Year: 2017

The notebook you use

The best notebook is the one that you use.

If Moleskine makes the notebooks you want to use, then they are the best. After years of collecting dust, I find myself gravitating back to them more. Maybe it’s because their paper isn’t perfect, and I don’t feel guilty if I just use a simple gel ink pen or a pencil on them, and maybe it’s something about their format that is just right for me right now.

If Leuchtturm, Rhodia, Baron Fig, Midori, Field Notes is what makes you pull out a pen or pencil and fill up those pages, then these are the notebooks for you.

There is no perfect notebook — we live in an imperfect world. Your baseline should be a simple composition notebook, and not a leather-bound, gilt-edged masterpiece that you are too afraid to use.

Just a friendly reminder that a notebook is not worth much if it has empty pages and you have a full mind.

This week’s recommendations 

Podcast: Do by Friday. A weekly challenge show by Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. It’s funny, it’s insightful, it’s well worth your time. 

Book: A Month in the Country, by J L Carr. This is a 104 page lyrical masterpiece about a WWI veteran hired to restore a medieval mural in a Yorkshire church. A real gem- one of those books that you judge other people by.

Tea: Feng Qing Premium Black Gold Pearls – a “chocolate and malt” Yunnan black tea rolled into large marbles. Sweet, mellow, smooth and a feast for the eyes. Almost too good to share.

And also: if your New Year’s Resolutions aren’t SMART, you are wasting your time, attention, and effort.


Gratuitous photo of Jaffa on a clear winter’s day.