As I’m writing this I’m two or three pages away from finishing another journal. It’s not the first journal that I’ve finished, but somehow it’s always a tiny, little momentous occasion. After all from the moment we crack open a new notebook and dare to write on its pristine pages we envision this outcome: a notebook chock full of words, sketches and mementos.
Slightly frayed and ink stained but this Stalogy 365Days B6 notebook has served me well for about 6 months
For me the end of a journal offers a change to review and reflect on its contents. The last few pages aren’t used for normal journaling, but rather are reserved for me to write notes in as I leaf through the completed journal’s pages. What key moments does it hold? What revelations? How can I look back with kindness at moments of weakness or failure, and how can I learn and grow from them? This is not always a pleasant or easy experience, but I have always found it worthwhile.
Sample page with a sketch.
This is also a time when I consider whether I need to switch a journal format or not. I’ve been using the Stalogy Editor’s Series 365Days B6 notebook for the past two journals and I’ve been happy with it, so that’s what I’ll continue using for now.
What about you? Do you have any “end of journal” or “end of notebook” habits and rituals?
One of the things that I set up in my Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal is a list of the unread books on my Kindle. It’s supremely easy to buy books on a Kindle, as the whole system is set up a way to make book purchasing as fast and frictionless as possible.
This is a problem for me.
I love books, I adore reading, and I have pretty large group of friends that love reading too. This means that I’m inundated with great recommendations that run the gamut from light hearted fantasy and sci-fi to contemporary and classic literary fiction, with a whole host of fiction and non-fiction books in the middle (I don’t read horror and I don’t read romances and I rarely read poetry but that’s about the only limits I have in terms of my reading tastes). I get several such book recommendations a month, and with my initial impulse to rush out and buy them, and with the ease of purchasing books on a Kindle, things could get out of hand very quickly. This was one of the reasons why for years I was so resistant to buying a Kindle.
You see, it’s very easy to lose track of just how many unread books you have on your device. Even if you sort by unread books, you just don’t get a real feel for how many of them are actually waiting to be read. There’s no bookshelf groaning with the weight of unread books, and I was feeling the lack of that.
Enter my list of unread books on my Kindle:
It’s a simple numbered list of books that I haven’t read and are on my device. As I read a book, I cross it out. As I purchase more books I add them to the end of the list. As I’ve gotten into the habit of downloading samples, I’ve started to write them down too so they don’t get out of hand. It’s super simple, as bare-bones as it can be, and as practical as possible. The point is just to give my brain an idea of the scale of unread books on my device, and it works.
It works.
I’ve stopped compulsively buying books in the fear of “running out of something to read” or “forgetting what I was recommended”. Recommendations go into my GoodReads “Want to Read” list. And my brain can now see that there’s just no chance that I’ll run out of things to read any time soon. If I buy something I have to go over the list and convince myself that what I’m buying deserves precedence over the lovely books waiting patiently in line, some of them for years. I also photograph this list and keep it on my phone for reference, to prevent me from accidentally buying the same book in physical format (unless I purposefully intend to, which is rare).
What about the physical books stacked on shelves, some of them two books deep? I would love to have such a list for them as well, but that task is too daunting for me now. I remember where my books are visually, and moving them all just to catalogue them not only seems like an awful lot of backbreaking work, it will destroy my “memory catalogue of books”. So it seems that my physical books will remain uncatalogued for years to come.
Do you keep a list of all the books you own but haven’t read yet? Do you just keep a list of the books you intend to read next? Do you track your physical books in some way?
January was a big month in terms of writing pens dry. For the first time ever I managed to write all of the Inkvent pens dry by the end of the month. That’s 12 fountain pens written dry, which is the most I’ve ever written dry in a month. The secret is not filling them more than 50% full, and making sure to journal and note-take consistently.
In terms of paper products I’ve journaled in my Stalogy 365 B5 journal and will be switching to a new journal next month (also a Stalogy 365 B5 because I like the paper and the format). I do have a little quirk with these notebooks – I use them upside down because I don’t like the header with the dates on it, so I flip the notebook around so that it’s at the bottom of the page. That way it doesn’t bother me as much.
Stalogy 365
I’ve also been using a Rhodia A5 dot pad to time block my day, and Kokuyo A4 KB which I cut in half (to get two A5 pieces of paper) and write my daily todo list on. At work I use a Maruman Mnemosyne horizontal A5 notebook (either squared or blank) to brainstorm on, track my tasks, take meeting notes, etc. My weekly plans and long term 12 week year goals are in a Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal that stays at home, on my desk. The rest (Stalogy B5 journal, two pieces of daily planning paper, and the Mnemosyne) travel with me when I go to the office.
I have a monthly calendar with some monthly reading, running, gym, swimming and blogging targets on it and I draw that on a Well Appointed Desk “Rebel Plans” notepad.
Earlier this month I used the wonderful Pelikan Hubs paper to do my daily planning, and it was amazing (cardstock thick and fountain pen friendly). I was running out of it quickly though, which is why I moved to the Kokuyo.
Pelikan Hubs paper pad
In terms of standard pens I’ve used the Pilot Hi-Tech-C in 0.4, my Spoke Design Spoke Pen in orange crush, and a Pilot Juice Up 04 in orange and light blue. As I will be spending a lot of time at hospitals next month, I will likely be using more standard pens then.
Pilot Hi Tec C and Spoke Design Pen
Pencils in use were the Tennessee Red, which is gorgeous and a treat to use, and Leuchtturm1917 Drehgriffel Nr.2 mechanical pencil in red and grey. I have better mechanical pencils that this one, and yet I keep returning to it. Something about the Drehgriffel design is simply appealing to me. You can read my review of it here.
Next month will likely see more use of standard pens and pocket or cheap fountain pens. I will be in the hospital a lot, so that means that my setup will change to reflect that.
Here are the fountain pens I filled for February:
Schon Design Pocket 6 pens.Kaweco Sports.
The new and challenging setting will mean that I’ll likely go back to my trusty Moleskine hardcover and Ti Arto for the duration of my dad’s stay in hospital.
What stationery products have you been using in January?
Moleskine came out with a “Bullet Notebook” obviously geared for Bullet Journalling (BuJo) relatively recently. The BuJo started out on a squared large Moleksine notebook (surprise, surprise), and only later Ryder Carroll moved to Leuchtturm as his notebook supplier of choice. What surprised me was that Moleskine actually cared enough about BuJo to come out with a new offering, when they aren’t known for rushing out with new notebook formats very often.
The coral pink cover.
The bullet notebook is part of Moleskine’s is part of their Art lineup, which usually has better paper than their usual lineup, as it’s used for sketching or watercolours. The choice is a bit peculiar, but it speaks to where Moleskine appears to think that BuJo fits: not in their business lineup, but within the artists’ and creatives’ one.
It comes in three cover options: black, coral pink, and aquamarine. That is also a peculiar choice for them, as normally products in the Art lineup come in any colour you want so long as it’s black. The bullet notebook comes with 120 gsm ivory coloured paper and is supposedly fountain pen friendly. Note the supposedly in that sentence, we’ll get to that later on. It is noticeably thicker and heavier than their standard large hardcover notebooks, and it comes with two bookmarks in different colours – in the case of the coral pink one is pink and one is grey. Fetching.
Now we come to where this notebook really becomes interesting, the interior. The first page of “Personal Data” is taken directly out of Moleskine’s planners. There’s a bit of fluff at the end that I don’t think comes standard with their planners, but I still recommend not filling this page, ever. Especially not the passport details, driver’s license and any other thing that can be used to ID you should you lose or misplace this notebook.
Personal data. I’ve used this notebook for over two months, and this page remains purposefully pristine.
The next spread is the very cool Moleskine world map, the same one that you can find in many of their planners and other travel related products.
I love maps, and I love this map.
The next set of pages is where the bullet notebook starts to get interesting. It’s an index, with the first entry already printed inside: Pen Test on page 149. This is classic BuJo, and Moleskine delivers. There are five index pages, which should be enough for practically anyone’s needs.
The index
Inside there are 148 pages of ivory coloured 120 gsm dot grid paper. That’s less than there is in a regular Moleskine, but the paper is significantly thicker, and already the notebook is thicker and heavier than their standard notebook. They put the maximum number of sheets they could without making the notebook too bulky. The pages lay flat, and Moleksine’s binding and covers are built for endurance. The pages are numbered, which is also something that Moleskine doesn’t normally do, but fits well with the Bullet Journalling Method.
The paper inside.
There is space in the back for pen tests, so I immediately used it to test a slew of fountain pens. Moleskine claims that the bullet notebook is fountain pen friendly. It is not. There’s spread, there’s bleed-through, show through and sometimes spidering. This isn’t a fountain pen friendly paper on any count.
Pen test page.
The back pocket has something new and interesting going on. Moleskine stuck folded piece of paper on the back pocket and on the outside it looks like regular dot grid paper:
Back pocket and closed fold-out.
But when you fold it out there’s a key page inside. Very elegant and clever.
My key page.
I like that Moleskine are experimenting with new formats. I don’t like that they advertise this paper as fountain pen friendly when it clearly isn’t. The bullet notebook comes with a sheet of stickers that I didn’t bother photographing because it just looks like a sheet of solid pink, but it’s actually made of small stickers in various geometric shapes.
If you are looking to get into BuJo but enjoy working with mixed media or fountain pens, then look elsewhere. In terms of cost the Moleskine Bullet Notebook is about the same price as the official Leuchtturm one, and you get a better deal buying that if only for the official booklet. If you are looking for a more minimalist setup that what the official Bullet Journal offers and you aren’t planning on using fountain pens, than this is a decent offering, especially as it comes with more cheerful cover options. It is un-opinionated enough to be useful even to those who have never heard of BuJo in their lives. Do I see myself buying another one of these in the future? No. I am struggling to finish using the one that I have now (because I’m not a fan of dot grid). But I am glad that Moleskine is willing to give new notebook formats and paper types a try. If this notebook had this exact paper but in plain white or squared white, I would have bought a stack of them.
In the early 2010s Filofax was all the rage (much like Plotter is now), and I was swept with the trend. I started by purchasing the Personal Urban, then quickly expanded to Pocket, Personal and A5 Filofaxes of various kinds (Urban, Malden, Classic, Cuban, Graphic, Bond, Finchley and more).
A5 Malden, one of my more well used Filofaxes
What drew me (and others) to them is the infinite customizability and the fact that these were gorgeous, well-made objects made by a brand with a history and good track record. Online communities that shared photos of spreads and setups started to grow around the brand, and unlike Moleskine and Moleskinerie, the company left them to their own devices. Some of them exist to this day (like the delightful Philofaxy). The parallels with today’s boju and Plotter communities are pretty clear.
I invested in this Filofax, creating hand made labels for the tabs, setting it up just right.
The promise of bujo (bullet journalling) and the Plotter are also the promise of the Filofax: build a planner/notebook hybrid system that matches your exact needs like a glove. Filofaxes are a joy to hold in your hand: they are beautiful, tactile objects that feel good and are exquisitely well made.
Look how pretty this red Personal Malden is. You can almost feel the buttery leather through the screen.
They weren’t cheap, but if you waited patiently or were willing to buy second hand you could get some really great deals, and they lasted forever. The refills, much like Plotter ones, were the real expense. Yes, you could buy a specialized hole punch for them and create your own refills, but most people just bought them from Filofax themselves or from Filofax compatible sellers. Which refills you bought depended mostly on the purpose of the Filofax in question, and I had ones that had no planner inserts at all, only lined or blank refills and tabs.
Personal Cuban, which has a rich leather cover that I was so afraid to muss it never left the house.
The olive Personal Urban Filofax below was my first Filofax and my workhorse. I used it heavily from 2011-2013, and it was a heady nostalgia ride to dust it off and open it up again. It is very well made – fabric, pleather and ring mechanism are in perfect condition even after intense use and then years of storage. It is also a relic of a person that I lost when I went through cancer treatments, and I confess that reading over some pages made me want to cry. The things I worried about…
Personal Urban Filofax, my first and most used one.
Do you want to see how much I was into Filofaxes? I even had a page in my Filofax where I planned my Filofax usage:
So much cringe, but I choose to be kind to my old, naive self.
Some of the Filofax inserts were fountain pen friendly, but I didn’t use fountain pens with my Filofaxes at all. I used Pilot Hi-Tech-C Coleto multipens with them, and I spent a good amount of money on their refills (which would either get air bubbles and stop writing, break, or just simply run out much too quickly). I even combined my love for Filofax with my love for the Chronodex system for a while:
Pages in my Filofax that I planned to use for Chronodex entries.
So why did I stop using my Filofaxes completely? The system was well made, full of promise, and could double as a notebook and triple as a wallet, so what went wrong?
It was a combination of things that made me put all my Filofaxes into boxes for storage:
The stores in London closed down (first the Neal street one, then the one off Regent street), and it became harder to find Filofax refills in stationery shops in London (they never were available locally).
The refills weren’t cheap, and with the price of shipping added and the price of using the pens that worked best with them, it just became prohibitively expensive to use the system, particularly if you had more than one Filofax running.
The rings get in the way of writing. It’s a thing with all these systems, and whoever tells you that the rings don’t get in the way isn’t being candid. And no, you won’t be taking the refills out to write on them and then filing them back in, it’s just too inconvenient.
Filofaxes are bulky and heavy, particularly when full (and they collapse when they aren’t filled). It’s a hassle to carry them around, even if you are using them as a wallet (they a aren’t great at being wallets).
As with other planning systems – finding refills that have the week start on Sunday (because that’s when it starts here) was nearly impossible.
Hints of posts to come.
So why get into ring based systems like Filofax and Plotter? If you want one physical planner system that will function in more than one way at the same time, will allow you to customize it fully to your needs, and can be carried over from one year to the next, then these systems may be worth a try for you. I used my Filofaxes heavily during a very busy time in my life because I was able to set them up for all my needs, and particularly GTD (I’ll post about that system later on in this series).If you can work around the rings and can afford the system and the refills, the Filofax is a very well made object that may be able to help you fulfill your goals. It helped me apartment hunt, work on my degree, kickstart my running, and be a better manager at a busy and difficult time at work. I will forever have a soft spot for my Filofaxes, which is why I’ve never attempted to sell them.
Do I regret my Filofax obsession? No. Do I regret that I stopped using my Filofax planners? Also no. They were exactly what I needed at the time until they weren’t, and I believe that in the end a planning system needs to work for you, and not you for it. Something to remember whenever you are considering making a change in this area.
This post has been languishing in my drafts since mid September 2022. The photos were taken using my old iPhone 11, and the lighting came out very yellow and vintage-y. I was considering photographing everything again, but then I decided that this somehow works with this Moleskine’s theme.
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a Moleskine, but I’ve decided to get back to regular Moleskine reviews since I’ve got so many of them, and I still think that they are masters of design, and make the best quality covers and bindings than anything else in the notebook market. And 90% of Moleskine’s limited editions are their covers.
Back in the heady days of 2015, Moleskine came out with one of their best collaborative limited editions: The Moleskine Blue Note notebooks.
Front Cover
Blue Note are a jazz icon, a record label established in 1939 and instrumental in the development of modern jazz and in album cover graphic design. This collaboration could not be more tailor made for a brand that emphasized graphic design as much as Moleksine do. The front cover looks like a Blue Note album cover, because it is a Blue Note album cover: midnight blue by Kenny Burrell. It’s a classic Blue Note album with a classic Blue Note design, and it’s no wonder that this is one of the albums that was chosen for this collaboration. The other albums in this series (Art Blakey’s “A Night in Tunisia”, Freddie Hubbard’s “Hub Tones”, Dexter Gordon’s “Go!” and Thelonius Monk’s “Genius of Modern Music Volume 2”) are equally iconic in both sound and album design, although “Midnight Blue” is the most muted of the bunch. As usual in Moleskine limited editions, there were two large notebooks and two pocket notebook designs in this series. I can’t help wishing for more of these, because I think that it’s such a perfect fit between the brands, and because Blue Note album covers are so fantastically well designed.
The inside cover design is the same for all the notebooks in this edition (again, this is something that Moleskine does for all its limited editions), and they feature photos of many of the legendary artists that recorded Blue Note albums (how many do you recognize?). There’s also a note about the album and the famous Blue Note logo on the bottom right side of the page, and Moleskine’s on the left. I’ll note here that Moleskine gave Blue Note’s logo far more prominence on the cover than what it gives its own logo (which is simply debossed on the back).
On the back endpapers there’s a history of the Blue Note label, the famous back pocket, and again Moleksine’s phenomenal printing and assembling capabilities that make the pocket printing completely aligned with the endpaper printing. Pattern matching is hard, and it always surprises me that they get theirs perfect every time.
The sleeves on this edition are excellent. Moleskine in Jazz indeed:
There are four stickers that come with each of the notebooks in this edition, one for each one of the albums in it, and they are perfect. The look exactly like a Blue Note disc, and the details on them are magnificent. Someone really enjoyed their job here, and it tells.
Almost all of Moleskine’s limited editions feature lined paper, but the Blue Note edition was a welcome change: this notebook has blank paper! I’ve been using it, in combination with another notebook, for journalling, and it’s great! As is the case with Moleskine paper, it’s largely for gel ink, ballpoint, pencil and fineliner use, although some combinations of fine nibbed fountain pens and inks work on this paper, and blank paper tends to be the most fountain pen friendly of the bunch.
Doodle that I made in this notebook in September, when I was still struggling to get rid of steroid side effects.
If I could have any say in the matter, I would have loved to see more Moleskine and Blue Note collaborations, and I would have loved to see more blank paper limited edition notebooks. Most Moleskine users still prefer lined paper, which is why almost all of their limited editions have lined paper. But as Moleskine limited editions lately seem to skew to either book themed (Petit Price, Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings, Alice in Wonderland), pop-culture themed (Star Wars, various Manga and video game editions, Coke-Cola, Smiley) or designer based, I doubt that we’ll get to see more of these kinds of collaborations.
It was obvious that I’d discuss daily planners after I addressed weekly planners, right?
This format, in combination with some of the planning tactics that I’ll talk about in later posts, has been the one that I used the most over the years. Daily planners usually have a page per day, oftentimes with hourly notations on the side. Less commonly they have a page for planning and across from it a page for notes. Sometimes the page is divided into sections for various meeting notes, todos, etc. Daily planners tend to be the thickest of planners, unless they split the year somehow, or only cover part of it (academic year planners, for example).
This is a very old Filofax daily planner example that I had laying around. I’ll be posting separately about the Filofax system
I’ve used the daily format the most because it allows for the most room to think and plan in, and the main reason I plan on paper is for the space it allows me to sit with a pen in hand and a blank (lined/squared) page and plan the direction, location and movement of my tasks like a general ordering troops around in the army. Push this one until tomorrow or early next week, this one gets a little marker for lower priority, and this one for higher, etc. The marking methods that I use have changed a bit over the years, but the format that I prefer largely hasn’t. I can oftentimes plan two days on a page, but it makes things feel cramped. I’m giving that format a try now (two days per page), and I’m likely going to revert back to my beloved page per day format soon. Ideas need space to breath, and when tasks get cramped I tend to miss a few of them. They just run on into each other in a condensed wall of text.
Like with weekly planners, daily planners have obvious inherent downsides. They’re thick and heavy. Unless you’re making them yourself (which is what I’ve been doing for years), you’ll be made to feel bad with every day you skip in them. They also don’t allow to easily see the bigger picture: having all the space that the weekly planners lack, they pay for that with the inability of letting you get a feel for your week in a glance. You remain mired in the day to day, and need to purposefully remember to look ahead to see what’s coming tomorrow, the day after, next week.
This is the reason that for years I’ve kept two notebooks that I turned into planners, a daily one (which was much more heavily used) and a weekly one (which I referenced once or twice a week). This combination worked the best for me until I got sick and it crumbled. Perhaps it will work for me again.
I had a busy day, so it was a very quick sketch this time, of a brown toy poodle sitting on her owner’s lap on the bus. She was quite the attraction, and reminded me of my old dog in the pure joy she took from everything around her.
Drawn on an A5 Midori MD Cotton notebook with a Diplomat Aero fine nibbed pen filled with Colorverse Golden Record. This ink has a tendency to dry out in pens, and it becomes darker in the pen after a day or two.
Today’s sketch was also done with a fine nibbed Karas Kustoms Velys Ignem Vertex and Kyo No Oto Sakuranezumi ink on a Midori MD Cotton A4 notebook. It’s a very quick sketch, done in less than 10 minutes, and I later on made the mistake of applying a wash on the sand, and pretty much ruined that part of the sketch.
View of the sea from next to the Tel Aviv Marina
Here are the two sketches together on a complete page (before I destroyed the bottom one).
In my sizeable collection of notebooks and sketchbooks I have maybe one or two handmade ones. I tend to not buy handmade notebooks because the paper quality is oftentimes sacrificed in favour of cool covers or bindings. However, when I saw the Peekaboo Pride notebook on Pencil Revolution’s Etsy store, I couldn’t help but give it a try. The binding looked amazing, and I trust Johnny Gamber when he says that the paper inside is good.
I love this cover band. It made me smile.
The notebook is small, 10cm x 12.5cm, and beautifully made. Every little detail is well designed, starting from the band that the notebook came wrapped in. You see the care and character in every part of this little notebook, which is precisely why you’d want to buy a handmade notebook in the first place.
Back of the band.
The cover is made of “Kraft-Tex” which is a textured, durable, flexible, card-stock like paper. It’s ripe for customisation if you enjoy customising your notebooks.
The cover.
The spine is where the notebook really shines, and it’s what gives the notebook it’s “peekaboo” name. The notebook is made of six signatures the colour of the pride flag, and the cutouts in the spine allows you to see their colours. The threads used for binding are also pride coloured, and the result is stunning:
Peekaboo spine with pride signatures and threads showing.
The cover of the first signature has a Pencil Evolution stamp embossed on it. That, together with a label inside the inside of the back cover is the only branding on the notebook. Very subtle and tasteful.
Pencil Revolution stamp.
I just love the back label. There’s such pride of craftsmanship here:
Back label.
Here’s a look at the colourful signatures from inside. Everything about this little notebook is perfect, and makes me smile:
Pride colours on show.
And inside each signature you get glimpses of the multicoloured thread used to bind this notebook.
You can see the thread change colour on the top.
I was worried that the paper wouldn’t be fountain pen friendly, but I had nothing to worry about. The Neenah’s Astrobrights paper is very fountain pen friendly, despite not being coated paper. That means that inks dry quickly on the page, and it means that you can use this little notebook for pen and ink wash sketches.
Testing various inks and pens.
There’s no bleed through, even with the Sailor Fude nibs that lay down a lot of ink, and there’s very little show through.
Very well behaved paper.
The paper was so well behaved that I decided to see how well it would take to an ink and wash sketch. Here’s the basic sketch, done with a Staedtler 0.1 pigment liner.
Initial sketch.
Then I laid down ink washes, and the paper behaved beautifully. It didn’t deteriorate, the colours popped on it, and it was fun to use.
Sketch of the Tel Aviv beach on the paper.
Here’s the other side of the paper. It’s amazing that there’s no bleed through and very little show through. This paper behaves better than my Stillman and Birn Alpha with ink washes.
Back side of the sketch.
The Peekaboo Pride notebook is phenomenally well made, with excellent paper, and it’s just a joy to use. I’m close to finishing my pocket Stillman and Birn Alpha, and this little notebook will be the next sketchbook in line to replace it. I won’t be using it for watercolour (no paper this thin has a chance of handling watercolour washes), but it’s great for pen and ink sketches, and for ink washes.
Writing at Large 