Working with PLOTTER A5: Chart Grid and Blue Quadrant Inserts

The PLOTTER A5 purchase and review was inspired by Nicole Sharp, who has recently written a beautiful essay Seeking Connection through Stationery. You should check it out.

Plotter Bible Pueblo Black and Plotter A5 Liscio Wine. Pens are my Onoto Scholar, and the Uni gel pen in Peach Milk.

I’ve been using a Plotter Bible daily since 2022, but lately I’ve been pondering the addition of a Plotter A5 for organizing big writing projects. My spouse uses a Plotter A5 and loves it, but I’ve been very happy with the Bible until recently - it is a more portable size, and I appreciated how the smaller pages helped me keep control of my sprawling to-do list. I cannot possibly do all that in a day if it does not even fit on the page! I need such reminders.

When Plotter came out with the Chart Grid insert, which is only available in A5, I immediately thought that the format would be excellent for the way I organize my academic submissions. I went ahead and ordered just the insert, an affordable way to test the format which worked so well that I used it since the end of April to catalog and organize my academic submissions as I shift to publishing more about science fiction studies and disability studies. This worked beautifully.

I started carrying the insert around with me together with my Plotter Bible, but it was not as convenient as having an actual organizer. I began to wonder whether I should also get an A5. It felt frivolous, but other people seem to love theirs, and I had plenty of enablers. So I finally bought it in the color I’ve been looking at for a while (Wine), with the Chart Grid and some more inserts I wanted to try.

I’ve been using the Plotter A5 for about 3 weeks now, and here are my impressions:

1.The A5 format is very helpful for my use case. It is easy to keep track of long lists which are not dailies, and it is easy to organize submissions; I have more options for having things available at a glance.

Keeping track of a bibliography list for a particular project.

2. In terms of keeping long lists which are not dailies, my monthly to-do lists and my Semester Plan especially benefit from the larger format, since these are longer lists.

Unsorted June To-do List with some of my recently completed linocuts for my upcoming novella YOKE OF STARS.

3. The Chart Grid is particularly versatile. I also enjoyed the Blue Quadrant grid. This is available in A5 and Bible, but the Bible size is not usable for me - in contrast, the A5 Quadrant Grid is excellent. (Chart and Quadrant grids are reviewed below).

4. I am not managing to use both Bible and A5 in complementary ways, and this is an issue of my one-track mind. I prefer to keep the number of my organizing solutions minimal - the sprawl is not helpful for my brain. This is something I want to explore a lot more.

5. I transitioned my daily task management to the A5, and I am not convinced that it’s working as well for me.

6. A5 is harder to lug around everywhere because it’s bigger, and I like lugging things around everywhere.

7. I received one insert (lifter with band) that was offgassing and smelled like a sewer, it was awful. Plotter offered to exchange it for me, but I am letting it sit in hopes that the smell will fully dissipate. This is annoying.

Detailed Review: Chart Grid

The Chart Grid is incredibly versatile for me. Here it is with the list of journals I am considering for some of my submissions. There is enough room to note the length and stylesheet requirements and any notes about editors, submissions, etc. I am also using it to organize my submissions for the year. This organization has been missing, and I’m using it a lot.

A list of journals on Plotter Chart grid, with the snout of a Menagerie friend the crocodile

The Chart Grid can also be used as a daily, with each subdivision representing a day.

I also envision using the Chart grid to organize specific chapters of a larger academic project, or sections of a grant proposal.

Keeping track of my academic submissions - in a coffeeshop :) with Aurora Optima Viola.

My only hesitation about the Chart Grid is: will it be discontinued? PLOTTER loves introducing useful things and discontinuing them, and I simply hate that. PLOTTER, if you’re reading this, please keep the chart grid. This is extremely usable.

Verdict: excellent.

Detailed review: Blue Quadrant Grid

Blue Grid comparison between A5 and Bible

I bought the Blue Quadrant Grid in A5 because I really wanted to use a quadrant grid (I reviewed one previously from YosekaLab). I previously bought the Bible size of this insert, but it did not work for me at all. The Bible is compact, and dividing it into four made the divisions too small to be usable. It could work for someone with small handwriting and excellent vision. I can write pretty much any size, but my eyesight is terrible and straining to read even my own tiny letters scribbled in tiny quadrants is not helpful to my workflow. A5 solves this: the pages are big and the quadrants help organize each page into manageable chunks. This format is especially useful for dailies.

My complaint: the blue paper. The color itself is gorgeous, but it does not lend itself to legibility, and it does not really show off my inks; it’s more difficult to color-code.

Verdict: Good, but points deducted for usability. I hope PLOTTER will make the quadrant grid available in regular white paper.

Coffeeshop planning with the A5 - not as easily portable as the Bible, but has a lot more room.

Overall, my impressions of the PLOTTER A5 are positive - the big format is flexible, the leather is supple and luscious, it has an elegant minimalist look, and the small rings continue to be a plus for me. I plan to continue exploring the possibilities of both the Bible and the A5 in the upcoming academic year.