I have never been a paper-planner person because I have a good memory for dates and plans and sometimes maintaining the planner itself is more of a pain than it’s worth. I bought a blank desk calendar because figuring out a family Google Calendar situation was too overwhelming. There’s also a list of resources in the back of the planner that includes radical bookstores and spaces all over the world - I’ve ended up visiting a few on my travels. My low-key favorite feature is actually the menstrual calendar, which has freed me from using those data-mining period tracker apps. There’s something darkly funny about writing my little Zoom meetings into a planner printed by a radical publishing collective - especially as, to be honest, it really is perfectly functional, with a nicely-spaced layout that’s surprisingly conducive to capitalist productivity. Each day of the week features facts about historical worker uprisings, and marks the births and deaths of various revolutionary figures. I went for the larger-size organizer, which is spiral-bound, with a laminated cover and hand-drawn weekly page layouts that are printed in the style of a photocopied zine. Slingshot is a volunteer-run anti-capitalist collective based in Berkeley, and sales from its annual Slingshot Organizer help fund a quarterly anarchist newspaper that’s distributed around the Bay Area. Having rotated between Moleskine and Hightide planners for a few years, I was in the mood for a slightly wackier calendar last year. The Cousin, like the Techo, goes in and out of stock, so I recommend getting one sooner rather than later. I also add plastic sticky index tabs to mark each month. I add a grosgrain ribbon placeholder to it by super gluing it to the outside of the spine, and I also order a separate vinyl cover from Etsy to protect its cardstock cover (I wish it came with the stronger, leather-like cover of the smaller Techo). As much as I love this planner, it’s pretty minimal in design, so I have to hack it a bit. I’ve mostly only used weekly planners in the past, but now that I have two kids, I need more space to keep track of everything, which is why I appreciate the gridded daily pages for their structured-but-not-too-structured layout that includes a schedule column on the left and a priority checklist at the top the rest of the page is open, and I use it for jotting down diary-like musings, family meal planning, and whatever else I want to commit to paper. This will be my second year using the Hobonichi Techo Cousin, the larger, more souped-up version of the above Techo that includes monthly, weekly, and daily spreads, all in a relatively compact package. Purchasing a new planner - and all its accoutrements - for the following year is one of my favorite fall rituals as a a stationery nerd.
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