Thinking about objects we love and why we love them
For me and my fellow planner junkies, the beginning of a new year means a new planner. I’ve been dying to use the most beautiful planner I’ve ever held in my hands, the Hobonichi Cousin, since I ordered it in August. Truly, the quality of the design is top-notch. I’m sure my life will just be better because I’m using this planner. Do you know what I mean? That certain objects or tools can make us feel this mix of joy, satisfaction, and certainty that no matter the chaos in other aspects of our lives, in this one way there’ll be calm? Peace.
So I bought the Hobonichi Cousin because it is the rare planner that contains monthly, weekly, and daily spreads all in one book. It started out as pure function. But I fell in love once I held it in my hands. The weight and shape of it make me feel like I’m holding an actual book, not a notebook, which is better somehow. The feel of it makes me want to use it. The pages are thin and smooth like silk and yet make a satisfying crisp crinkle with every page turn. The layout is elegant AF. Even the week layout, which includes a 24-hour time table for every day of the week takes up a mere two pages. It’s extraordinary how some tidy lines and columns make this otherwise empty collection of papers something I want to fill in. When I cram my nose to the spine, there is even a subtle aroma, like rainwater on damp paper (I do not have a sponsorship deal with Hobonichi but I 1000% would).
I’m marveling at the amount of thinking that went into the design of this planner, that goes into any really well-designed item. It’s usually imperceptible that a team of minds is in the background, thinking hard about how something should look and feel and function. They went through numerous iterations before getting to the finished product. But the finished thing, like this planner, can seem so right that it appears to have come into being fully formed rather than through trial and error, like Athena exploding out of Zeus’s head.
I’m sure (I hope!) you can think of objects in your own life that are just so good or so perfect at being what they are. Like an article of clothing that fits your body just right can make you feel cool, sophisticated, confident, sexy, stylish, the right object can make performing some task easier, more efficient, more pleasurable. Maybe it’s the keyboard that makes a satisfying clack when you type, the office chair that gives your back proper support, a good non-stick pan makes for easier clean-up, and a wide cutting board with a just-sharpened knife makes tasks like chopping vegetables faster and more satisfying.
Having the right items, I think, can make small, subtle, but important improvements in our lives. But sometimes we hold onto items past the point of their usefulness, past the point where they’ve started to annoy us. And yet we keep them around, like those old sweaters and jeans that don’t really fit anymore, that make us feel schlumpy, frumpy, messy. Why do we do this, why do we hold onto things that we should let go of?
Time gets me all the time. It takes time to find the right item, whether it’s trying out a bunch of paper planners or testing out calendar apps. That time could be better spent doing any number of things, like watching a movie or sleeping or working. Sometimes it’s stubbornness, or laziness. Inertia is pretty powerful. Maybe we think we don’t really deserve nice things. Maybe spending the money seems like a waste. Sometimes the budget just doesn’t allow it. Dropping a significant sum on one single purchase that might not be worth it is nerve-wracking.
I stubbornly held onto an IKEA desk that I’m pretty sure was made for kids, for years. I bought it at a time when I had limited space and a limited funds for a desk, but I kept it well past the point where it’s smallness became a distraction. It’s fine, it’s fine, I thought as I put off the purchase of an adult-sized desk for months and months before finally clicking the buy button. Now I see what an idiot I was for not doing it sooner, for not investing in my own sanity or my own ability to work and focus. If I could only have quantified the mental effort I spent convincing myself a bad desk was working, maybe it would have been easier to spend the cash on something new sooner.
I suppose that’s one reason why all these reviews sites like Wirecutter, The Strategist, and CNET have popped up, why we’ve come to rely on star ratings on everything from restaurant reviews to shoes, to give us the piece of mind that spending time and/or beaucoup bucks on something won’t be a waste, that we won’t regret it.
I wonder what it would look like if we went around our homes and gave all our things star ratings. And then we’d have to get rid of all the 1-star things and some (maybe all?) of the 2-star things too. Like Marie Kondo meets Amazon. What are the 4- and 5 star items left, those that actually work really really well in some way?
My point is not about how we should only buy the best products or how January is such a great time to do some kind of things-purge. Rather, I’m thinking about what tools (physical objects or digital products) we use in our own lives that really fit us, those 5-star items. There are thousands and thousands of products on the market and literally millions of apps we can download that purport to make our lives easier or more fun. Which ones actually do? Why?
It can be deeply personal. For me, I prefer a paper planner over digital because I enjoy the act of writing and holding the planner in my hands. And I need a planner because I need to know what tasks to tackle and what to look forward to, which has become ever more important during this pandemic. Otherwise I sit on the couch watching endless episodes of Bob’s Burgers on Hulu (with the commercials because I haven’t yet upped to the ad-free tier :/) and feel crappy about it, the feeling of wasting time adding to my increased anxiety levels.
Of course there are scads of planners available and I’ve tried many. The Hobonichi Cousin is working for me right now. I hope you have something in your own life that is working really well for you. What is it? What do you use it for? Why does it matter? I bet we all have radically different answers to this question. Or is everyone thinking about a planner?!
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