A post by Stuart at Nero’s Notes got me thinking about notebook routines. Not just which notebooks are used, but habits of how and when you use them. Stuart talks about his daily journaling routine: each morning, he gets up early, meditates, then writes in his Hobonichi Techo. I love the idea of this kind … Continue reading Notebook Routines
I probably don’t need to tell you this, but I LOVE notebooks. I am always attracted to all sorts of notebooks. I can’t pass an office supply store without taking a look, even if I’m pretty sure the selection won’t be that interesting. Even the back to school pallets of cheap-o spiral notebooks at Staples … Continue reading Notebook Discontents and Regrets
Here’s the latest update on my daily carry notebooks, or at least frequently used notebooks. The COVID-19 pandemic means I’m not necessarily going somewhere everyday, other than for a walk around my neighborhood, so I’m not actually “carrying” my notebooks much. My most frequently used notebooks are: The 2021 Nolty Efficiency Notebook Gold, where I … Continue reading Notebooks I’m Using Now: February 2021
What if someone found your secret notebooks from childhood, almost 40 years after you’d last written in them? It could happen: a 9 year old girl hid these notebooks in a crawl space in her home in 1983. They were forgotten and her family moved away. Decades later, contractors working on the home gave them … Continue reading Secret Notebooks from 1983
Saturn and Jupiter aren’t the only things intersecting in unusual ways this year. For me, I’m having a notebook conjunction, where my 4 daily use notebooks are all ending almost at the same time! First off, two of them are 2020 Nolty planners, so it’s not unexpected that I’d finish using both of those at … Continue reading The December 2020 Conjunction
For years, I’ve wanted to find an example of the original “carnets moleskine” that existed for many decades before the capital-M Moleskine brand was founded. It’s difficult to research online, as the capital-M notebooks dominate the results if you try to search any related terms. I wrote about it in a blog post a few … Continue reading 1898 Agenda Notebook
A recent piece on the Elle magazine website compiles the thoughts of 4 women on how keeping a diary has affected their lives and their writing. Unfortunately there were no photos of any of their diaries, but below are a few excerpts from the article: Dolly Alderton: Now I record everything, from dialogue I overhear … Continue reading Four Authors on Keeping a Diary
Sometimes people find their way to my website by searching for a bygone notebook brand that has left few other traces online. Often they are looking to replace a long discontinued notebook, and I’m sorry not to be able to help. But sometimes I actually can provide answers! I recently received a message from someone … Continue reading A Great-Grandfather’s 1953 Marquette Diary
I was very pleased to get my shipment of 2021 Nolty diaries straight from Japan in mid-September. Ordering directly from JMAM worked great! Because I was buying multiple notebooks, the shipping costs worked out well, but if I’d only ordered one or two notebooks, I might have been better off paying Kinokuniya’s higher retail prices … Continue reading 2021 Nolty Diaries Arrived!
I’ve previously featured Jordan Mechner’s Sketchbooks on this site, and more recently, I spotted an article he wrote on Medium about his habit of keeping a journal: I’m a journal-keeper. With over a hundred notebooks filled since 1982, it’s become part of who I am. I couldn’t have expected or anticipated all the ways my … Continue reading Jordan Mechner on Journaling