Tag Archives: planning

General

Back to Basics

Leave a comment

I tried an electronic Bullet Journal for four months… Here’s why I’m switching back.

Four years ago, close to the New Year, I started using the Bullet Journal method to help get a better handle on my life. I’ve talked about it elsewhere, and there are plenty of videos or articles that lay out the benefits of the system.

Four months ago, a friend introduced me to Noteshelf, one of several great apps that can duplicate and improve on the functions of a day planner, journal, and notepad. I had recently picked up an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, and I loved the features and smooth writing.

My monthly spread for December. It’s easy to go artistic with the app, and it’s just as easy to stay minimalist.

I am neither a technophobic Luddite nor an early adapter walking the bleeding edge of human integration. I like things that are useful, but I don’t have to be in line at the Apple Store for the newest model. For more than two decades, a lot of my decisions were driven by my workplace. I spent most days in a facility where I couldn’t bring in electronic devices, so I resisted buying a smartphone, tablet, and smart watch that I could only use in the evenings or on the weekends.

Now, with a job that lets me stay mostly outside that facility, I could use an electronic journal if I found it suited my needs… and there are so many good things going for the iPad version.

The benefits of technology are many:

  • Easy Erasing: The permanence of a hard copy Bullet Journal is both a blessing and a curse… maybe the latter more so. My Bullet Journal Facebook groups are full of people posting their mistakes and ruined spreads, either for the comfort of commiseration or a desperate hope for a suggested fix. None of that pain here.
  • Copy, Cut, and Paste: I can duplicate elements from one page to the next. A table of daily trackers, a line of hours for scheduling appointments and tasks, a list of upcoming events.
  • Lasso Text: Noteshelf (and presumably similar apps) will let me grab a block of text and move it around. I can insert some additional info in the middle of what I’ve written (e.g. adding groceries to a shopping list, fitting meeting notes into the bullet list I’ve already laid out for the day, etc.). This function is fantastic.
  • Mild-liners included: The app offers a variety of writing tools (pencil, fountain pen, marker, highlighter) with zero bleeding, ghosting, or smudging.
So many highlighters. The app even duplicates an appearance of overlapping colors or deepening your highlighting when you go over in the same spot more than once, and the best part is it’s never going to bleed onto the next page.

When I first considered trying, then switching, to an electronic version of a Bullet Journal, I made a list of these pros and cons. I gave myself several weeks to build new habits and try out the positive features. Now, as I consider my options, I find myself re-visiting that list. These benefits do give me pause; if I make the switch (again), I will miss these.

So why go back?

It’s not as simple as “Well, I usually have to connect to Wi-Fi to update my journal” or “I’m tired of worrying if I charged my tablet enough.”

It’s also not tied to better memory retention through handwriting, which is part of what interested me in Bullet Journal from the start. Using the Apple Pencil and tablet on my electronic journal was extremely satisfying. The motions and movements all felt natural (even if the “paper” was unrealistically smooth), with the added bonus of the technological benefits listed above.

The biggest difference—and the issue that bothers me repeatedly—is that my hard copy Bullet Journal had everything in one notebook. With a physical BuJo, I didn’t need to scroll through dozens of pages to the beginning of my current document in order to check my future log—just flip to the beginning. I never had to close one notebook and open up another in order to find the spread set aside for a specific job or hobby—worst case, I checked my index and flipped to the right page. It was an all-in-one solution that incorporated just about every aspect of my life in exactly the way I wanted.

Maybe if I organized better or smarter, I could get what I want out of this. This is not what I want.

An electronic BuJo CAN do that … but I find I have different notebooks set up for and dedicated to different needs, so I have to close one and open another to get the information I want.

Some of the issue might be the way I’m using the Noteshelf app. I could just have one notebook with everything mashed together, but that seems burdensome when I’m trying to scroll through pages.

The app allows for tagging pages and searching the contents by tag. It even recognizes handwriting, to some extent, so if I forget to tag a page but I know the word I’m looking for, I may still find it in my previous entries.

Even with all of those features—even if I was diligent to tag each page and made the most of the search function—it doesn’t feel the same as flipping to a page in my physical notebook or using the fabric bookmark to jump to my monthly calendar spread.

In the end, Noteshelf performed remarkably well and exceeded my expectations in a number of areas… but the way I was using it didn’t fit the way I want my bullet journal to work.

Something to pass on

There’s something quaint about the hard copy journals that draws me back. I love the thought of a stack of notebooks that document the frivolities, frustrations, and fun of each day, each month, each year. It would be nice to be able to give those to my children someday.

Now that I think about it, if that’s the case, maybe I should get to writing something meaningful in whichever option, instead of whinging and waffling about the pros and cons.

Writing

Getting Pantsed

Leave a comment

One of my least favorite terms used of late among writers is “pantser.”

When I was about 9 or 10, there was an annoying girl at the local swimming pool who – in the middle of a crowd of swimmers – would pull down my swim trunks while I was swimming in the deep end. “Pantser” sounds like a middle school term for such a person.

But it’s meant to capture one side of a debate about writing. “Are you a planner or a pantser? Do you outline the main points of your story before you write a scene, or do you start writing by the seat of your pants and see where it leads?”

Planning is like following directions off Google Maps. The key steps along the journey are listed, and it’s on the writer to fill in the details in between. Pantsing, to me, feels like “I know my destination is over there and I’ll get there somehow” or even “I’m going for a drive today, and I don’t care where I end up.”

Both have their merits, weaknesses, and uses. For me, outlining is the most successful method for two reasons:

First, as soon as I realize there’s a problem, I can pause my effort, brainstorm a solution, and get back on track. Going back to Google Maps, if I miss a step or take a wrong turn, I can stop and course-correct to prevent wasted effort. I don’t have to finish a full manuscript before addressing glaring errors or issues. The minute I see the “Wrong Way” sign on the side of the road, I can stop and turn around.

Second, laying out key decisions, actions, and events well in advance, which makes foreshadowing possible. I know how the external and internal conflicts are going to be resolved. As a result I can build toward a more dramatic climax in the story. I don’t have to be surprised with my characters when suddenly we reach the final battle.

The first drawback to those key qualities are a lack of spontaneity or creativity in the writing process. If suddenly an idea strikes me in writing scene A, I may not be able to include it, because of how it will impact scene B leading to scene C. At best, I would have to make some changes to the outline to incorporate this change. Pantsers get the liberty of doing whatever they want and fixing issues later.
The second drawback is that once the story is “told” in my head, it feels “written” to me. I already know how it’s all going to play out. As a result, I can lose motivation for the tedium of putting all those ideas down on paper (or word processor screen).

Still, the benefits outweigh the potential trouble. What I don’t want to do is find myself several thousand words into a story only to discover glaring flaws in the basic premise.

To me, that takes away the fun and joy, like getting lost on the way to the party, or getting pantsed in the swimming pool.

What’s your favorite method to organize your writing efforts? Are you a planner or pantser, and why do you like that approach? Maybe there’s an aspect to either side that I’m not considering. Let me know in a comment.

Gaming

Set Some Goals

Leave a comment

Tabletop Tuesday

A lot of the Air Force courses I’ve attended include lessons about the importance of setting goals in order to succeed.

Today, we’ll talk about setting goals in your tabletop game. But we’re not talking about incorporating player goals into your campaign (that will probably be another post). We’re talking about giving goals to your monsters!

Everyone needs a goal in life, even your fangorious gelatinous monster. (Okay, maybe not everyone.)

In a tabletop game, your players’ characters are probably going to spend a lot of time fighting against a host of sentient creatures. They may be not be the brightest creatures, they may be evil through and through, they may be tools of some higher villain. But they will have objectives and goals they are trying to achieve.

Make your combat about those goals instead of about the monsters themselves.

Let’s face it, the “kill everything burn everything and die trying” monster makes very little sense. Villains have their own interests, their own purposes. Usually, they have some decent or even good motive that has been twisted around or blown out of proportion into a terrible evil.

“Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet… and it’s remarkable how like an egg is the human skull.”

20120918-231733.jpg

This guy is going to have a different set of goals and plans than these two.
20120918-231717.jpg

Your villains’ minions need not line up like a Revolutionary War battle and march to their deaths in the hopes of defeating the heroes. Setting up a fight with no goal means setting up a long, drawn-out slugfest where the two sides try to bring their enemies to zero hit points. Yawn.

Give the monster team a reason to fight. You can speed up combat and you can make the combat matter to the story. Double win!

Perhaps they simply have to delay the heroes from an objective. They can capture or kill particular innocents or valuable NPCs. They can hold a position or activate some magic artifact or complete a ritual. They can make off with a critical object, or damage a strategic location.

“Good job, heroes… you slew fifty goblins but failed to stop the saboteur who destroyed the bridge. Now our army is stuck on this side of the river while the city is under attack.”

When you do this, mindless evil can have a place in such a setting. It stands out precisely because it has no plan, no motive, no ‘higher’ purpose than carnage and destruction. It can be the enemy that simply has to be brought to zero health, something that has to be put down. And then that combat goal tells a story different from all the others, instead of every combat feeling exactly the same.

So, what does the big bad evil guy (or girl, or gelatinous monster) want? Give your villains some goals. Your heroes will thank you for it.