Stationery Freaks

22/09/2023

In this latest episode Rob Lambert and Helen Lisowski chat about why they revert to lists when we get overwhelmed.

1. Helen tells the story of the man who stuck post-it notes to his tie

2. Rob's using Helen's post-it notes

3. Rob shares how teachers are using iPads to stick post-it notes to

4. Rob has sent the Remarkable2 back - and bought a typewriter

5. We chat about lists, what we use them for and why we revert to them when things get overwhelming

- Not all of our lists are analogue

- Rob talks about his bucket list as the master list

6. We chat about how digital tools can store endless lists - and that's why analogue can be helpful - there is limited space

7. Helen talks about using a list to write stories

8. Helen talks about workflowy and how she uses it

We mention:

Van Neistat's ToDo list video

Remarkable2

Workflowy

Listen here - https://share.transistor.fm/s/ea6b6c5d

31/08/2023

In this episode Helen Lisowski and I (Rob Lambert) talk about what's happening to us - as we find digital tooling becoming more important in our stationery world.

We talk about the Remarkable 2, Moleskine balance and how we are still stationery freaks!

Rob is retooling his knowledge management and Helen learned nothing about herself, despite sticker journaling for a few weeks.

We cover:
* Rob's bought a Remarkable - will he send it back?
* Rob's doing a workshop in Romania - and has bought hundreds of stickers for an immersive workshop
* Helen's been using the Moleskine Balance app to track habits, mood etc. The interface is calming and clean - she is enjoying
* Helen is using Bullet Journaling more for work than personal - due to working from home more often and "closing down the day"
* Rob's been researching tooling for a Personal Knowledge Management System - and was spending more time fiddling with the system than learning. * * Helen is using Obsidian, Rob uninstalled it after 10 minutes.
* Rob talks about TheBrain Technologies "The Brain" as a PKMS. It's an awesome tool - but pricey, and would require a big on-going financial investment.
* Helen has been sticker journaling about her mood and energy levels, and tracking this using stickers. What did she learn about herself? Absolutely nothing by all accounts. Zero insights. Nothing. Nada
* Rob talks about using Zotero and the reMarkable as his new PKMS
* Rob talks through why he's bought the Remarkable 2, and how it fits into his ecosystem of learning and note taking. At the moment, he's keeping it, but there is a 100 day returns promise
* Helen's not convinced about the Remarkable. Truth be told, Rob isn't either.

Episode here:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/c8805f3b

29/08/2023

New episode live - how we track habits by blending digital and analogue. In this episode:

* Helen has bought all of the stickers in the whole world (possibly)
* Rob is trying to build the habit of not buying anymore notebooks for a while - and instead, using up the mountain of notepads he has
* Helen is tracking how she feels using stickers in a notebook
* Rob used to track habits in ToDoist and simply didn't keep it up to date
* Helen is using Moleskine Balance digital app to track her habits. And reminisces about "Sunrise" app by Dan Ariely - since closed down
* Rob used to do quantified self, then went on to use the fridge of accountability
* Rob is changing his environment to force the habit of weightlifting - and will become the strongest man in Wi******er within a month
* Helen has moved to measuring the impact habits is having on her life, rather than the thing itself

https://share.transistor.fm/s/f3510eba

17/07/2023

New episode - in this episode, Helen and Rob interview Maria Van Le of LeVan Books

Maria makes her own beautiful notebooks - of which Helen has purchased a few. They are exquisite, hand made and use some top notch material.

In this episode:

Helen talks about her 6 ink pens - and decides she needs more (or not).

Maria talks about her passion for glass ink pens, water colour painting and using her own books

Maria explains how she started making books for her daughter and her friends, before making them for other people

Maria is self taught and a perfectionist - always ensuring her books meet her own high standards - therefore delighting the customer

Maria mentions Shepherds book binding (bookbinding.co.uk) - a cool store where she gets many of her materials from.

Rob realises Shepherds is not too far from his office….credit card ready

Maria explains how long books take to make and how precise she needs to be

We discuss GSM paper thickness and their different uses.

Maria also shares the 5 things she would take to a desert island

Maria also shares why she set up the Etsy store and how you can get your own custom notebook

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/maria-levan

12/05/2023

In this episode Rob and Helen share some of their stationery disasters as well as ramble chat about stationery, including, but not limited to,

Helen has a new LeVan notebooks

Helen Callaghan Writing Challenges - check out this previous podcast featuring Helen Callaghan

Stationery Care Packages - Helen sends some beautiful gifts, perfectly wrapped. Rob sends a package with a terrible index card in it.

Rob uses his Bella Beso planners.

Helen explains to a new team member that she doesn’t use digital tools. Rob uses analogue note taking methods whilst others smirk.

Helen explains how she ruined a notebook

Rob explains how he lost his entire digital Personal Knowledge Management System (we’ve done a cast on this)

Helen is now going to come up with creative ways to ruin more notebooks so she can justify starting new ones.

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/stationery-disasters

Hope you enjoy.
Rob and Helen

03/04/2023

In the first podcast of the year, (I know, we're slack), Helen and Rob chat about recent stationery finds, purchases and goodies.

* Helen geeks out about fountain pens and buys a feather resin one
* Rob shares his love of Domestika online courses
* Helen replaces her Mark and Fold "top of the class" notebook with one from LeVan notebooks.
* It turns out Helen keeps her unused notebooks on display. Rob finds this unsettling.
* Rob is following the wonderfully talented Play Attention Now on Instagram - he has inspired Rob to keep learning to draw. Which is why Rob has purchased another Ottergami notebook.
* Helen has signed up for a writing workshop that takes place over 30 weeks with the "A Novel in a year" program.
* Rob has bought an old school Rapesco pencil sharpener.
Helen has bought an ergonomically challenged pencil sharpener of her own - that slices fingers in the process of sharpening pencils.
* Rob has bought a book called "Japanese Colour Matching" from CounterPrint books.
* Stationery Freak Helen and author Helen Callaghan are taking their "creative constraints" workshop to conferences this year!

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/writing-learning

A podcast for stationery freakshosted by stationery freaks Listen to the podcast Get your stationery freak on with our newsletter If you love stationery, then you’ll love our new newsletter. Fortnightly finds, insights, behind the scenes, how-tos and stationery we’re buying! Always an easy un-su...

13/12/2022

We were VERY excited when fellow Stationery Freak and founder of Fountain Pen Companion, Urban Hafner, joined us on the podcast.

Urban is a software developer, fountain pen aficionado, host of two podcasts (one of which is about stationery), bullet journal user and fan of nice stationery.

In this episode we chat about:
* Fountain pens, inks and why Urban created The Fountain Pen Companion tool
* Japanese pencils
* Learning handwriting and calligraphy
* Why Urban throws away his journals once he's finished with them
* Urban's paired down Bullet Journal practice
* Desert Island stationery - the five things Urban mentioned are below
* Why paper is so important when you're using Fountain Pens
A3 paper
* Helen joins the A3 paper movement and tries, weakly, to justify buying a beautiful notebook. She did justify the second notebook as a way to practice learning Arabic.
* Rob share his use of the daily planner from LoveBellaBeso and also makes no attempt to explain why he bought some notebooks from All Things Analogue.
* Urban's bought some more postcards to send to his subscribers

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/interview-urban-hafner

02/12/2022

What 5 stationery items would you take with you?

In this episode Rob and Helen Lisowski share the 5 items of stationery they would take with them to a Desert Island.

In this episode:
🧐 Helen is obsessed with Rob’s A3 learning management system
🖋️ Rob talks about his new (old) Waterman Fountain Pen
👾 Rob bends the rules of the game
✏️ Helen forgets a pencil sharpener

We had A LOT of fun recording this episode and I think it shows in the episode. We're still learning our way through this. Thanks for the support.

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/desert-island-stationery

In this episode we have a bit of fun listing the 5 items of stationery we would take with us to a desert island. Rob bends the rules, Helen forgets a pencil sharpener.

20/11/2022

A quote from our recent podcast interview with Sunday Times best selling author and stationery freak, Helen Callaghan.

Some quotes from the show:

* “Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity”
* On Fountain Pens - “There’s something wonderfully technical about them”
* On writing retreats - “This is what I’m doing now and I’m concentrating on this”
* “You create a plan for the chapter, and then you don’t follow it.”
* “Work on it every day, be engaged in it and a synthesis happens between things in your head.”
* “Inspiration has to be summoned”

Link in bio. or here - https://ed.gr/edujr

19/11/2022

A quote from our recent podcast interview with Sunday Times best selling author and stationery freak, Helen Callaghan.

Some quotes from the show:

* “Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity”
* On Fountain Pens - “There’s something wonderfully technical about them”
* On writing retreats - “This is what I’m doing now and I’m concentrating on this”
* “You create a plan for the chapter, and then you don’t follow it.”
* “Work on it every day, be engaged in it and a synthesis happens between things in your head.”
* “Inspiration has to be summoned”

Link in bio. or here - https://ed.gr/edujs

18/11/2022

A quote from our recent podcast interview with Sunday Times best selling author and stationery freak, Helen Callaghan.

Some quotes from the show:

* “Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity”
* On Fountain Pens - “There’s something wonderfully technical about them”
* On writing retreats - “This is what I’m doing now and I’m concentrating on this”
* “You create a plan for the chapter, and then you don’t follow it.”
* “Work on it every day, be engaged in it and a synthesis happens between things in your head.”
* “Inspiration has to be summoned”

Link in bio. or here - https://ed.gr/edujt

18/11/2022

A quote from our recent podcast interview with Sunday Times best selling author and stationery freak, Helen Callaghan.

Some quotes from the show:

* “Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity”
* On Fountain Pens - “There’s something wonderfully technical about them”
* On writing retreats - “This is what I’m doing now and I’m concentrating on this”
* “You create a plan for the chapter, and then you don’t follow it.”
* “Work on it every day, be engaged in it and a synthesis happens between things in your head.”
* “Inspiration has to be summoned”

Link in bio. https://ed.gr/eduvh

17/11/2022

How excited were we when, Sunday Times Best Selling author, Helen Callaghan, agreed to be on the podcast?

Helen is a stationery freak; so we dug into her process of writing, book soundtracks, choosing colours for books, Moleskines, writing retreats, nostalgic views on typewriters and more.

It was a real joy and we’re sure you’ll be inspired and motivated and learn a lot about the world of writing books.

Some quotes from the show:

* “Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity”
* On Fountain Pens - “There’s something wonderfully technical about them”
* On writing retreats - “This is what I’m doing now and I’m concentrating on this”
* “You create a plan for the chapter, and then you don’t follow it.”
* “Work on it every day, be engaged in it and a synthesis happens between things in your head.”
* “Inspiration has to be summoned”

Here’s what we covered:

- NaNoWriMo - and Helen’s engagement in it

- How stationery still has an important role in Helen’s life and book writing process

- Why seeing what you crossed out on paper is important

- Why choosing a colour scheme for a book being written is important - and how Helen does this

- Mood boards and music playlists

- The importance, joy and process of writing retreats. Helen mentions Gladstones writing retreats.

- How Helen plans and plots out a book - and why sometimes she often doesn’t stick to the plan

Please join us in this very special episode.

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/helen-callaghan

03/11/2022

Hey Stationery Freaks! Welcome to another episode.

This week Helen and I talk about developing your career using the Trinity of Career Development - and how we use stationery to help us with this.

Plus we chat about good stationery like pens and thermal printers for journaling and more!

We do hope you'll give us a listen

Rob and Helen

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/career-management

In this episode we talk about career “management” using the Trinity of Career Development

31/10/2022

Special Halloween edition of the newsletter with scary stationery.

https://stationeryfreaks.substack.com/p/spooky-stationery-halloween-edition?sd=pf

24/10/2022

Our latest newsletter is out now! Winding it's way to your inbox or Substack app.

In this edition we share some cool links, talk about writing bereaus, share our latest podcast links and more!

https://stationeryfreaks.substack.com/p/podcasting-inkflow-pens-and-sophisticated?sd=pf

20/10/2022

Short video to support our latest podcast - me "borrowing" Helen Lisowski stationery.

Check out Stationery Freaks for more stationery goodness.

20/10/2022

Hey Stationery Freaks - a new podcast went live today! The Power of Mind Maps.

In this episode:

* We explain what mind maps are, how they work and what we use them for.

* We also introduce our new newsletter!

* Helen introduces her new learning of choice - Arabic. And how she is using brush pens and a new notebook for it.

* Rob steals Helen stationery!

* Rob talks about his new Academic planner that makes him look all sophisticated.

* Helen talks about NaNoWriMo and how she’s only ever made it to day 3.

* Helen talks about fine liners

* Rob and Helen talk about good stationery in shops that have terrible displays

https://www.stationeryfreaks.com/episodes/mindmaps

In this episode we talk about mindmaps and how powerful they can be to unleash your stationery potential.