Anyone who’s followed this site for a while will have seen quite a few photos of notebooks stored in various ways: piles in cabinets, piles in drawers, wicker baskets, under-bed boxes, plastic sweater boxes, white cardboard banker’s boxes, moving boxes, and lots and lots of shoeboxes.

Of these storage methods, a couple of favorites stick out. When I used clear plastic sweater boxes, I loved how perfectly they fit my usual pocket size notebooks standing on end– I could stick them in upside down so that I could read the dates I used each notebook, which I always write on the bottom edge. But a full box got rather heavy. I also didn’t have enough of those boxes for all my used notebooks, and I’ve never found a place to buy more.

Shoeboxes have been my go-to storage solution otherwise. They are a good size for pocket notebooks. And I tend to buy way too many shoes, so I have a steady supply! But shoeboxes vary– some are better sized than others. And none allow that standing-up storage method– they only accommodate notebooks in stacks or lined up on their sides. (Some people label their notebooks on the spine, which works well in a shoebox, but I don’t like marking the spines.)

All this got me thinking about what the perfect notebook storage box would look like. It would have to be sized to hold a notebook standing up, so at least 5.5″ tall. I’d want it to hold two rows of notebooks side by side, so at least 3.5 x 2″=7″ wide. As for the length, I thought maybe 15-20 notebooks in each row would be good. I figured a notebook weighs about 5 ounces, which would make each box about 12 pounds when full. That seemed a little heavy, so I ended up settling on a box that was 10 inches long, 7.5 inches wide, and 6 inches tall, which would hold around 32-34 notebooks in standard pocket Moleskine-ish size and weigh around 10 pounds.

Having envisioned the perfect notebook box, the problem was buying one. What I had come up with did not seem to exist anywhere as a standard product. But in searching for custom box makers, I found some companies that offered custom size cardboard shoeboxes. These companies usually serve businesses looking for custom-printed boxes for their products, but for plain cardboard boxes without printing, the costs were pretty reasonable even at lower quantities. I knew I’d want at least 10 boxes, and the prices seemed lower than what I’d pay for other storage box options that weren’t even the right size.

I settled on a custom shoe box from Fantastapack. For a total of $98.31 including shipping, I got 10 boxes. $9.83 per box isn’t super-cheap but I’d rather pay that much for something that is perfectly sized for my needs than pay less for something that isn’t right and gets on my nerves. I am really pleased with how they turned out, so my only regret is not ordering a larger quantity, since that would have reduced the per-unit cost.

They are indeed the perfect size, though maybe I should have just ignored my weight concerns and made them slightly bigger to hold 20 notebooks per row. The boxes ship flat, but are easy to fold into shape. They are sturdy and stack nicely, and look much tidier than all my other shoeboxes. I wrote on each box to identify its contents, though it would be nicer to use labels. The one potential problem, I guess, is that these are not archival, acid-free boxes. If I truly needed to preserve my notebooks for posterity, I suppose I could line the boxes with some kind of acid-free protective paper. But since I’m mainly just trying to keep myself organized for another 40-ish years of life expectancy, I’m not too worried.

The ten boxes I ordered were enough to hold all my filled Moleskines and similar journals and sketchbooks, as well as all my pre-adulthood notebooks, with the exception of some larger sized ones. I also have a few of my stash of spares in one of the new boxes. At some point, I will probably order another 15 or so boxes to hold the rest of my collection. I’ll still have some odd sizes that I’ll have to store elsewhere, but most of my collection will fit nicely into this same box design. Say bye-bye to those shoeboxes!