We need to talk about Planner Consumerism.

How have you noticed consumerism entering the planner space online? Let me know below 😊

CHAPTERS:

00:00 intro
01:50 the mental costs
03:59 how marketing impacts your emotions
06:06 case study on hobonichi
08:56 tips to avoid stress around consumerism
15:41 environmental costs
19:05 tips for avoiding waste
21:10 financial costs

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IN THIS VIDEO:*

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* There are some affiliate links here! If you buy through them, you’re just helping out the channel at no additional cost to you :)

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This video is sponsored my Milanote.

[yatshie]

Here's what I did: I saw a planner I liked and before buying it for the new year, I drew the layout in a cheap notebook and try it for a few weeks. This is how I found out that I'd probably hate the hobonichi weeks

[AllTheArtsy]

To avoid planner envy and the need to planner hop, having a "minimum viable" planner is necessary— just what feature/s is a must-have? Vertical weeks? One page a day? Then if you already have that in your planner, what is the point of getting another? Sure, the Weeks covers are cute, but you hate horizontal weeklys. Then don't buy it. You love the Cousin, everyone loves the Cousin, but you never journal or do daily logs. Then don't get it. Looking and enjoying but not wanting and buying is a skill that should be cultivated in this hyperconsumerist, heavily marketed-to world.

[ungluedmom]

My rules:
1. No pre-orders
2. Nothing over $30 regular price
3. No shipping cost
4. Local store shelf whenever possible

I like watching what people are doing and I enjoy all the things available, but I don't buy it anymore. It doesn't make financial sense, and it doesn't keep me organized if I buy multiple planners.

[tiffanymo]

our beloved planner influencers do what all other influencers do - they influence us to set unrealistic or unattainable goals because it's their job to show us all the great stuff they have. I get why my favorite planner influencers have many perfect planners, journals, stickers, etc. They get paid to do their hobby so they invest in products or are sponsored or even own the companies themselves. My only "planner community" is online. I don't know anyone in my personal life that has a planner lineup or planner fomo or even a paper planner for that matter. Just like beauty/fitness influencers who have more time and money to devote to their appearance, our favorite planner influences do such a great job of influencing us to have what they have by creating such informative content. If my career or even part time job was to do my hobby, I'd have a lot more of what I want too. So let's enjoy the content and stop comparing ourselves to our wonderful professional planners.

[catcreme]

I feel like all of my hobbies have undergone a deep consumerist approach in the past five years - books, planners, stationery... things that I used to do for fun people see as good content and engage with it based on what is going to get views and without much thought into why you actually do these hobbies.

[DianeShugart]

"Know what you like" is the key as, more broadly, it means 'know what you need and what you'll use. This goes a long way to eliminating mental anxiety, which is also fed by the financial anxiety of being able to afford all these planners. (Another source of anxiety is "filling" the pages and "completing" my planner; a planner is complete -- blank pages and all -- when the dates run out.)
And thanks for also touching on the environmental impact and waste (not to mention the huge environmental footprint of placing three or four orders).

[Mindyhartwick]

I find that the older I get, the more important it is to keep things simple. I got caught up in the whole planner craze and I have a whole shelf of travelers notebook covers to prove it. I have found that it is too much pressure to have to make your planner esthetic, so I keep my planner simple and get my creativity on in my art journal. It disgusts me how much money I have spent on planners over the years. For 2024 I am using a $10 budget planner that I found on Amazon and I think it will suit my needs of tracking appointments and tracking my budget. Do I love to look at other people’s planners? Yes. Do I have any illusions that my planning is ever going to look like that? Not anymore, and I’m okay with that. It’s just not that important.

[cbjones]

Side note - Did you know that Tomoe River paper was first used to wrap catalogues for mail outs? It was made super thin to reduce weight and therefore postage costs. Someone somewhere found that it was great for fountain pens/ink that it started to become sought after.

[valeriehayne]

Listen, I'm poor and I also live in a South American country (shipping is absolutely expensive) so when I started on the bullet journal community i used literal old notebooks. A few years later I got interested in making my own notebooks because I had a lot of leftover paper that I didn't know how to use and I ended up in the junk journal community (that's other consumerism monster despite the name of the community). I use my "junk" journals for everything: my commonplace book, my actual planner, my reading journal, my writing journal. It is sorta time consuming in the sense that you have to make your own journals but I also have reused really old planners into different things like art journals and writing journals. Right know, for example, I'm using a 2018 planner that my sister gave me (cuz she barely used it) as a reading journal and I'm just covering the top and bottom pages with washi, stickers and old book pages.

I think you can be ethical about planning but you have to overcome the capitalist anxiety, select the type of content you see on the planning community and learn to let go the perfectionist you have whispering in your ear. It may be hard but it's possible (this coming from someone who has never bought any of those fancy planners and often uses cheap blank notebooks and thrifts old planners).

Also I forgot to mention that you can reuse your old planners every 7 years, the distribution of the days will be the same and you only have to cover the year 😂.

[Joanna_Kelly]

Hobonichi covers are my Achilles heal….until I learned how to sew my own - game changer. I used interesting recycled fabrics to create unique designs. It’s really not hard as it’s essentially sewing straight lines and it helps use my creative skills!

[kurisquare]

One thing that really surprised me is aaaall the people who get new Hobonichi covers each year...2024 will be my second year using the Hobonichi A6 as a daily journal, and as much as I loved some of the new covers, I stuck to just buying the notebook and reusing my cover (and cover-on-cover) from 2023. With the quality of the material they're really made to be reused multiple years, and I don't wanna shame anyone for getting multiple covers, but marketing and FOMO definitely play a role there 🤷

[JosephDickson]

We’ve gone full circle; planners and systems led to the Bullet Journal Method and marketing brought us back to the planners and systems.

[heyitz_rj]

Here’s my take on this. I also fell into the trap of planner consumerism. I also fell into the trap of stationary consumerism. What I think the cause of this was me trying to fit into an aesthetic. At a point in our lives (or maybe even still now) we all wanted to be that hyper successful and hyper organized person that we would see online who seemed like their life just sailed so smoothly. Also, and let’s be real, we wanted these things because it made us seem like we had it all together even thought we didn’t lol. We were sold an aesthetic that made us temporarily happy but long term made us embarrassed for wasting lots of money on empty books that kept our schedules lol. I do believe some people actually benefit from having a ton of stationary and planners. Some people even see it as a hobby which is also fine. However, the “planner industry” really creates this false image that if we “invest” in a companies expense planner you will be that organized person you are trying to be. I don’t know about anyone else but something I realized this year was that I did NOT need stuff like this to organize my life (shocker right). Also, it’s ok if you don’t have a billion dollar business idea by lunch. It’s ok if your entire life isn’t organized by the time you go to bed. It’s ok, if life is messy and you don’t touch your planner for several months. THATS LIFE! You are not a lazy or bad person for just LIVING LIFE. A planner is supposed to help you organize your life but what I’m learning is that it’s not suppose to be the law of how your day will go. Plans change, your priorities shift, or you just won’t feel like doing something. THATS OK. Sorry, long comment, but I feel strongly about this topic.

[theibecks]

Just have to mention that part of the reason for Sterling Ink’s preorder happening as early as it did was because Catherine was pregnant (that wasn’t public knowledge until after the baby’s birth, understandably) and wanted to get the preorder out of the way early to avoid additional stress. Even with an early preorder, due to paper shortages and all kinds of other issues outside their control, some of the planners have only recently shipped.

That’s not to say that there’s no marketing aspect in an early preorder but I do think there were some extenuating circumstances here!

What I found really interesting was seeing people saying “I couldn’t decide which planner to get so I bought nine…” on the day that the preorder opened. 🧐 I find it hard to wrap my head around that when there were two weeks to decide what you wanted.

[romanticegotist]

I think that the conceit of utilizing multiple planners or planner-hopping or whatever kind of gives away some of the things about this little universe of influencers/commentators that nobody wants to confront, but ends up being a real-world problem: it shows that the actual planning and organization systems and methods people describe on youtube etc. are (1) not that robust, (2) not actually all that usable for a busy person that needs a flexible but strong system and (3) generally require a lot more *activity* than they do help promote *productivity*. a very very small % of people would accrue any benefit from a multi-planner system because of how costly it is from a time and complexity perspective; and probably 80%+ of active consumers of this content barely need any kind of true planning "system", just a well-kept phone calendar and a notebook within reach during the main working part of their day....so when that person is bombarded w/ a dizzying array of planner and systems that are mostly smoke and mirrors (to disguise a life that is not actually that complex) they feel the FOMO or whatever, and they likely end up going backwards

[tiffanystanton]

I’m not big into the planner world but two years ago I got a preloved Louis Vuitton agenda and fill it with the Filofax inserts yearly. $15 a year and done. I keep a simple cute journal for bullet notes and to do lists. It’s been a really practical yet elevated options!

[SharaMcBride]

The marketing tactic that companies use to generate “FOMO” is called “fear of loss”. I have been in the “planner community” since ROUGHLY 2011 (and by community I mean, I was in like MAYBE 5 planner groups TOTAL). 😂 However, I’ve been paper planning since I can remember back when they used to give us paper weekly planners in school. I had a solid system working for me and as soon as I discovered Hobonichi, not only did I fall of my very secure wagon, I rolled downhill and into the next town. My goal for the upcoming year (and honestly I kinda of started to wean myself off the planner community) is to go back to basics and see what effect it has on my productivity.

[julieslovelyworld]

I think that having a cheap bullet journal can help you recreate some layouts to understand if you can function in any style you are interested. I love my bullet journal. Nothing compares to it, cause I use it as my personal tailor-made planner (so many things in the planners I watch don't make sense to me).

I have a vertical weekly setup, with space for general notes across the upper side of the right page, which i thought I could adapt to a cousin. I got a spare notebook and somewhat recreated it. Nope, nope, nope. My brain can't function with a vertical notes space on the lower left page. Now, I don't want a cousin anymore 😅

[menm_]

I had this exact conversation with another YouTuber more than 6 mos ago.

I am so over the rampant consumerism in general, but especially in this community. It boggles my mind that people are buying and switching planners and leather covers every month. How on earth can they afford it, and how do they ever know what they're doing?? And never in 7 lifetimes can they use 87 different covers in 9 different sizes. It makes my head spin and gives me anxiety. So much so that I've unsubscribed completely from those types of channels. I appreciate those who are consistent and know what works for them, and don't buy ALL. THE. THINGS. just to increase their views.

[TheKatsMeow]

I’m on a long-term stationery low-buy while I use up a bunch of stationery like washi and pens. Anything that I buy has to be held on a wishlist for at least a month, and I have to justify to myself how what I’m purchasing is different enough from what I already have, or how it’s replacing something I currently own. I’m also in my local Buy Nothing group where I’ve been gifting no-longer loved supplies to others who will actually get use out of them. It feels really good to rediscover favorites that you forgot you had because you just have too much stuff!