Tag: journal

My 2018 Journals

I managed to journal almost every day in 2018, a tremendous personal achievement considering the chaos that was the latter part of the year for me. I use Moleksine large lined limited edition notebooks for my journals and Ti Arto/Ti Arto EDC/Ti Pocket Pro with Uni-ball Signo 0.5mm refills (UMR-85).

The four notebooks I filled in 2018. I filled five notebooks in 2017.

Why do I use Moleskines when I have better quality notebooks (Rhodia, Tomoe River Paper notebooks, Leuchtterm, Baron Fig)? Because they’re notebooks that I want to use. I love their limited edition notebook designs. I used to use Baron Fig notebooks for my journals but I like the Moleskine format better and since I switched to journaling with gel ink pens instead of fountain pens, Rhodia and Tomoe River Paper notebooks are pointless. Moleskine notebooks were easier to obtain than Leuchtterm notebooks, and Baron Figs were slightly bigger, bulkier and with thicker paper, that I no longer needed.

The point is, garbage paper or not, Moleskine’s make me happy every time I open them, so that’s why I use them.

 

First two notebooks of 2018. I was journaling a lot more then, so each one contains two months of notes, bits and pieces that I glue in, plans and doodles.

Why don’t I use my fountain pens for journaling? I used to, during the first two months of journaling, and then I switched them out for my beloved UMR-85 and BIGiDESIGN Ti pens. I love my fountain pens, but they are not the best EDC pens, to say the least. A lot of them are expensive, most of them are vintage, and so unlike the Ti pens which I just toss into my bag or carry in my pocket, I baby them. I don’t want them to get damaged, I worry about them leaking after I carry them around in my bag (my consistently ink stained fingers attest to how often that has happened). I can’t use ballpoints (I hate them and they cause me severe RSI flareups), rollerballs like the Retro51 are almost as bad as fountain pens when it comes to leaking and being finicky about paper, so gel pens it is. The Uni-ball UMR-85 is an excellent gel refill, and the Ti pens are fantastic and can take everything you can throw at them, so I that’s what I use.

Last two notebooks of 2018. I managed to lose the Star Wars one on a plane, but I got it back, so I finished the year in it. 

I’ll make a post about my new journal for 2019 and how I start a new journal probably later this week. My posting schedule is a bit erratic lately, but I’m dealing with serious family health problems these past few months and so this blog has suffered somewhat, I’m afraid.

P.S. Say what you will about Moleskines, these notebooks can take a beating, I’ve carried and used these daily for eight months (four months each), and they are bulging and a tiny bit battered at the very edges, but otherwise like brand new.

This Year’s Field Notes

This year’s filled up Field Notes notebooks all piled up:

And spread out:

I use them mostly for to do lists, quick capture and tracking of various short term goals. The Signature Sketchbook is full of doodles, inktober drawings and rough sketches. My favourite by far has been “Dime Novel”. My least favourite has been surprisingly “Costal”. The cover and design are gorgeous but the reticle grid is just too dark to make it enjoyable to use.

My Reading Journal, or How I Taught Myself To Enjoy Reading Again

Ironically enough, by the time I finished with my MA in English Literature a few years ago I had “lost” the habit of reading. From someone who used to read at every available (and not so available) moment I had turned into a non-reader almost entirely. This bothered me so I set up to rectify it by “gamifying” reading until I had tricked myself back into the habit again.

Field Notes had just come out with their Arts and Sciences, the perfect format for my plans. The idea wasn’t only to create a journal where I would log my thoughts on each book as I read it, but create a little set of “achievements” that I could unlock for each book as I read it. For each quarter of the book I read, I got an achievement, a little logo that symbolized the book which I drew on a separate page. The accumulation of those silly little symbols was enough to push me forward as I learned to enjoy reading again. I kept that up for three Field Notes Arts books and then when I ran out of them, I simplified the format and moved to the Moleskine Two-Go, which had just come out. The Field Notes Arts notebook wasn’t fountain pen friendly so I used a Karas Kustoms Render K, a Blackwing pencil and the Caran d’Ache Bicolor 999 double sided coloured pencil.

On the first year that I tried using this system (from March 2016) I got from not reading any new books (just my old familiar favourites) to reading almost 20 new books. On the second year (2017) I got up to 42 books. This year to date I’m at 58 books, and I’ll probably read 60-61 books by the end of the year. I no longer need to spend time drawing little “achievement badges” as my reading habit is back here to stay. I do, however, still keep a book journal even though I’ve started using Goodreads since 2017. It’s a satisfying way to keep track of my reading and organize my thoughts on the books that I’ve read.

You can check out the format of the entries for fiction and non-fiction below. The unlined left side of the spread (verso) is where I do a little doodle that reminds me of something central in the book, and explain the star rating that I gave the book in each category. I really recommend that if you choose to create your own analog reading journal, you create your format yourself. Mine has changed over time, particularly for non-fiction, and it works with my reading goals for the year.

This is the index, which is useful for reference later on and is a good way to check my reading progress throughout the year.

“Triggers” Daily Questions and a Moleskine Pocket Peter Pan Limited Edition review: All Children, Except One, Grow Up.

Ever since I’ve read the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith about six months ago I’ve been searching for ways to track the progress of my Daily Questions (“Did I do my best to…”). I tried using my journal for several months, then used a Google Sheet for two months, and in both cases something was missing. The Google Sheet was great for statistics and tracking, but not as satisfying and meaningful as writing my daily scores down (and I didn’t really find the statistics useful). The journal was much better, but as my goals changed it was time consuming to create a new table each time, and I needed a way to for me to justify my daily scores.

Enter tracking system number three: a Moleskine pocket Peter Pan limited edition notebook and an index card. Let’s start with the notebook:

The Peter Pan Moleskine limited editions showcase some of Moleskine’s best design work in recent years. Both the colourful covers, the drawing and the lettering evoke the spirit of Peter Pan without resorting to Disney-esque tropes. They’re naive without being childish, colourful without being brash, and the quotes on the covers are brilliantly selected.

Inside the covers are more illustrations in the same vein and even the famous “In case of loss” is set in a hand lettering like font. The palate of the entire Peter Pan line is limited (navy, orangey-yellow, green and white) but it never feels that way.

The back cover. Again, extra points for aligning the design so well with the back pocket. It almost seems like they’re flying into it:

This edition comes with stickers that are a lot of fun and well drawn in a naive style:

And the B-Side of the sleeve instructs you on how to build paper planes and also uses quotes from the books or that reference the book:

So that’s the review of the notebook itself. I highly recommend all of the Moleskine Peter Pan notebooks — they rank alongside the Denim and some of the Harry Potter limited edition notebooks as my favourites of recent years. I didn’t buy it specifically to try to use it as a Triggers Daily Questions tracker, but it was languishing in my “to use” pile and a used notebook is better than an unused notebook, so I decided to give it a spin.

The idea of writing down my Daily Questions each time was what made me stop using my journal for this purpose in the first place, so I decided to write them down once on an index card (which I would slip in the notebook’s back pocket), and then number each question, and date the card. Every day I would write down a score for each daily question, and a very short justification for the score. The justification is short to make it easy to write them down (if it’s a hassle I’ll have a hard time sticking with it), and that’s why I chose the pocket notebook (it’s also light and easy to carry around). When I feel like I need to change the questions up, I’ll create a new index card, put an end date on the old index card and archive it in the notebook’s back pocket. Every day will be dated in the notebook, and I use the appropriate index card if I really want to reference that particular day in the future. This may seem a little clunky for reference purposes, but as I learned over time, I don’t really go back to reference my past answers, so that’s not a meaningful setback.

I’ll check in a few months and document how it goes, but judging by my previous experience, this looks like a pretty good setup for now.

Moleskine James Bond Carbon Limited Edition

Dun da da da dun, dun dun dun, dun da da da dun, dun dun dun, DA DA, dun dun dun!

It’s the Moleskine James Bond Carbon Limited Edition and it is charming, it is sophisticated, it is elegant, it is everything you know James Bond has to be.

The cover has a carbon fibre like pattern and texture to it, and this time it’s all over the cover.

Moleksine went all in on the understated look this time, and just embossed the 007 logo on the cover, instead of gold foiling it. It’s the right choice in my opinion, and works well with their own embossed logo on the back.

So much texture…

The Moleskine logo isn’t as deeply embossed as the 007, which makes it half disappear in the texture of the cover, another good design choice on their part.

The endpapers, sleeve and stickers are exactly the same as the Moleskine James Bond Titles Limited Edition, but they’re slick, so I’ll photograph them anyway.

Front endpaper with the world map which I love so much:

Back endpaper with the titles design, another win, and yes, the back pocket print is aligned with the back cover print, so extra brownie points for that Moleskine:

The stickers:

And the B-side of the sleeve:

The only flaw in this edition seems to be in the spine, which creased because of the texture of the Carbon design. It’s far from a deal breaker and I would normally not even mention it, but there is a possibility that it may break there over use. Only time will tell if it’s just a slight aesthetic thing, or if it’s a real design flaw.

So, should you buy this notebook? Yes, even if you aren’t a die hard James Bond fan. There’s no notebook I know of that managed to pull of such a cool texture without making it feel super cheap and plastic-y. It’s a notebook that you can carry at work and will look completely professional, and also one that will be fun to use as a personal journal, a travel journal, a project notebook, or on your next secret mission to outer space.

Quick Update

Here’s what’s going on in a nutshell:

  • Back to writing while I figure out what to do with my first novel (beta readers, synopsis, etc).
  • I’ve deleted Tweetbot from my phone again. I’ve really cut down on my social media lately, and it’s time to once again take a step back from Twitter for a while. It just makes me so angry and frustrated lately, to no good end.
  • Listening to Serial season 3 (talk about angry and frustrated), MBMBaM, Do By Friday, Roderick on the Line, Felicitations and the Pen Addict. I’ve really cut down on my technology podcasts for the past few weeks, because there’s only so many times you can hear a bunch of dudes talk about their iPhones or watches.
  • I’ve managed to return to journaling, and my running is back on track. I’m still spending a lot of time in the hospital, on the phone with the hospital or researching health things on the internet for my mom, but I’ve managed to eek some sort of balance into the craziness of it all. Keeping my head above the water at this point, which isn’t bad.
  • Drawing and reading like crazy, instead of watching TV or playing video games, which is a net positive for me.

 

A Glimpse into How I Journal

I like my journals to be filled with little sketches and bits and pieces that I collect here and there (labels, business cards, etc). It brings the entries to life, especially when I read through them later on.

So for instance yesterday I created a 3 minute sketch of a group of ladies enjoying themselves at a local cafe:

And here’s today’s page, about to be filled with notes:

So if you go to lunch somewhere, remember to grab their business card so that you can stick it in your notebook later.