I wrote about my newest notebook, my “Work in Progress” notebook here. It’s basically a notebook that I use for self improvement, dedicated for various exercises in focused meditation, working through gnarly personal issues, and for more intense personal journaling.
Barista sketch because people need pictures in posts or they get bored.
One of the things that I do as an ongoing exercise in this notebook is keep a list of people that I personally know (so no celebrities or influencers) and what I learned from them. The idea came to me as I was reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.
The book starts with a list of people that Marcus is indebted to – from his immediate family, then onwards to friends, teachers and advisers. This inspired me to create a similar list of my own, also starting from my immediate family and expanding onwards from that.
Some people are kind, inspiring, provide a good example and so they were easy to add to the list. Others were more challenging, but I forced myself to confront my relationship to them, and to find the valuable lessons that I learned from them. The point isn’t to be vicious, cynical, or facetious, but rather to take a second look at people and relationships that you have labelled in a certain way. So the terrible boss taught me what I value in myself and in my managers, certain mean people taught me how to recognise hypocrites, and bad teachers taught me to appreciate good ones and to learn on my own.
I highly recommend doing this exercise and returning to it. It will make you appreciate and feel grateful for the people in your life, and you may even be moved to thank a few of them, even though that’s not the point of this. The point is to realise that:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
From top to bottom: single project notebook (blog drafts), single project notebook (study notes), single project notebook (D&D planning), work-in-progress notebook, work planner, personal planner, journal
Hi there, do you have a big stack of beautiful, brand new notebooks just waiting to be used? Do you have goals and plans for the new year? Do you want to improve your life in many different areas? Great! This post is for you.
Go grab a handful of those notebooks. We’re going to take the dust off them and get them to work for you. Remember: a beautiful notebook looks even better once it’s full. Notebooks are meant to be used as tools, not stared at like art objects.
Here are a few kinds of notebooks you should keep in 2026:
Journal – this is an absolute must for everybody. I know it’s hard to be consistent – believe me I struggle with it daily – but journaling is a habit that is guaranteed to pay back dividends. I start mine daily with a list of things that I’m grateful for, and end with a mini review of the day (did I fulfil my five ACT values?). In between is a running log of the day, and sometimes a section where I work things out on the page. Don’t post your opinions and thoughts on social media – write them in your journal instead. A journal will give you peace of mind, perspective, joy and a safe place to vent. Don’t take it out on people, put it on the page. I currently use a Stalogy 365 B6 for my journal, though for years I have used limited edition lined Large Moleskine hardcovers, and I may yet return to them.
Work In Progress notebook – this is the newest addition to my notebook rotation and I wish I had started a notebook like this sooner. What is a Work In Progress notebook? It’s where I spend time working on things in my life that I want to reflect on and change. You can do this in your journal, but as I’m dedicating time and effort this year to make some significant behavioural changes I wanted the place to work through these things. This is also a place where I reflect and take notes about the non-fiction, history, philosophy and self-help books that I’m reading, and it’s a place where I take time to consider my values and purpose in life. Heady stuff that we’ve been encouraged to abandon in this cynical and commercial age – much to our detriment. You can change and evolve, it’s worth investing time in trying to become a better version of yourself, and consistent daily work and reflection in this area is worth doing. I highly recommend keeping a notebook dedicated to this endeavour.
Planners – I believe that the best planner is the one that you customise for your needs. This is why I recommend not buying a pre-formatted planner, and instead making a planner yourself. I keep a work planner and a personal (home) planner and I recommend that you do the same – keep work at work and home at home whenever possible. Take into account that you’ll have to experiment to see what works for you, and that there will be a level of compromise that you’ll have to grow comfortable with. There is no “perfect” planner – there is a planner that works for you. Planners don’t replace reminders or calendar appointments – they’re there to give you a broader view of your week, month and year, and let you make some long term plans.
Single Project notebooks – “Single Project” notebooks are exactly that – a notebook dedicated to a single project or area in your life. It can be a hobby (I have one dedicated to my D&D plans, and I used to have one dedicated to my running), an actual project that you’re working on (I’m studying for a certification so I have a dedicated notebook for my study notes), or an idea that you want to develop. I try to select a notebook that fits the project that it’s dedicated to in terms of size, format, cover and number of pages. My running notebook was a Field Notes, my study notebook is a Midori MD notebook. If it’s something that you’re working on for a while and that’s important to you, I recommend dedicating a notebook for it.
Daily To Do List – I don’t use a notebook for this at the moment, but I used to use a large squared Moleskine for this. I currently use Kokuyo KB A4 loose leaf paper that I cut in half to A5 size. These lists are disposable to me, so I have no problem crumpling the daily list away and tossing it into recycling. You can use a notebook, index cards, loose leaf paper – but I recommend keeping a hardcopy, analog version of your daily to-do list. Why? Because to-do apps give you excuses to pick up your phone, because writing things down makes you stop and consider what you’re committing to, and because you’ve got all those pretty notebooks and pens and it would be a shame not to use them.
Scratch pad – keep one at hand to doodle on, for quick capture and to test out pens and inks.
Hopefully this will help you get more enjoyment and use out of that big pile of notebooks in your closet. Let me know if this helps or if you have more ideas on how to use your notebooks.
It’s been a while, mostly because life has been hectic, not because I don’t have things to write about. Here’s to trying to get more posts in, even if they aren’t perfect or particularly long.
I’ve just finished another journal (the yellow one on the left in the photo below) and have set up my new one. Both are Stalogy 365 B6 notebooks, and both have a similar initial setup:
1.I flip the notebooks upside down so that the header with the dates is on the bottom and out of the way, as I don’t use it.
2. I use the front endpaper to write an “in case of loss” message (my name, email, phone number and a request for the finder to do the right thing).
New journal on the right, old journal on the left.
3. I use the back endpaper as a sort of “dashboard”. One side gets stickers on it, the other gets a post it with some journaling and review prompts.
Endpaper view of the new journal.
My new journal’s cover was damaged in transit, so I covered the worst of the damage with washi tape. It adds some character to the black cover, and if it gets too grimy or peels off I can always replace it.
My old journal lasted me for 5 months, which is about what these notebooks last for. My Moleskine journals lasted for 3-4 months because they had fewer paged and I used them for scrapbooking as well.
In other news “Writing at Large” is 10 years old. I never thought that I’d be publishing it for so long, but I’m glad that I started it way back in July of 2015, and I hope to keep it going for many years more. I’ve been through a lot over the past decade, and this site reflects a tiny part of that. If I can recommend something it’s to invest your time in your own site and your own work instead of on social media. If you persist, it pays dividends.
Reading
Finished The Day of the Jackal by Fredrick Forsyth and found it fascinating. I’m planning on reviewing it here.
Started on We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and I’m working on some Ulysses posts.
Health and Fitness
It’s getting hard to run outside, harder than it ever was, in this heat and humidity. Global warming is making treadmill runs more attractive. I’ve started using the NRC app‘s guided treadmill runs and they are pretty good and making treadmill running more bearable.
I used to be a heavy Twitter use. I discovered the service pretty early on through webcomic artists like Scott Kurtz, and I found the challenge of crafting short tweets to be a fun writing exercise. Yes, I was among those disappointed when they raised the character limit – half the fun of the service was trying to be as clear and concise as possible.
When Twitter stopped supporting third-party clients like Tweetbot, and started becoming an unpleasant place to hang out, I left. It hasn’t gotten better in the interim years and as I have largely cut social media out of my life so I have no plans of ever going back. However, while I don’t miss Twitter (not as it is, not even as it used to be) I do miss the challenge of crafting short and punchy snippets of text: the haiku like nature of tweets. I also have a large pile of unused Field Notes pocket notebooks, and a not insignificant stock of really cool gel ink pens, rollerballs and ballpoints that are all seeing very little use.
Could I put these together to achieve an analog version of what I enjoyed most about Twitter?
The Birds and Trees of North America, Fall 2024 seasonal edition of Field Notes.
Yes, I could and I did and it has been glorious.
I selected a Field Notes notebook out of the the Fall 2024 “Birds and Trees of North America” edition because it’s a beautiful edition, it has lined paper (which I rarely have use for in pocket notebooks), and it seemed appropriate. I randomly selected a Retro 51 Tornado – The System limited edition one which has Uniball Jetstream SXR-600-05 hybrid ballpoint refill in it instead of the original Schmidt refill which I don’t like. Then I started writing down “tweets” in it throughout the day.
Rocky Mountain and Mexican Screech Owls Field Notes notebook (illustrated by Rex Brasher) and Retro 51 Tornado The System limited edition pen
I’m not dating them, I’m not counting characters, I’m just limiting myself to a few rows for each entry, and I’m writing them as if I would be publishing them. The writing style is therefore different than what I would write in my journal, and so far it’s also focused exclusively on things that I don’t write about in my journal (mainly reactions to things I did or saw or read). I have no intention of ever publishing anything in this notebook, but I do enjoy the challenge of writing it as if it would be something that I would post somewhere.
So I get to practice my writing skill in a new way, I get to use some of my wonderful Field Notes stash, and I get to use some of my great standard pens. All this without filling the pockets of various billionaires with my work, and without encountering the bots and the foaming hordes of professional haters and rabble rousers online.
I highly recommend this practice, whether you do it with a fancy Field Notes or just any pocket notebook you have on hand. Using a notebook of this size will remind you to keep your entries short, and it’s something that you can easily carry with you and use in waiting rooms, boring meetings, or when you need a little break between tasks throughout the day.
It’s a battered Moleskine pocket hardcover lined notebook, a limited edition Mickey Mouse one from years ago. There was a series gash in the spine, so I fixed it with some gaffer tape. I use a Zebra G-450 gel ink pen, and it lays down a bold, 0.7 black line.
I don’t use this notebook during every gym session, but when I’m trying out new things, when I’ve got a lot on my mind, or when I’m trying to solve a specific problem I take it with me. I don’t write details about my workout (rep numbers, weights, etc) as I have an app for that.
So what do I write in this notebook?
How things felt during the workout, particularly when I’m trying something new or if I’m recovering from an injury.
Notes on other gym goers bad behavior. I don’t want to confront them, but I do get frustrated when people don’t return weights, don’t use a towel or wipe down the equipment, and hoard equipment during the gym rush hour. Writing it down allows me to let off steam and focus on more productive things (like my workout, or returning equipment that I know is no longer in use back to its place, or on anything else).
Ideas or projects that I’m brainstorming at the moment. I oftentimes use a workout to think about something I’m considering or something I’m stuck on. I jot a few notes in between sets to not forget the ideas I came up with during that time.
Things I want to journal about later, in my “regular” journal. These are usually things that I forgot to journal about and want to get back to later in the day, when I have time to sit down and better process them.
The main point of this journal is to get me as much as possible off my phone. It’s tempting to check the news for the umpteenth time, or doom scroll various feeds, or play mindless games while you wait between sets. My goal is to bring these habits down to a minimum, and this journal is a useful tool in the search for less screen time.
Sample entry from last year. I write with gym gloves on, hence the atrocious handwriting.
I originally thought that it would be embarrassing to use a notebook in the gym, but I decided that “so what, who cares” is the attitude to take in this case. People do much more embarrassing things at the gym and nobody comments on it. I use an inconspicuous notebook that isn’t at all precious, and a hardy, inexpensive, inconspicuous gel ink pen to go with it. Both have survived falls and encounters with misplaced weights, so they are gym hardened, Don’t bring large, colourful notebooks with you, and don’t bring pens that look expensive or draw attention to themselves. You’re going for the “boring, not worth paying attention to” look here.
Would you consider taking a pen and notebook with you to the gym? If you already do, how do you use your gym notebook?
Just as I wrote a post about Moleskine no longer making store exclusive limited edition notebooks, my brother went to Paris (during the Olympics) and found not one but two store exclusive limited edition notebooks. Moleskine have officially cooperated with the Paris 2024 Olympic games and they have outdone themselves.
The first notebook is a large lined hardcover notebook that could be purchased standalone, or as part of a set that included three Olympics themed charms (in the colour of the medals) and a pen. The box was sold out, as were the charms (and yet it was still on display in the store window, because reasons). The notebook was still available and it is glorious, a perfect example of Moleskine’s design prowess.
This is the notebook still in the wrapper:
Wrapped notebook from the front
The front facing part of the wrapper has a discreet Paris 2024 logo sticker on the right side. The back part of the wrapper is anything but discreet. There are games logos, games sponsors, multiple designations of the officialness of the notebook, as well as pictures of the notebook cover and the lined interior with its bookmarks (more on them later). It’s busy back here:
Wrapped notebook from the back.
Removing the wrapper reveals the notebook itself. The Olympic logo is given its pride of place, and the rest of the cover is given over to a celebration of the Paris 2024 font. The only colours here come from the foiled gold of the flame and the Olympic rings. It’s a classic and sleek design:
Front cover unwrapped.
I expected the back cover to just be more of the Paris 2024 font in black on white. Instead there’s a set of letters that are gold foiled, and I really like the effect. It’s chic, classy and very well thought out. The Moleskine logo is there, but it doesn’t call attention to itself, and the black rubber band almost disappears from view:
Back cover unwrapped
Inside the front endpapers have the usual in case of loss section, the Paris 2024 logo prominently displayed, the Moleskine logo, small and discreet, and a letter in French:
The front enpapers
Here’s the letter, from Tony Estanguet, the head of the organizing comittee for Paris 2024 and an Olympic champion. Note that it, unlike the “In Case of Loss” part uses the Paris 2024 font. It’s written in French and is a celebration of the Paris 2024 games and their uniqueness (first opening ceremony not in the stadium, first games with gender parity, first games with Breaking, 100 years since the previous Paris games, first event open to participation by the general public – Marathon for All). It ends with a celebration of the notebook in your hand, which is a nice touch.
Close up on the letter.
The back endpapers have logos of the various Olympic events. As usual, these are well placed and the back pocket and the endpaper prints match perfectly. It’s the little details that matter in these notebooks, and Moleskine always nails them.
Back endpaper
Inside the back pocket are some Olympic themed treats: four sticker sheets, and a folded map of the event locations.
Stickers and folded map
The stickers feature the Phryges, the Olympic mascots for the 2024 games, participating in various sports:
First two sticker sheetsSecond two sticker sheets
Then there’s a stylized map of the various events locations in Paris, France and Tahiti:
The map.
Finally, inside the notebook are not one, not two, but three ribbon bookmarks in the colour of the Olympic medals:
The bookmarks.
All in all this is an extremely well thought out design, one that takes pride in the games and cares about every little detail. It’s a worthwhile memento of the event, and it just shows what Moleskine can do in terms of localized special editions when they put their minds to it.
The second notebook is a soft cover cahier created for those who want a cheaper, more colourful and lightweight alternative commemorative notebook from the event. Here it is wrapped:
Wrapped front cover
Here’s the back cover. Again, lots of info here (the price was half that of the hardcover).
Wrapped back cover.
The front cover features a very colourful illustration of Phryges doing various game related things alongside iconic Paris monuments and symbols. There’s a lot of playfulness here, and it’s a delight to look at all the little details here:
Front cover.
The cover has a pleasant texture to it. The back cover has a Phryge in the back waving hello above the Moleskine logo in white:
Back cover
Moleskine clearly love the Paris 2024 font because it is once again the star in both front and back endpapers, this time with only the numerals in use:
Front endpaper
There’s a pocket in the back:
Back endpaper
The paper is blank, and it’s stitched using blue thread – very fetching. It lies flat with little effort:
Paper and stitching
Here’s a writing sample on the paper (both notebooks feature the same standard Moleskine paper – 70/gsm ivory coloured acid-free paper:
Writing sample
Close up on the writing. Fountain pens show the same strange mottled pattern that they do in this kind of paper, and wider, juicier fountain pens will spread:
Closeup on the writing sampleCloseup on the writing sample
There is see through and bleeding with the fountain pens and the rollerballs. This paper works best with gel ink pens, ballpoint pens, fineliners and pencils:
Back of the page
All in all these notebooks are well worth their price in my opinion. They are well designed, provide a lovely memento of the Paris 2024 games, and they are unique to the Paris Moleskine stores. I only wish that Moleskine would create more of these for their stores. They were clearly a success in Paris, for good reasons.
What do you think about these notebooks? Would you purchase one or both of them?
My brother went to Hamburg to see the Taylor Swift Eras concert, and while he was in the city he went to the Mokeskine store and bought me these two embossed Moleskine pocket softcover blank notebooks:
They were already embossed, even though it was clear that the embossing had been done manually in store and not in a factory. How can you tell? Look at the Hamburg coat of arms notebook (the left one in the picture). Can you see how it was embossed and then the notebook moved and it was embossed again, causing a double outline? Also the left part of the embossing is fainter than the right one.
I don’t mind it – it gives the notebook character and a human touch. It makes it less precious on the one hand and more unique on the other, as it’s literally a one of a kind notebook now. But it’s this embossing that got me thinking about the Moleskine store experience again.
I used to love going to Molesking stores. There wasn’t one locally so everywhere I would travel to I’d check if there was a Mokeskine store in the area and make a point to visit it. This was for two reasons:
Moleskine stores used to have store exclusive limited editions of their notebooks. It usually meant that one of the their limited edition collections had a specific notebook design that was only available for purchase in a Moleskine store.
Moleskine store used to have large rubber stamps specific to that store that you could freely use to personalize your notebook.
Both things are no longer true, but the second of these – the stamps that Moleskine no longer puts in their stores – is what I want to focus on.
The stamps were a great idea: there was a standard Moleskine logo stamp, but there was also a local stamp (similar in concept to the design embossed on the notebooks above). Those were the best, as you could mark your notebook with a memory of the place you visited. What was even better was that you didn’t have to purchase anything or even use the stamp on a Moleskine notebook. I had a Moleskine pocket reporter that I travelled with and stamped, but I also stamped Field Notes notebooks.
Lots of people came into the store for the stamps, even those who were clearly not regular Moleskine users. And while you’re in the store, you browse the notebooks, you check out the pens and the bags, and you usually leave with a few of them. If you’re a Moleskine collector you of course pick up one of the store exclusive designs.
Lord of the Rings Gates of Moria notebook that was my journal from July 6th 2019 to November 16th 2019
So what happens today when you go into a Moleskine store?
Well there are no store exclusives anymore, and instead of the free stamps you can purchase add-on personalizations to your Moleskine. Note the word purchase – these add-ons aren’t for free. You can add patches and hot foil printing (of the kind done on the Hamburg notebooks), or add charms to your notebook’s elastic closure. You can only do it on a Moleskine product, and even then not all personalizations are available for all notebooks (you can’t foil print on certain covers, for example). Also to make a notebook like the little Hamburg ones you are talking about almost doubling the price of the notebook. Yikes.
I don’t understand why Moleskine don’t:
have at least one or two limited editions only available in store. It seems like they have enough stores to justify this.
keep the free stamps in store as well as offer personalization services for those who want them.
The stamp overhead in particular seems to be negligible, particularly in comparison to the foot traffic it drove into their stores and the delight it gave to their fans. In an age where we are constantly being pushed to make impersonal purchases online, a touch of something kind, creative and whimsical like the Moleskine stamps is much needed and appreciated.
Moleskine store stamps in the Lord of the Rings journal
Back in January I wrote about trying a new long term planning system that isn’t the Theme System or theme based, and isn’t yearly goal based, but rather is based on breaking the year into four 13 week blocks, each one representing a fully independent quarter.
I’m now in week 11 of the second of these blocks (quarter two, to put it more simply), and I’m starting to plan the next quarter. While working on my plan I thought that it would be useful to document the procedure, talk about my review process, and discuss how I planned the previous quarters, how things went, and what I plan to do differently in the third quarter.
The point of this system is to break the year into more manageable parts. This allows for greater flexibility in planning, time to “recover” from life’s surprises, and time to work on meaningful, long term projects. On the one hand the entire year isn’t a wash when life deals one of its blows, and on the other hand you can allow yourself to express a realistic amount of ambition.
Starting the Third Quarter’s Setup
I use the Leuchtturm Bullet Journal for my planning, and it should last me to the end of the year. After that I’ll switch to a Leuchtturm 120gsm dot grid notebook, as I don’t use any of the Bullet Journal features in my current notebook.
The first bit is a bit mindless, but I prefer to see it as meditative. Each week in my planner gets two pages, and so I leave four empty pages after the last spread of the previous quarter. These four pages will contain my plan for the quarter, broken into various sections. More on how I build that in a later post.
Then I sit down and draw out 13 weekly spreads. On the left side of the spread I write down the days of the week and the dates, and on the right I just put a “Weekly Tasks” title with the number of the week in the quarter in square brackets. I do this in one sitting for the entire quarter, and it takes about 30 minutes because I don’t rush it. This is how the pages look at this point:
This is how it looks when it’s filled and in use:
The left side gets filled with my exercise plan for the week, major appointments, and important things I don’t want to forget.
The right side has my weekly goals, both in the form of various checklists with checkboxes and more general lists. This is where my quarterly goals get put into action – every Friday or Saturday I look at my quarterly goals, and then try to advance as many of them as I can in the week. Things become more quantifiable at this point, though it’s often only in my daily to do lists that they become real, doable tasks. My daily to do list is something that I write the night before on an A5 loose sheet of paper, and recycle once I’m done with it.
Next time I’ll post a bit more about how I create the quarterly plan.
How do you plan your year? How is your planning going now that the year is halfway through?
With One Week 100 People I’ve been using my fountain pens much more to sketch with, and I fell in love with them again as sketching tools. There’s something about the expressiveness of the line that they bring in that reminds me of pencil more than of fineliner pens when it comes to sketching – a combination of their varying line width and the varying ink shade.
I’ve also purchased more fountain pens than I planned, buying two Franklin Christoph pens from the pen models that they’re retiring: A model 46 in Polar Ice with an extra fine nib and a pocket 66 Italian Ice with a flex extra fine nib. These two join the Leonardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica that I purchased from Pen Chalet last month, and the Leonardo Momento Zero Nuvola rose gold that finally arrived this month after I purchased it from Fontoplumo and it was stolen during transit. Fontoplumo were wonderful, and replaced the pen immediately, so I intend to purchase from them again.
I haven’t purchased so many new fountain pens since before the pandemic, but the Leonardo Nuvola was a gift to myself to celebrate two years from chemo, and the Galattica was a gift to myself for surviving a hellish month with my father in hospital. The Franklin Christophs were unexpected purchases made only because they were retiring these models and I was curious about these materials (I already have an Antique Glass model 66 and I love it).
Writing samplesThe pens
So far the biggest success in terms of nib has been the flex extra fine Franklin Christoph Pocket 66 Italian Ice. The nib has only a slight springiness to it, and I wouldn’t call it a flexible nib in the true sense of the word, but it works well for both sketching and writing. Diamine Earl Grey is one of my favourite inks (a bluish grey with tons of character that is legible even with very fine nibbed pens), so I didn’t hesitate filling an eyedropper pen with it. As eyedroppers have such a tremendous ink capacity, you always need to take into account just how much you love the ink you use in them.
The Leonardo Momento Zero Nuvola was a surprise in terms of the resin on the pen body (I was already familiar with LMZs fantastic fine flex nibs, and great pen and converter design). I was expecting a light blue pen with white “cloud” blotches and black outlines. In reality the black outlines are in a semi transparent brown resin, the white is more off-white/cream, and there’s real depth to the design. A very unusual resin that is both classic and unexpectedly unique.
Caran d’Ache discontinued their ultra-expensive and ultra-sought-after ink series “Colours of the Earth” in 2013 and I managed to get a bottle of the entire series besides Carbon right after they announced they wouldn’t be making them (I had bottles of Amazon, Safron and Sunset before they were discontinued because those were the ones that interested me the most). These inks are well over 10 years old and still fantastic, though the Amazon (the green ink) has darkened a bit and so lost some of its depth. The Caran d’Ache bottles are both gorgeous to look at and terribly designed.
Diamine Coral is the most optimistic of inks, a brightly bright coral ink that glows on the page and works best in generous nibs. I felt like a pick-me-up so I filled the Woodshed pen with it.
I made some interesting eexperiments with notebooks and tried a few new pencils, but this post is getting a little out of hand and so I’ll write about those in a separate post.
Did you use any interesting stationery last month?
Writing at Large 