I bought a set of Moleskine Volant notebooks recently. I had ordered something else from Amazon and needed to tack something on to get that free shipping, so I figured what the heck! But now I’m not sure what to do with them!
They’re nice notebooks– much more substantial than the Cahiers: sturdier, smoother cover and a proper spine, even if they’re lacking a pocket in the back. The colored ones are rather attractive, but as usual, I just went for black. They remind me of a passport or an old bank book. I wonder how the cover will stand up to use, given there’s no elastic– until they’re broken in, I think opening the cover and folding it flat will leave it sticking up open afterwards.
But back to the usage dilemma. I’m currently using two Moleskines and a HandBook sketchbook:
- one softcover squared Moleskine for daily jottings, lists, etc.
- a regular unlined Moleskine as a journal
- HandBook sketchbook for drawings
I previously was using a Moleskine sketchbook as the journal, but I decided it was a waste of the thicker paper so I moved to the regular plain paper. Once I’m done with the softcover Moleskine, which should be soon, I will just use the one plain hardcover notebook for all the lists and notes, in addition to the journal entries. I feel a little weird about mixing the two types of uses, but we’ll see how it goes. I do kind of like the idea of having one notebook that captures absolutely everything that is going on in my life other than the drawings.
Given all this, I’m thinking I could use the Volants for narrower topics. Perhaps one could capture all my notes relating to my job, which I don’t really need to mix with personal stuff. Another use might be to dedicate one to my French lessons, for jotting down vocabulary. I also had an idea about binding the Volants together to make some sort of multi-section Moleskine, but that seems like a waste– I’d rather use Cahiers for that.
Anyone else out there using Volants? How do you like them compared to the Cahiers?
I’d really like to use them instead of the cahiers, because they don’t have those rip-out pages in the back.
It’s just hthat they don’t come with squared paper.
I had a voucher for John Lewis & decided to buy two of these little books, just to try them out. I’m using them as personalised dictionaries for the languages I’m learning. In other words, they are my vocabulary books. :p I have so many notebooks myself and I thought this was a good way of using yet another one!