10:39] planner of like use it when it's supportive in the ways that are supportive if it's not supportive don't use it like if the what do you want to remember from this week doesn't work for you like
[00:10:52] scribble it out and write your own thing in, put wash you tape over it like do whatever you want it's really to support you in getting done the things that you want to get done and focusing on what
[00:11:08] is important to you yeah I love that that's a beautiful mission thank you yeah and you have in the beginning kind of like some guiding principles um to like contextualize the uh the planner
[00:11:21] um for people but again it just like doesn't feel prescriptive it's very like here's a tool for you that's what it is, use it how you want to use it don't use it how you don't um you mentioned a
[00:11:32] washy tape um something I love about like paper planners as opposed to digital planners is that I feel like it's so much easier to customize um maybe because I'm bad at technology I'm sure
[00:11:42] that you can like do fun things with digital calendars too I just don't know how and I don't want to learn but you can like put stickers or you can like use different colors um or put in tape or you can
[00:11:56] like draw or do it all or whatever um and just like really make it yours which I love yeah I really love to use different color highlighters to like mark out time blocks or the area with that I'm like
[00:12:09] checking off for lists um I have so many different colored pens there's like a bunch of them sitting on my desk right now um I also did a fun thing I had um I cut some pages out of a magazine for
[00:12:23] a collage that I was planning to make and I had this little moth cut out from the magazine that was like part of the wing was missing so it was like well I'm not gonna like use this in this collage
[00:12:34] so I used double-sided tape and I put it into my planner in such a way that like the part of the wing that was missing just looked like it like went off the page and then I just like drew around it a
[00:12:46] little bit and I was like wow I just like DIY to sticker for myself and every time I like this planner page like look at back cute little thing I made and that is like not usually my I'm not
[00:12:58] a I don't tend to be a super like decorative planner person it is much more functional for me outside of like the use of the colored pens and the highlighters but that was like a really fun
[00:13:10] little thing and and made me think more about like oh can I incorporate little like pops of things that are pleasurable into my planner so when I open it I'm like oh look at this cute thing yeah I love that
[00:13:26] um what makes it a queer project hmm well beyond the fact that it was designed by two queer people I think this is a this is a planner that was designed to queer your relationship to time and productivity
[00:13:43] is very much in the spirit of rejecting the normative in favor of something more I don't know interesting in many ways and also more like what feels natural to you and really making it your own
[00:14:05] I love that I mean we love talking about the concept of time on this show yeah I love that it's available now where can people get it you can buy it from the open concept agenda website which is openconceptagenda.com or you can also get it on Etsy
[00:14:32] go to openconceptagenda. Etsy.com that will take you to the Etsy storefront and you can buy it there excellent um is there anything else that you want the people to know about
[00:14:46] the open concept agenda or about the project um if you get a planner and you are like okay but like what do I do now I would be very happy to talk to you about like getting it set up
[00:15:00] or like making it work for you also if you look at it and you're like this is not the planner for me but I really do want a planner at this point I have looked at so many planners
[00:15:13] that if you tell me what you're looking for I can probably tell you what on the market might be a good fit for you so if you're like this planner that Evan designed not the right planner for me
[00:15:24] I would be more than happy to help you try and figure out what a good planner for you would be but you do have to know some things that you want you can't just be like a planner made of papers specifically that helps
[00:15:39] I love that you're always offering to be like a concert for our listeners you're like what content do you want what kind of planner do you want um yeah we will definitely be talking about
[00:15:52] the planner again I'm sure it'll come up on the show and if folks are interested maybe we can do something to give you like a space to like walk through different ways that you can use the planner
[00:16:04] in the future somewhere that we call but yeah um excellent well everybody you go get the planner makes a great gift it's undated so you could whatever day or month you were listening to this show
[00:16:19] you could order it and start using it whenever you get it um does not have to be January 1st which I love yeah I'm and thank you for putting a cool queer thing into the world
[00:16:31] thank you I will also add it comes in two different sizes and two different binding types so you have options which is I mean I think a very bisexual thing about this planner you get a lot of different ways yeah absolutely your options every every turn yep
[00:16:54] well good bye