Tag: How I Do Things

Welcome to a post no one asked for. I always feel odd writing and posting these “how I do things” posts. But, they have good metrics, and generate some good conversation, so you must enjoy them.

For the first time in years, my pen rotation and notebook ended together. This seemed like an excellent time to shake things up a bit.

I’ve previously written about my pen rotation and notebook system, including actual notebook, layout, and cover. Well, I’ve changed all of it.

I suggest you go back and at least skim the posts about my pen rotation and notebook layout, but you don’t have to.

With that intro out of the way, allow me to share what’s changing.

I’ve had a few questions, over the past year, about my pen statuses. Most commonly, I’ve been asked about “decommissioned” pens. Since that status appears to confuse people, I’d like to explain what the various statuses I use mean.

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In Rotation: A pen I own that is in active rotation use.

On Break: A pen I own that is not in active rotation. Typically, these are pens I’m trying to decide if I want to sell.

This seemed like an apropos time to share this post, with the DC Pen Show going on and other pen shows (hopefully) to come later this year. Lots of us sell pens to give us bigger pen show budgets. That’s probably why I’ve seen some posts recently wondering how to decide which pens to sell. If you’ve never sold a pen, the first one can certainly seem like a wrench. And the occasional posts about seller’s regret wouldn’t help that feeling.

I give my sales significant thought, specifically to avoid that horrible feeling. On the hope that it might help someone, I’m sharing how pens end up on my “for sale” list. I love being able to sell a pen to pay for a new one. I want to make sure that I’m very clear that this post is about how to choose what to sell once you’ve decided that you want to sell pens. It’s not about telling anyone that they should sell pens.

I’ve had several people ask me how I use all my pens. I went through a few methods before I settled on the current one. It seems to be working pretty well. I’ve gone through 4, maybe 5, rotations with it so far, and I don’t see myself changing it any time soon.

The base of my strategy is separating my pens into categories. It doesn’t really matter what the categories are, you just don’t want more categories than the number of pens you’ll have in use. I keep 5 pens inked — not including my always inked pens — and split my pens into “Less Expensive” (under $250), “More Expensive” (Over $250), and “Indie Pens” categories.