My journey towards an enjoyable and functional combination of daily drivers continues. The goal is a grey and a black ink. Grey ink for repeated tasks and the structure of my weekly. Black ink for important tasks and marking my progress on each task. The black should stand out from the grey.

Last week’s mix of black and grey inks carries over for task management. I’ve become a fan of having both black and grey inked up. A greyscale accent color is distraction-free, and still easily scannable. And that is a winning combination for me.

However, the 3 Oysters black and Montblanc pairing takes minutes to dry on Tomoe River paper. It’s not a good pairing for the paper I use for work. Consequently, my weekly spread has a constellation of smears and cross-page pollination.

My most frequent writing tasks are updating my weekly task list, processing lesson plans, and note taking during meetings. Weeklies are made all in grey ink. But notes and process writing are bicolor: a grey ink for information, and an accent color for new tasks and commentary.

I asked my spouse to suggest a name for my color palette this week. They said, “clouds or something stormy.” I can see where the palette evokes clouds and storms. We’re going with ‘seafoam storm.’ For the first time in a while, I have only one earth tone inked. Cool blues and purples take the day.