Browsing the internet, we came across a text of unparalleled sensitivity. Carol shared her vision of the small pleasures of everyday life and, as the protagonist of these moments of indulgence: the Trent Planner. Her gaze towards feeling and the appreciation of moments of indulgence is so simple that we want to share it.
Carolina Ruhman Sandler is a journalist, writer, and a passionate lover of books and notebooks. She has worked for various media outlets such as TV/Radio Bandeirantes and Revista Claudia. She founded Finanças Femininas, the largest financial education platform for women in Brazil. Author of three books and a large production of content on finance for women. She writes the weekly literary newsletter Vou te Falar, where she explores her inner universe and her relationship with the contemporary world, in addition to sharing cultural tips from a humanized curation. She is currently pursuing a Master of Liberal Arts at Johns Hopkins University.
The planner and the pleasure of the superfluous
Not everything needs a purpose
I don't need that. I spent too much money on it, too. But the pleasure I feel when opening the notebook every morning makes up for it. It's leather, bronze in color, and the edges of the pages are gilded. On the cover, four numbers: 2024. It's my planner - and it's beautiful.
The concept of a planner at this point in the game is completely anachronistic. We have enough apps to organize our lives and leave everything on the phone screen: agenda, to-dos, Notion. My digital organization is the envy of many - I go to the extreme of having a wiki of all the weekly menus I've ever created. Luiz looks at my flashy notebook on the table and asks: do you really need this?
Not at all. But not everything should be based on necessity. We like some objects just because they are beautiful. Extravagant. Unnecessary. Delicious.
It's a small ritual. It gives me great joy just to take it out of my bag. I take my four-color pen and start planning my day. I write down appointments, meetings, lunches, and gatherings in purple. In pink, I plan the time to write this newsletter edition and all the readings and work for my master's degree. In orange, the work tasks - only the priorities. In blue, the big events: birthdays, trips, parties. The result is a colorful week, a page where I can see how I'm going to manage everything.
"I look at the previous weeks and see how much I've accomplished. The planner is a place of futurology and archeology. Everything I've lived leaves a mark."
Cell phone apps are used to remember every detail that makes up the routine and work, an organized stock of the ocean of life as a mother-student-writer-executive (the latter is new). The notebook is the place for the most important and strategic, for what I love and gives me pleasure. When I plan my day in it, I feel organized, planned, efficient. The colored pen gives a fun touch. It's a delight to use my best handwriting and fill up all the spaces.
I look at the previous weeks and see how much I've accomplished. The planner is a place of futurology and archeology. Everything I've lived leaves a mark.
It may be the Sun in Taurus, but I like the material, the beautiful object, the comfort. The act of picking up a beautiful notebook is aesthetically delicious. (I remember one day when a friend who was studying Philosophy accused me on the other side of a bar table, at the end of adolescence: "you're an aesthete!" I died laughing. His insult was a source of pride for me).
It's the same kind of pleasure - although much less elevated, I confess - as that of immersing myself in a Rothko painting or listening to Mad Rush. Beauty doesn't need a function or purpose. The superfluous also has its value.
So leave me in peace with my planner. It's not a work of art, but it's a small private spectacle.
By Carol Ruhman.
