The virtual world is a disembodied one, and promotes the lie that we do not need our bodies to think. I believe it is no coincidence that researchers keep discovering that use of the body preserves the mind; your risk of developing dementia is lowered with exercise, lowered with keeping and caring for a pet if you live alone, lowered with the richness of in-person social connection which relies on all kinds of bodily cues.

The virtual world can also promote mindlessness in dealing with information. To a large degree, we can collect and move digital information without having to think. I reflexively click a button and the “read-it-later” app that collects digital articles for me instantly copies and saves it. (I go on to read perhaps 10% of the articles I click, generously estimating.) Moving information around digitally can even be automated, making it literally a mindless task.

But analog forces you to THINK, because it forces you to use your body* and use physical materials.

The analog world pulls in the cooperation of the body, and thus, the mind. We think with our whole bodies. Walking is a time-honored aid to thinking; and so is handwriting.

The digital world offers such overwhelming amounts of information that handwriting acts as a curator. Handwriting is slower. Handwriting takes more effort than hitting the hot keys for copy-paste commands. The effort of handwriting creates an automatic editing function.

Is something important enough for you to handwrite it down? Then it is probably important enough to act on.

At the end of each week, I create a handwritten plan for the week – calendar appointments and tasks. (I’ve changed how I do this a little bit, but that link shows the basic practice.)

At the end of each day, I look at my digital work calendar and my digital personal calendar with all their Zoom and Teams invites, and handwrite my appointments for the next day. I also look at my handwritten task list for the weeks, and handwrite the ones I hope to finish the next day.

My task and project lists are handwritten, because it is just too easy for me to get lost in a to-do app which automatically – mindlessly! – populates and replicates and sorts and copies.

No.

I need to do that sorting and copying and revising by hand.

I need to activate my brain to make my real world, real life plans. And this means I need to activate my body, by handwriting my plans down, in physical paper books.

Notes

* I do think the virtual world has a lot to offer people whose bodies don’t allow them to move with ease. For example, being able to write with a dictation app if you cannot use your hands to write, or being able to communicate by using a mouth stick and a tablet.

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Ahhhhhhh…. the most wonderful time of the year at the Analog Office.

Opening up the new planner!

Clearing out the paid bills and statements from the temporal filing system so my folders are empty and ready for the new year!

It’s the office version of sweeping out the old year, welcoming in the new.

May we all have an excellent 2024.

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References

Braithwaite, S.T. (2023) ‘Hogmanay – A Scottish New Year Tradition,’ 31 December. Available at: https://susantbraithwaite.com/2023/12/31/the-magic-of-hogmanay/ (Accessed: 31 December 2023).

Record your processes into lists.

Do this for Future You, when Future You is tired or distracted. It makes a huge difference for your peace of mind.

I used to keep checklists on apps, but realized I didn’t want to turn on a Distraction Machine, I mean, an internet-connected device, every time I wanted to consult a list.

Especially when the point of the list is to keep me focused.

Enter the checklist paper notebook.

This is a notebook I picked up because I liked the feel of the paper, and figured that I would find a use for it.

Also, the cover of this one is screaming yellow. Very easy to spot.

What better for a checklist notebook?

I numbered the pages and set aside some pages for a table of contents and wrote down what I need to do, to keep myself on track.

Remember That Checklists Are Always WIP – Works in Progress

Checklists are records of your processes, and processes change. Recently I changed my job and am updating several checklists for my personal processes.

Keep Checklists Where You Are Actually Using Them

Because I start and end my days at home, I keep these lists in a paper notebook. I have other checklists for work processes, and some are digital.

Set Up Your Checklists to Help Future You, on a Forgetful Day

Your checklists are that friend who says, before you go out the door for a hike, “Hey, you wanna grab the binoculars? We might see a cool bird.”

Your Checklists Are Your Path to Being Peaceful and Unhurried

Let’s make a distinction between being hurried, and being fast.

Checklists make you faster at getting things done, because they help you not to have to re-do something, because you forget a key item.

My natural pace is quite slow, but my checklists ensure that I get things done efficiently and effectively: my checklists are what allow me to live at my own rhythm, my own pace.

But a state of hurry is inevitably a state of mindlessness.

In order to live in an unhurried way, I have to plan ahead, and set physical things up ahead of time, before I do them.

Here is the checklist I follow at the end of the day:

Checklists can bring you a lot of peace.

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“Hey, Anna,

I’m sold on the Wonderland books. Thinking of getting the all in one so I can have a page for each day. 

Could you share how you use the various spreads? I’m a BUJO noob and every time I search for stuff about planners, I just get Pinterest stuff about pastel art pieces pretending to be time management.”

Ryder Carroll, who started the bullet journal thing, did not use artwork in his. So you can always check out bulletjournal.com for his methods. I also like his book.

I agree that it is difficult to look into planners online, and get nuts and bolts information about planning.

Then I remember that internet search is primarily about delivering advertising, and colorful artwork gets more clicks than unadorned checklists.

Maybe this is why the Wonderland222, the most elegantly functional paper planner I know of, has such a splashy, glitzy, blinky website.

It’s as if you dressed Steve Jobs like Dolly Parton. But underneath, the black turtleneck soul is still under all the sequins, right?

I guess it sells their planners? But then are people surprised when they get a planner with this uber-clean engineer-ish design? ¯\ (ツ)/¯

Let’s talk about bare-bones paper notebook planning. No artwork. No quotes. No stickers or washi tape. No gradient color tabs.

Just you and your task lists and your timelines, squinting down steely-eyed at a pricey paper notebook with grids on it.

Lots of grids!

Yeah!

And numbered pages! And quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily layouts! And timelines and trackers! (Did I mention it has grids? ) That’s what I’m talkin’ bout!

Personally, because I’m so distractible, I’m a bare-bones planner: no artwork, no quotes.

I love journaling and sketching and painting, but I can’t do it in my planners or I WILL get sidetracked. (“Did Harriet Tubman really say that? That sentence sounds like it was lifted from a 21st century therapy session. Lemme just look that up…“)

Bare-bones planning for me means two things:

• I can record what I want to do, and by when, in a given time period (the quarter, the month, the week, the day).

• I can glance at the spread and instantly know the status - I know what has been done, what has been delegated, what has been deferred, and what has been ditched.

This leaves us with lists, calendars and timelines, and a code for statuses.

Lists:

• I keep a separate notebook for those long, long task and project lists, and for thinking through projects or packing lists or upcoming events or what have you. My planner is just for tasks and events for which I can assign to a definite time range, or deadline. Not the someday/maybe stuff.

• I review my task and project lists from the other notebook when I make my plans, and move them into the planner as time permits.

Calendars and timelines:

• Planners, in essence, are calendars in notebook form. Some add room to make task lists, and some add a lot more, like pages for contact information, or goals, or inspirational quotes – but basically, a planner is just a portable calendar in notebook form.

• This is why I pay for the Wonderland222 planner, which is similar to the popular Hobonichi planners, except there are no quotes (but more grids!!!). I don’t want to have to draw calendars and timelines. I also 💖 Hobonichi planners, but the W222 ones – for me – are less distracting.

Code for statuses - the real bujo mojo:

• What makes a bullet journal, a bullet journal, as opposed to a regular planner? The “bullets” in the classic bujo are codes for the status of an appointment or task, so you know at a glance whether something is done, delegated, deferred, or ditched.

• I use my amended version of Patrick Rhone’s Dash-Plus system to know at a glance what’s done, what’s delegated, what’s deferred, and what’s ditched.

What I love about the day pages: You get a whole page for a day, and a timeline running down the side.

For work, I use two pages, one I call the “inbox” for tasks and ideas that come up while I’m working, and the other for a time-blocked daily plan which gets revised through the day as Reality collides which what I thought I’d be doing that day.

I stole this pretty much unaltered from Cal Newport’s excellent time block planning method (watch his video on that page to see how he does it) but I like my fountain-pen friendly planner better than his book.

So there you have it:

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Notes

This isn’t a review site, and I don’t get any freebies from Wonderland222. I just really like their planners.

References

Carroll, R. (2018) The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. Illustrated edition. New York, New York: Portfolio.

Cal Newport’s Time Block Planner. Available at: https://www.timeblockplanner.com/ (Accessed: 14 September 2023).

Excellent post on bullet journals from @nofars at which is part of a series on planners. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole series. Writing at Large is a cool site to peruse, analog friends! Includes some great sketches as well.

Some random thoughts in response: like @nofars, I prefer bullet journaling in its earlier, simpler, non-artistic mode, and still use some of that today. That’s what made it do-able for me. I get overwhelmed quickly by too many choices.

re planners with Tomoe River paper, I did a search for that a few years ago, wanting to see if there were alternatives to the Hobonichi planners which I like, but again have a lot of elements that are more than I need.

I’ve found, for me, Wonderland222 planners to be just what I was looking for: fountain pen friendly Tomoe River paper, and a clean-lined, minimalist looking planner that had extremely useful layouts: nicely laid out calendars with time lines, planning pages that allowed for habit and routine tracking, quarterly planning, monthly review and overview pages – just incredibly clean and thoughtful and useful layouts.

Here’s the weird thing: their website is the opposite of their planners.

If I had just looked at the website, which is busy, splashy, colorful, and (to me) confusing, I would have said, “NOPE too much whiz-bang for me.”

I bought my first Wonderland222 through a third party site. It wasn’t until I went to their home site to re-up for the next year that the aesthetic dissonance hit.

Such a visually BUSY website! Behold it here. They have actually toned it down, a LOT. It’s much cleaner and easier to navigate than it used to be.

And such a clean, elegant, useful Tomoe River planner. They have dated, and undated versions, in several useful sizes (A5, A6, B6).

Behold the clean layouts here.

Anyway, I just pre-ordered my 2024 planner and notebook (they have awesome Tomoe River notebooks, undated pages with timelines along the sides) for next year. I get the A5 size, for my big, scrawly handwriting, but you can get smaller sizes as well.

P.S. No conflicts of interest here; this is a personal site, not a review site. These are the planners I buy full-price, as a regular customer, for myself; just sharing what I’ve enjoyed using for the last few years. YMMV, FWIW, all the acronym disclaimers.

I hesitate to even post this.

Feelings are strong. Emotions run high. I’m a peaceable woman. I hate courting controversy.

But we must address this.

Okay, Anna: Deeeeeeeeeeep breath.

Do you go with One Notebook to Rule Them All? Everything goes in there? Or do you have lots of different notebooks, each dedicated to very specific purposes?

When it comes to paper notebooks, are you a Lumper, or a Splitter?

That’s such a Splitter question!

Can’t we all just be one in this? All one people, who all love our paper notebooks?

That’s such a Lumper reply.

Lumpers and Splitters

Lumping and splitting is about people’s tendencies toward categorization.

The terms originally come from the field of biology, and these tendencies been commented on ever since.

Here’s how an esteemed conchologist opens his article about lumpers and splitters, before he gets into thoughtful nuances which we don’t care about, while we’re stirring up online controversy:

“Authors are often characterized as lumpers or splitters. From one perspective, splitters recognize more species than really exist, and lumpers go around fixing the resulting damage. From another perspective, lumpers are indiscriminating bunglers incapable of appreciating the subtleties of nature.” (Rosenberg 1996)

Lumpers like to gather things into larger, fuzzier categories. They focus on the commonalities.

Splitters like to separate things into smaller, more fine-grained categories. They focus on the differences.

Lumping and splitting tendencies show up anywhere that categorization shows up.

Lumping and splitting absolutely shows up with information management.

How many notebooks do you need?

How many journals?

How many planners?

Are you a lumper, or a splitter?

xkcd 2518

“One Paper Notebook to Rule Them All”: Some People are Lumpers

“Lumpers” like to throw everything into as few notebooks as possible: preferably, one.

The bullet journal as described in Ryder Carroll’s book, The Bullet Journal Method, is a classic Lumper notebook.

Everything goes into that one notebook: long-term plans, short-term plans, observations, dates, tasks, habit trackers, lists of books you’ve read or movies you’ve seen, lists of books you haven’t read, but want to read, drawings of lemons… in the classic bullet journal system, anything and everything goes into a single notebook.

You keep track of what’s where in a bullet journal, by using a notebook with numbered pages and keeping an index.

When that ONE notebook is filled, you carry over currently relevant information to a new – single – notebook.

One notebook. For all of it.

If this is making you dab the sweat off your forehead, you – like me – might be a Splitter.

“Whoa, Don’t Write THIS in THAT Notebook – THAT Goes in a DIFFERENT Notebook”: Some People Are Splitters

Some people need to keep a work planner separate from their personal planner, for legal reasons. (Many bullet journal discussions online comb over whether or not one should keep a bullet journal for work, and keep a separate one for home.)

But let’s say you are not legally required to keep work notes separate.

Let’s say you can set up your planning system any way you want.

If you use paper planners, and you have a choice, do you have one for work, and a separate one for your personal life?

Splitter.

What about journaling? How many separate dedicated journaling notebooks do you have?

If you’re stopping right now to count: Splitter. (I have six separate journals, in six separate notebooks, with two “pinch hitter” notebooks.)

Here are my notebooks for planning, and ONLY for planning. (Journals not included, drawing books not included, writing notes not included, errands and shopping lists notebooks not included.)

My notebooks:

• capture notebook - the “inbox” notebook
• time and task notebook, organized around quarterly and weekly plans, as well as individual projects
• classic planner notebook for when I need visuals (it has weeks and months laid out)
• day plan notebooks, one for work, one for personal
• checklists
• index cards - when I leave the house I might take an index card with key notes (appts, phone numbers, errand lists)
• pocket notebooks - for notes on the go, which then (if worthy) get entered into the notebooks above

I. Am a SPLITTER!!

There! I said it! Where the WHOLE INTERNET can hear me! Excuse me for a moment while I dab some more sweat off my forehead… splash a little cool water on my face… Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

It feels so much better to just own who we are, and how we do things, doesn’t it? Liberating.

I am no more able to keep everything in one notebook, than to throw all my forks and knives and spoons higgledy-piggledy into a drawer. For me, the forks go in one slot, the knives in another, and the spoons in still another.

And my daily plans either go into a work notebook, or a personal one. My weekly plans live in a separate notebook, and sometimes I have to think them out with a classic calendar.

Is having one notebook for everything minimalist, or better somehow? I always envied people who could keep their minds straight with just one notebook. But it’s not better if it overwhelms you.

I personally cannot think with one notebook. It all gets jumbled together in my mind. Notebooks to me are like utensil slots: one for this, one for that.

And notebooks are here to help you think. That is what they live for.

If you can think with one notebook at a time, that’s great!

If you think better with multiple notebooks with defined missions, that’s great, too!

The point is to be able to think.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to set up my day plan. In the dedicated Work Day Plan notebook.

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REFERENCES

Whence Lumpers and Splitters? | National Center for Science Education (2 December 2014). Available at: https://ncse.ngo/whence-lumpers-and-splitters (Accessed: 19 June 2023).

Rosenberg, G. ‘Lumping and splitting’ (1996) coa. Available at: https://conchologistsofamerica.org/lumping-and-splitting/ (Accessed: 19 June 2023).

Carroll, R. (2018) The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. Illustrated edition. New York, New York: Portfolio.

Lumpers and Splitters (no date) xkcd. Available at: https://xkcd.com/2518/ (Accessed: 19 June 2023).

Most excellent: a reader question today!

“Hello Anna.

I love your blog. I am a computer engineer all into minimalist plain-text productivity methods and applications and I found your tips and tricks fascinating; the perfect couple for my digital organization.

The question: Do you have a method or any kind of resource ready-to-print in order to plan one or two weeks in advance?

Me and my wife want to sit down on Sunday afternoons and plan the coming week and take a peek at the following one (just in case something important is due on Monday and realizing the previous Sunday is not enough). I want to gather all the information contained in my calendar, my TODO list and the recurring tasks (grocery, etc.) and write the week on paper. Do you do something like that?”

This question came just as I was finishing my plans for my own week ahead. Perfect timing!

And yes! I do exactly this.

Although my calendar and some of my lists are digital, I use paper to plan out my week; and I look at two weeks at a time. This way, I’m prepared if something important is happening in the following week.

You make these excellent points about weekly planning:

• You and your wife want to sit down each week, at the end of the week, and work together to look ahead. This is a great practice for any couple, to sit down and touch base with each other before you dive into the next week’s adventures.
• You plan to do this at the end of the current week, BEFORE the next week starts. If we think of this in terms of Monday - Friday workweeks, this is the principle of planning out your week on Friday afternoons; so that when Monday morning comes, you know what you are doing, when, and why. (Mondays are much less stressful that way.) You’ve made the important decisions about the week already, and you can start your week strong by acting on them. Sundays work too, especially for planning with your family.
• You’re pulling information from your calendar, your task list, and recurring tasks to organize your thoughts about the week ahead. It takes all three: time, tasks, and routines.

You want to see the whole week mapped out, time and tasks, and you want to be prepared for something important coming up in the week after.

One week at a time; and yet prepared for the week that follows.

So how might we get all that on paper?

The Big Picture (TL;DR)

When you sit down to plan your week, look out at the next two weeks.

As you write down your plan for the first week, make a space to write down some thoughts about the week after that.

Then, if you see something that you want to be reminded of, make a note to yourself about it in your current weekly plan (e.g. “Conference starts next Monday”)

All the Deets…

Week 1, Week 2: Map Out Your Time and Tasks for This Coming Week, Make Notes for the Week After That

I use a two-page spread that’s a dashboard for the week (Week 1), with a datebook section on the left page of my notebook, and a task list on the right page of my notebook.

In order to get to that dashboard, I give myself places to write down thoughts during the week, for the week to come (Week 2) by making an inbox, and a section for planning notes (any thoughts I have about the puzzle pieces of the upcoming week).

So, it’s four sections: an inbox section, a planning notes section, a datebook section, and a task list section.

Here’s the key: my datebook and task list are for THIS week (or, Week 1). My inbox and planning notes section are for the NEXT week after that (Week 2). I use all of these sections when I plan, but the inbox especially is like a running list for Week 2, the week after the one I’m making the datebook and task list for.

As I write this, it’s the week of June 5.

Below are two pages from my notebook where I’m already doing some pre-planning for the week of June 12. Nothing complicated; just writing down some thoughts as they occur to me.

You might also notice some symbols, triangles and lines; you can read about that system here.

Inbox on the left, planning notes on the right:

To illustrate this post, since I’ve got top secret private stuff in my current week, I wrote up a dashboard for the week of June 12. (But as I write this, I’m actually using my dashboard (datebook + task list) for the week of June 5.)

Datebook on the left; task list on the right. (Note: I haven’t really planned this week out fully yet; I just jotted down a few things so you can see what the datebook and task list looks like.)

Oh, hey! Do you see that little box at the end of the Datebook page, circled in orange? The one that says “Looking Ahead”?

That’s where I write notes about the NEXT week (Week 2). This way, if I have an important Monday meeting, or something else we need to be aware of in the coming week, it is written down in the current week. (For the week of June 19, we might have visitors. Cool! …and I guess we need to tidy the house. Oh well. Maybe we can do some of that during the week of June 12.)

So I plan my weeks using four different sections, which can be separate pages, or separate sections on the same page. Our four sections are:

• an inbox - like a grocery list, a running list; just throw stuff in there, you’ll sort it out later
• planning notes - record your more focused, deliberate, strategic thinking here about managing the coming week (on mine in the photo above, I noted that on Wednesday, June 14, I have meetings all day, so I want to focus on desk work earlier in the week)
• a datebook - list out all your appointments and hard deadlines for that week (not wishful thinking, though: your real deadlines, with real-world consequences if you miss them)
• a task list - things you want to do that week that are not as time-sensitive

Map Out Your Current Week to a Dashboard: Datebook and Task List (Week 1)

Let’s say you and your wife are sitting down on Sunday, June 11, to plan the week of June 12.

If it’s Sunday, June 11, and you start your weekly plans with Mondays, then Monday, June 12 now becomes Week 1.

This is where you and your spouse check: your calendars, task lists, routines, and the Inbox and any Planning Notes you made, labeled with the dates for the week you are planning now. You’re using your Inbox and Planning notes dated for the week of June 12 (and other calendar and to-do list items relevant to the week of June 12) to map out your datebook and task list for June 12 - 18.

Plan Ahead, for the Week Ahead: Inbox and Planning Notes (Week 2)

Make an inbox this week dated for NEXT week (Week 2), to consult during your planning session for the week after this (Week 2). Throw anything in there: dates, tasks, notes to self.

You can also make a planning notes section for next week (Week 2), OR you can wait to write out your planning notes when you both actually sit down to think about the week.

This is your strategy section for the week.

For example, since you’re planning together as a couple, does one of you have evening meetings that week, and what does that mean for dinner? Are there travel dates anyone has to work around? Does somebody’s car have to go into the shop, and what does that mean for transportation routines? Can you make time this week for tackling a longer term project? Etcetera. Use this Planning Notes section to think through this stuff.

The Inbox section is for collecting your thoughts on the fly (“Ooooh, I need to mail that package next week”).

The Planning Notes section is for organizing your thoughts (“Car’s in the shop on Monday, so I’ll have to take the package on Tuesday.”)

While you’re sitting down to plan the week of June 12 (which now becomes Week 1), start an Inbox and a Planning Notes section for the week of June 19 (which now becomes Week 2). Now you have a place to put those thoughts, which will be ready for you to consider on Sunday, June 18 as you plan the week of the 19th.

Other Notes About Datebook Sections, Task Lists, Routines

The datebook is for appointments and hard deadlines. (Like my taxes being due on the 15th.)

I don’t put wishful thinking in my date book section. (That goes in the task list and planning notes sections! 😂)

It would be lovely if I could get my desk work done on Monday and Tuesday, but that’s not a hard deadline.

However, the cat going to the vet on Wednesday? My quarterly taxes due on Thursday? That goes on the date book side, because there are real world consequences if I forget that stuff.

The task list is of course, the to-do list for that week.

What about routines?

You could, if you like, write them down in the datebook; but I keep my weekly routines as a separate checklist. (I like my datebook to be uncluttered and only to have stuff that must be done, on those dates.)

Sometimes I print routine checklists out and store them in page protectors in a 3-ring binder, and use a dry-erase marker to check things off.

…and, Here Is a Printable to Help You Plan Your Week

Is it beautiful?

No.

Is it functional? Maybe! Try it out!

This PDF printable includes sections for:

• Inbox
• Planning Notes
• Datebook
• Tasks
• and, bonus, a Weekly Routines Checklist

Download it here, and enjoy!

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For a few years I used Ryder Carroll’s bullet journal system, and the bullets — the symbols — were especially helpful.

Since then, however, I switched to a set of symbols that works better for me.

Here’s my adaptation of Patrick Rhone’s elegant Dash Plus system:

I sacrificed some of Patrick’s elegance in using dashes as the baseline for everything.

I wanted to keep using my old symbol for meetings, which looks like a caret ^ when I haven’t yet attended them, and looks like a triangle when I have.

These symbols make it easy for me to see at a glance what’s going on.

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Notes

This post was adapted and updated from a longer post, “To Do Lists for Visual Thinkers,” on annahavron.com

…and seeing as I keep using and writing about Patrick’s system, I bought him a coffee. Thanks, Patrick! Your system is awesome. I can even see it without my glasses.

References

‘The Dash/Plus System’ (2014) Patrick Rhone, 13 September. Available at: https://patrickrhone.com/dashplus/ (Accessed: 7 June 2023).

Woohoo!

I’m so excited to be giving a talk tomorrow (Saturday, May 20) at micro.camp!

Today, I’m making big edits to a handout to go with my talk.

Many people (including me) get useful ideas while taking a shower. However, they are not easy to remember once you leave the shower to go about your day.

I’ve also been told that it’s not cool to track wet foot prints all over the hardwood floors, while tossing cabinets for a pen and notebook. (While hoping you won’t forget your idea, while you look for something to write it down with.)

So here’s the solution to saving the floorboards, household harmony, and your brilliant ideas :

‘Rite in the Rain’ notebooks were originally designed for biologists to write field notes in any weather, but this all-weather notebook and all-weather pen absolutely will work for writing down your brilliant ideas while you’re in the shower.

And now I need to consult my shower notebook, and revise tomorrow’s handout.

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Many people call themselves disorganized when instead what they are doing is a hard thing.

It is a little like calling yourself blind because you can’t distinguish between a female purple finch and a female house finch from several yards away, without binoculars. (Good luck with that: they look almost identical.)

Difficult truth: The more complex the information you manage is, the more complex your systems will have to be.

Because most of us do not employ people* who organize all of our personal admin for us, you probably cannot avoid information dealing with your time and tasks, your finances, your household maintenance, your health, your social and work-related connections.

Some people also pursue information-intensive interests or occupations which means even more information to manage:

• you’re creating podcasts or videos
• you’re writing blogs, articles, books
• you’re taking photographs for fun or profit
• you’re tracking your consumption of media: reading, music, video
• you make a lot of notes for yourself (btw IRL most people do not do this, just sayin’)
• you’re creating and managing websites
• you’re running your own business, or freelancing
• you journal a lot

Also, not only do we have far more information to manage than previous generations, we have a dizzying selection of tools with which to do it.

Jillian Hess’s book How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information: Commonplace books, Scrapbooks, and Albums makes clear that personal knowledge management has been challenging for a long time.

In the early 1800s, Sir Walter Scott had no access to Notion, Obsidian or the like. He was making notes with paper and pen.

Still, it was too much:

“Scott makes no secret of his distaste for organizing papers:

” ‘I set about arranging my papers, a task which I always take up with greatest possible ill-will and which makes me cruelly nervous. I don’t know why it should be so, for I have nothing particularly disagreeable to look at; far from it … Yet I feel an inexpressible nervousness in consequence of this employment. The memory, though it retains all that has passed, has closed sternly over it; and this rummaging, like a bucket dropped suddenly into a well, deranges and confuses the ideas which slumbered on the mind.’

“In this entry, Scott confesses to the anxieties of too much information. True to the antiquarian persona he had caricatured, his collection overwhelms its collector.

“It would seem that Scott’s papers overwhelmed twentieth-century archivists as well. Confronted with the author’s “rebellious papers” in the 1930s, librarians decided on the scrapbook as the best form to organize and preserve the author’s documents.” (Hess 2022, p 153)

For many reasons, too many to go into for this post, I believe that managing personal information is harder than managing records at a business or organization.

If you feel overwhelmed by it, instead of calling yourself “disorganized,” perhaps consider that you are tackling an inherently difficult thing; because of the volume of information we encounter, the number of information-wrangling tools vying for our use, and the complexity of dealing with so many different kinds of inputs and outputs.

You’re not necessarily out of shape if you can’t run a marathon.

And you’re not necessarily a disorganized person if you struggle to track your personal information.

For many of us, it’s … a lot.

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Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid paper-digital systems? Ask me a question.

Notes

* And the people who do have others managing their admin, often get micro-managed in return: “At 10:00 a.m. you’re meeting with the Grand Poobah. At 10:12 a.m. you’re meeting with the Committee to Elevate the House Cat. At 10:27 a.m. you have an interview with…”

References

Hess, J.M. (2022) How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information: Commonplace books, Scrapbooks, and Albums. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford textual perspectives).

Tip o’ the Fountain Pen

…to Kimberly Hirsh who posted on micro.blog about Jillian Hess’s book and newsletter

Isn’t this habit tracker beautiful?

Halsted, whose site is cygnoir.net, kindly allowed me to share this photo of her journal, which accompanied her thoughtful post about switching from tracking her habits and moods with an app, to using pen* and paper.

Halsted also links to a video where she learned how to use three lines on a paper grid, to create lovely patterns as she tracks her habits.

Speaking for myself, I personally get discouraged by habit trackers built on a “don’t break” approach.

This approach – “don’t break the chain,” or “don’t break the streak” – works well for a lot of people, but for me, I just take it the wrong way when I can’t check the little box for that day.

Something eventually happens to break the streak: illness, my own or someone else’s; an appliance or a car breaks down; an emergency at home or at work. Then my streak is broken… and maybe, I wonder, maybe, so am I.

When the pattern on my habit tracker looks a little broken, I feel a little broken.

I’ve been wanting to resume habit tracking but until now, haven’t found anything that would make me feel encouraged to keep going, rather than feel like I broke something (“why can’t I keep it going?”).

What I love about Halsted’s pattern-creating method is that you can still track your habits, and yet it allows for the unpredictability and complexity of human life.

We are persons, after all, not machines.

And the pattern still looks beautiful. Instead of breaking a streak, you are building a unique, emergent pattern that mirrors your days.

Halsted writes,

“The “three lines” method (…) impressed me with its simplicity and its forgiveness. The pattern looks prettiest when I’ve done all my habits for the day, but even if I haven’t, the result is still pleasing to the eye and encourages me to try again tomorrow.”

Yes, indeed.

The beauty here is unbroken.

Copy and share – the link is here. Never miss a post from the Analog Office! Subscribe here to get blog posts via email.

Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid paper-digital systems? Ask me a question.

———————

Tip o’ the Fountain Pen

* To Halsted, who has helped me consider tracking my habits again. Fountain pen and notebook people, you’ll find a kindred spirit at cygnoir.net.

References

Bernard, H.M. (2023) ‘Habit and mood tracking in my Hobonichi Techo,’ 1 April. Available at: https://www.cygnoir.net/2023/04/01/habit-and-mood.html (Accessed: 24 April 2023).

Clear, J. (2019) ‘The Ultimate Habit Tracker Guide: Why and How to Track Your Habits’, James Clear, 14 January. Available at: https://jamesclear.com/habit-tracker (Accessed: 24 April 2023).

Robin Rendle says, mess up your books when you read them.

I say, mess up your “good” blank notebooks.

DC’s constellation of quotes around AI and human intelligence reminds us that human intelligence is embodied intelligence.

Physicist Richard Feynman said that he did not do the work in his head, he actually had to use the paper to do the work.

Write on your books.

Write in your books.

Highlight. Underline. Circle things. Draw arrows. Add post-it notes and paper clips. Dog-ear some corners.

Write zingers in the margins when you vehemently disagree.

Write your astonishment in the margins when something amazes you.

It helps you think.

And thinking is messy.

Copy and share – the link is here. Never miss a post from the Analog Office! Subscribe here to get blog posts via email.

Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid paper-digital systems? Ask me a question.

References

Rendle, R. (2023) “Your reading should be messy”, 25 March. Available at: https://www.robinrendle.com/notes/your-reading-should-be-messy/ (Accessed: 25 March 2023).

DC (2021) ‘“an enigmatic nexus of all these things at once”’, Roof Nails & Toothpicks, 21 December. Available at: https://tinyroofnail.com/an-enigmatic-nexus-of-all-these-things-at-once/ (Accessed: 25 March 2023).

Very cool! We have another reader question today!

A reader asks,

“I like to write all sorts of stuff: interesting quotes, notes about some software, reflections on some topic, personal journaling, etc. The main issue I am facing is that, one day I’ll write on my notetaking software, another day I’ll write on my “personal reflections” notebook, or on a sheet of paper, or in my pocket notebook, and so on.

In the end, it’s a big mess.

All my efforts to organize what goes where are in vain. The main difficulty is that it’s not the topic or the format of what I’m writing that determines what I use. It’s more about the context of where I am and what writing material I have with me, that determines whether I choose the software or a piece of paper.

Should I just give up and accept this chaos? Should I accept that what I write might not have been easy to find? Sometimes I really think I care too much about whether my writings should be “findable.” Maybe writing for me is not a way to store ideas, it’s a way to get them out of my brain in order for new ones to emerge.

Wow, writing it alone cleared up things a bit, thanks for being my “rubber duck,” as the developers say!

However, I still don’t have a solution. Maybe you have a magic solution ready for me?”

The magic is in the fact that writing is a transit system, which transports little electrical sparks in your synapses into things that affect shared reality.

This is truly magical, and amazing, and a continuing source of awe to me: that we are alive, that we can create things, that we can use our thoughts to help ourselves grow, and to better the lives of others. A tremendous gift and power!

You can change your life for the better, and the lives of other people for the better, by writing down the thoughts in your head, and using that writing to make things real in the world.

If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

Savor that for a moment, because now we’re going to descend from magic.

We’re looking around… we’re seeing a LOT of notes. In LOTS of places. Apps. Pocket notebooks. Sheets of paper. Is that… a reminder in ballpoint ink, scribbled in the palm of your hand…? (Oops, that’s my hand. Sorry.)

You asked, “Should I just give up and accept this chaos?”

NEVER!

Havron’s Second Law of Personal Information Management: Never accept chaos without a fight.

First Things First: Make Some Inboxes.

For your notes made on paper: Get a box or a basket for physical notebooks and papers. This is your INBOX for your notes. When you get home, or are done writing, throw your physical notes into the basket. Before the day is done, set aside ten or fifteen minutes to enter any actionable raw notes into your systems and clear out your inbox – if you can’t do it by the end of the day, make time to do it within 24 hours, while you can still recall the context. (More about systems, below.)

For your actionable notes made in your notetaking software: make a folder or a tag, “INBOX.” Again, make time daily, or near daily, to enter any actionable notes into your systems. Actionable means: notes you write to yourself about time and tasks you’re responsible for. (More about non-actionable notes, below.)

How many inboxes? As few as you can get away with. With hybrid paper and digital, you’re going to need a place to keep paper notes to enter into your systems, and you’re going to need a digital place to do the same. After that, the fewer the better.

It does not matter how you capture your thoughts into writing, or how many modes you use to do this. Paper, apps, whatever.

What matters is having reliable systems to process your written notes, wherever they are, into things that will be made real in the world.

The key question: what is it, that you want to produce from your notes? What are your deliverables that you hope for, from your writing? What do you want your thinking and writing to make real for you and others, or to help you make?

A functional calendar? A workout plan that you will actually use? A blog post? A garden? A novel? A budget you can actually live with? An app? A solar-powered passenger jet? Personal insights you can act on, to help you live out your values?

We make a lot of stuff from notes.

We’re all going to have different ideas about what we want our writing to produce. But the process is roughly the same.

Your notes are raw materials for making things real in the world.

You want to process (some of) your raw notes into forms that you can act on yourself, or share with others.

You want to revise (some of) your notes into cognitive products, written intellectual deliverables: instructions, outlines, lists, calendar entries, haiku, reminders, drafts, code snippets, timelines, insights, observations, constitutions, books, compositions, scripts.

Your notes can reliably be turned into written things that are complete enough to act on – IF you have a system.

Making Notes is Pointless Unless You Process (Some of) Them into Deliverables

You mention that writing for you is perhaps a way to get ideas out of your brain, in order for new ones to emerge.

For sure! And lots of what we write, we never do anything with again; the writing was enough – and that’s fine.

Be picky about what goes into your systems.

I have several paper notebooks I just scribble down ideas in. Each day I look them over for actionable notes, and scoop those out. Otherwise, when they are full, I scan them over, and only a few more notes get entered into my systems.

It’s like the old joke about the kid shoveling out the manure pile, because he’s sure there’s a pony in there, somewhere. For most thoughts, maybe writing them down is enough to free the pony: that great idea stamping and snorting behind all the ideas you had to write down first, in order to reach it.

But if you make your living by creating shareable cognitive objects with what’s between your ears, your notes are important raw material.

And if you want to make meaningful changes in your life – your health, your relationships, your career – your notes are important raw material.

Maybe most of your notes, you don’t need to find again. But some of them? Very valuable. Life-changing, in some cases.

What matters that you have reliable systems for processing them; that is, systems for creating cognitive products from your raw notes that you and / or others can use, later.

Your raw notes are inputs…

Your notes are inputs. They are raw materials, the record of your brain’s thoughts. You want to have a reliable system to capture these (e.g. not losing them), so you can review them later.

Okay, so now what?

…that you can process…

Now it’s time to process that raw material: review, revise.

This is where you take your raw writing and do whatever you need to do, to make it actionable – first, you must decide what it means for you, and next, you rewrite it in forms that you or others can take action from.

The processing phase is about reviewing and revising notes you want to work further with.

This is where you take your raw notes, the stuff you scribbled down, and turn it into actionable cognitive packets like:

• outlines
• calendar entries
• drafts
• diagrams
• lists
• instructions
• agendas

Now what?

…to create an output, a cognitive product.

Package. Ship. Deliver.

What written products can you make from your notes, that make things real in the world?

What pieces of writing can you make, that will actually help you make important life changes for yourself?

What written things might you share with other people, written things that other people can engage with, and use?

Blog posts. Software. Geneologies. Fitness plans. Letters. Plans. Poems. Graphs. Blueprints. Novels. Screenplays. Memoirs. Articles. Recipes.

Knowledge work is about adding value to information.

When it comes to notes you write, the value is in shaping your raw notes into cognitive products, intellectual deliverables, that you and other people can act on.

That’s the value you create through having systems to capture and process your ideas.

Enter the Idea Factories: Rubber Ducks, LLC

Now let’s put on our safety goggles and hard hats, because we’re going to look at how to make things from raw notes.

Let’s start an idea processing company and call it “Rubber Ducks, LLC.”

You mention rubberducking in your question, and this is a great way to think about how notes fit into a system.

Rubberducking is articulating a problem by speaking about it or writing about it, to help you define and understand it better. Think of explaining something, putting something into words, to a friendly childhood bathtub toy: the faithful and endlessly tolerant rubber duck*.

Oh, look, here’s the Analog Office rubber duck!

Oh, wow, here’s the whole listening team! (The Analog Office Cats sometimes also perform this function, but they are not nearly as reliable.)

Rubberducking is any process that allows you to put your thoughts into words in a warm, friendly, totally non-judgmental environment that allows your young, fragile, fluffy little duckling ideas to emerge in safety.

Playfulness opens up our creativity, so the rubber duck is a great image for this.

Rubberducking by talking things out or writing things down for yourself, externalizes your thinking.

Once your thinking exists outside of your head, you can work with it, tweak it, revise it, refine it.

This is the function your raw notes perform: they are your thinking, externalized.

This is also the function the letter you wrote to me performed: in writing out your question, it looks like you already found an answer. Maybe some, or even most, of your writing doesn’t need to be findable later. Maybe just writing something down is enough processing for you to be able to take action on your thoughts.

But you might also have notes you want to continue to develop.

THE Question: What Are You Making, from Your Notes?

Rubber Ducks, LLC takes your raw notes and makes them into intellectual products, cognitive deliverables, that you can act on.

Rubber Ducks, LLC has three divisions: the Personal Orientation Division, the Personal Organization Division, and the Creative Offerings Division.

Because life is messy, there is some overlap; but most personal notes will fall into these broad categories.

Rubber Ducks LLC, Personal Orientation Division: Process Your Notes to Orient Yourself Emotionally and Logistically

This is where you use your notes to make personal clarity for yourself about how you will live out your values, and your boundaries. (Your personal reflections notebook that you mentioned probably helps you generate notes to orient yourself.)

Orienting yourself is when you use insights and take actions to align yourself with your deepest priorities.

The process: Using your raw notes to orient yourself emotionally and logistically. You’re writing to think personal things through, to figure things out. You’re writing to process emotional stuff, and also to figure out logistics.

Examples: Let’s take an emotional insight. Let’s say, for example, that you spent yesterday feeling out of sorts and were impatient with your partner. As you write in your journal, you realize that yesterday’s calendar date coincided with the birthday of a beloved relative who died last year. And because one of your values is to treat your partner with kindness and respect, you resolve to apologize today, and let them know what was going on.

A logistics example: Let’s say you have two appointments today, and as you’re writing in your journal, you remember that the library is on the way, between them. You realize that you could save time and fuel (which relates to some of your values) if you throw a library book you’re finished with, into your bag; which you’ll drop off while you travel from the first appointment to the second.

The packaging: journal, diary, commonplace book, personal reflection notebook, a personal framework, which is an orientation system I teach people about, make your own here.

The product: insights that help you align your actions with your true values, and your sense of mission in the world.

Rubber Ducks LLC, Personal Organization Division: Process Your Notes to Organize Yourself to Take Actions

This is where you use your notes to make personal clarity for yourself about what actions you need to take, when, to make things real in the world.

Organizing yourself is about figuring out how you will get things done. This is your classic personal productivity system: calendar, task lists; the systems you use to manage your goals, projects, meetings, tasks, plans.

The process: Using your raw notes to create sets of instructions for Future You, to take the right actions, at the right times, to move closer to completing the projects that achieve your goals.

Examples: Call Amelia (pro tip: list her phone number next to the instruction, so you can do it without getting distracted by “just checking” some baseball stats). Schedule the dental appointment. Finish the draft. Pack the lunch. Cancel the subscription.

A classic productivity system is how you help Future You get things done, by setting up reminders and instructions for yourself where you will see them, at the right time for you to act on them.

The packaging: Your entries into your calendar, your task lists, your project plans.

The product: An effective calendar and task management system that helps you get things done with less stress.

Rubber Ducks LLC, Creative Offerings Division: Process Your Notes to Offer Something Useful or Engaging for Others

This is where you use your notes to make things for others.

Offerings are the written works you create for others to use and enjoy and engage with.

The process: Your notes can also go toward creating outlines, drafts, snippets, equations, guides, diagrams, character studies, lists, etc. that help you create things to be shared with others, to be used by others.

These notes get processed into something you can share with other people.

The packaging: Creative idea processing systems like a writer’s notebook, a zettelkasten, a second brain, an idea farm, that turn notes into writing that can be shared. (Given the metaphor I’ve used here, I have an idea factory, and I have decided that it looks and works something like Howl’s Moving Castle. So we can still have factories + magic.)

The products: cognitive products you make that you share with others, that you hope others will find useful or engaging, like blog posts, stories, code snippets, memos, apps, articles, poems, letters, reviews, books, etc., etc., etc. …so much we can share in this world with one another, right?

But not unless we:

Write our ideas down. (Input.)

Review and revise them regularly. (Cognitive processing.)

Shape into forms we, and others, can act on. (Output, cognitive products.)

And, I hope that this particular shared cognitive product – this blog post, from my Rubber Ducks, LLC, Creative Offering Division – has been useful for you.

Thanks for writing in!

Copy and share – the link is here. Never miss a post from the Analog Office! Subscribe here to get blog posts via email.

Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid paper-digital systems? Ask me a question.

Notes

* Hey, U.S. Gen X-ers! It is SING-A-LONG time! … “Rubber Duckie, you’re the one!” …whoa, I’m not out of tune, Rubber Duckie, you’re out of tune! Pass the soap.

References

Sesame Street: Ernie and his Rubber Duckie (2009). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh85R-S-dh8 (Accessed: 31 March 2023).

Havron, A. “What Do You Want to Make Real in the World?” (2023) annahavron.com, 29 March. Available at: https://www.annahavron.com/blog/what-do-you-want-to-make-real-in-the-world (Accessed 1 April 2023)

Havron, A. “Why Create a Personal Framework?” (2020) annahavron.com, 30 September . Available at: https://www.annahavron.com/blog/why-create-a-personal-framework (Accessed: 31 March 2023).

Havron, A. “Make Your Own Personal Framework” (2021) annahavron.com, 14 May. Available at: https://www.annahavron.com/blog/make-your-own-personal-framework (Accessed: 1 April 2023)

When I started using notebooks after years of keyboarding, I immediately re-discovered how illegible my handwriting was.

If you, too, find yourself squinting at your own chicken-scratch, here are two books I used to help me understand what I needed to change.

It came down to a couple of simple fixes. My handwriting is readable now (at least to me).

A Practical Book on Making Your Handwriting More Readable

Most handwriting books are geared toward handwriting as an artistic practice. However, this first book I’m recommending takes more of a clinical approach; aimed at making your handwriting legible.

It also includes a detailed chapter for left-handed people.

Because my handwriting was so bad, Improve Your Handwriting by Rosemary Sassoon and Gunnlaugur SE Briem was the book that helped me most.

Now I can read what I wrote.

Cool!

A Practical Book on Making Your Handwriting More Artistic

The second book I recommend is Brenna Jordan’s The Lost Art of Handwriting.

Jordan covers hand lettering techniques for both cursive and printing, with suggestions about how to mix the two in composition.

If, for example, you want to make quotes stand out in your notebook, or letter something as a gift for someone, The Lost Art of Handwriting would be a valuable resource.

Jordan addresses left-hander problems briefly, but not as in depth as Improve Your Handwriting does.

I loved her tips on flourishes, and how to use them responsibly effectively; and now I have wonky but legible writing with swoopety-loops around it.

Also cool!

Two Video Courses on Improving Your Handwriting

Tip o’ the Fountain Pen to a reader in Istanbul who took two handwriting courses, considered them “very good,” and kindly emailed me about them.

Since I made a solemn vow to be semi-reasonable* about my online course habit, I haven’t checked these out.

Yet.

But they do look interesting!

Here are the links:

Skillshare, Transform Your Handwriting

The Postman’s Knock, Improve Your Handwriting

Finally, if drawing a robot or a daisy in the margin feels too ambitious for you, handwriting exercises (loops and lines!) are excellent for doodling.

I think of handwriting exercises now as almost like a fidget tool.

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Notes

* I vowed to finish a course before I line up another one. Right now I’m drawing birds; so handwriting will have to wait.

References

Sassoon, R. and Briem, G.S.E. (2010) Improve your handwriting. London: Teach Yourself (Teach yourself books).

Jordan, B. (2019) The lost art of handwriting: rediscover the beauty and power of penmanship. First Adams Media hardcover edition. New York: Adams Media.

Transform Your Handwriting With Beautiful & Easy To Read Cursive | Robert J. P. Oberg (no date) Skillshare. Available at: www.skillshare.com/en/classe… (Accessed: 24 February 2023).

Improve Your Handwriting: A Comprehensive Online Course (no date) The Postman’s Knock. Available at: https://thepostmansknock.com/course/improve-your-handwriting-a-comprehensive-ecourse/ (Accessed: 24 February 2023).

Nature Journaling and Field Sketching | Bird Academy • The Cornell Lab (2023). Available at: https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/product/nature-journaling-and-field-sketching/ (Accessed: 24 February 2023).

You know the ones: the ones with the creamy paper, the ones with the little envelope built into the back cover, the pre-printed index, the dot grid, or the lined pages, or the smooth blank pages where the website showed an artist’s delicate watercolor rendering of a fern.

The ones with the pristine covers with muted, sophisticated colors, or vintage renderings of wilderness scenes, or the ombre effect.

The ones where the makers include a tiny brochure telling you how awesome this notebook is, how sustainable the paper is, or how they are fifth-generation stationers from a storied seaside town.

The “fountain pen friendly” paper ones. The ones with the coptic binding, the skinny grosgrain ribbons.

The ones that seem too good to use. The ones where you wince a little inside, when you realize what stashing it in your pocket just did to it. (Now it’s all bent up!)

These are the notebooks you need to mess up.

These are the ones you need to write in with your scrawly handwriting, and cross stuff out in, or get eraser marks grubbing up the finish of that once-pristine page.

Listen up: notebooks are alive, in a thingy-sort of way. Or, they could be alive; much more alive than they are untouched on the shelf or in the drawer, but they need you to bring them to fully living status.

Your notebooks need you to mess them up.

Until YOU MESS UP your notebook by actually using it, it is just like any other blank notebook by that maker. It is interchangeable. It has no uniqueness yet. It is waiting. It is in limbo. It is passed by, over and over again, because you think you are not good enough to use it.

But what if it thinks it’s not good enough for YOU to use it? Don’t make your beautiful notebooks sad.

Okay; I just noticed that you’re looking at me funny.

So let’s think of it this way, then:

Consider the notebook makers.

What about those fifth-generation stationers who go to great lengths to source wonderful paper, to find skilled craftspeople who will bind it just right, so that the binding lies flat when you open that notebook?

What if you were the notebook maker? If you went to all that work to design and manufacture a notebook you thought would be totally awesome for someone to use, what would be cooler to you, five or twenty or fifty years from now:

A) Someone gives you back one of the notebooks you made; and it is pristine, untouched, still in the wrappings.

B) Someone shows you one of the notebooks you made that they used; or that maybe their grandparent used, and it’s a mess. Writing. Doodles. At some point maybe ?? Somebody dropped it in a bathtub? Or was that a coffee spill? And dried it out again, and kept using it.

Yeah: you don’t get that used notebook back. That one is special! It’s unique.

And it’s no longer the stationery company’s notebook anymore, is it?

The maker of the notebook manufactures it. But the joy of making is when someone else USES what you made!

And the ultimate maker of the notebook is the one who messes up a blank notebook, and transforms it into something else. A journal. A log book. A writer’s notebook. A sketchbook. Jottings. Scribblings. Musings. False starts. Mundane reminders. Seeds of greater things.

Now that notebook no longer belongs to the manufacturer. It belongs to the one who messed it up.

So give your notebooks life.

Use them. Use them! Literally: it was for YOU to use them, that they were made!

Mess them up!

That is the best thing that could possibly happen for these beautiful notebooks.

Only then, after YOU mess them up, do they become unique and irreplaceable.

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Notes

Re the notebooks in that photo above? I’m totally going to mess those up.

Tip o’ the Fountain Pen

To Greg Morris, whose post, and its subsequent discussion, inspired this one.

Resources

Chris Wilson shares some great ways to start messing up your new notebook.

References

Morris, G. (2023) Greg Morris - A New Notebook, 12 February. Available at: https://www.gr36.com/2023/02/12/a-new-notebook.html (Accessed: 13 February 2023).

Wilson, C. (2020) ‘7 ways to start a notebook,’ Sketchy Ideas, 5 May. Available at: https://sketchyideas.co/7-ways-to-start-a-notebook/ (Accessed: 13 February 2023).

Havron, A. (2022) ‘The Souls of Things: Decluttering and Disposal as Sacred Acts,’ Anna Havron, 3 February. Available at: https://www.annahavron.com/blog/the-souls-of-things-decluttering-and-disposal-as-sacred-acts (Accessed: 13 February 2023).

Get into the habit of writing the date next to your notes, and you may not need to bother with numbering pages or making a table of contents.

I don’t over-organize my morning pages or my capture notebooks, but I do put the date next to each entry.

Since I often use these notebooks to map out plans, record questions, and think out logistics for myself, it’s handy to be able to refer to particular entries without having to rewrite everything.

Let’s say you have a meeting with your accountant on February 27.

And let’s say a rather involved tax-related question popped into your mind the other day and you grabbed your trusty capture notebook, wrote out your thoughts and questions about it in there, and dated the entry (let’s say it was February 5 when you thought of the question).

You can drop a note to yourself in your tickler file that reminds you on the day of the meeting: “Check out note about taxes — capture notebook, Feb 5”

Very handy.

And of course, routinely putting the date on your notes is an excuse to use one of these.

I usually just stamp the day’s date on my capture notebook each morning, and let the games begin from there.

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A hearty thank you to Loura for allowing the Analog Office to share this photo of her marvelous journal!

One of Loura’s resolutions for 2023 was to use her journal, daily.

SO many things I love about this journal. Loura is using this as a hub for all kinds of thoughts and ideas. All kinds of thinking on paper is happening here!

She’s using it as a commonplace book, to collect quotes that resonate for her.

She’s using it to draw in the margins, a time-honored way to annotate one’s texts.

She’s using it as a journal, to process her thoughts and feelings about daily events in her life.

She’s using it as reading notes, to process her thoughts and feelings about things she has read.

She’s using it as a writer’s notebook, writing down her wonderings about grief and love. (Two things I suspect we all wonder about, at some point…)

She’s using it as a design notebook: incorporating space, lines, illustrations, lettering variants, and color to help the eye, and the mind, navigate the page.

Let’s just sit back and savor this for a moment:

Let’s also think about some cool options you can try out, by keeping a journal like this.

But first! I want to say, all by itself, if she does nothing else with it — if she doesn’t even write another word in it — this journal will bring joy and all kinds of memories to her, many years from now.

It is a treasure, complete to itself, just as it is. She need do nothing more with it; it is a joy to see and to read, and in this tech-saturated world, her personhood, her life, shines forth from this. A treasure: just as it is.

Her journal here is also something I know — from being lucky enough to have inherited some writings from my own antecedents — could be appreciated by generations to come.

That being said: I’m calling it a “hub” because you can spin a book like this out — if you wished to — into all kinds of things.

• You could keep a multi-purpose notebook like this as a kind of capture notebook and move actionable things into your productivity system.
• You could spin off a dedicated commonplace book or zettelkasten system from this.
• You could write longer essays or blog posts (or letters… or books…) from thoughts and quotes recorded here.
• You could start “Thoughts On…” files for yourself recording the life wisdom you earn, to remind yourself of what works to keep your life humming along, and what does not (as Sivers points out, we do forget how things actually make us feel; in the moment and in the immediate aftermath)
• You could test design layouts here that move into publications.

Maybe I’ll work on improving my handwriting again…!

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Tip o’ the Fountain Pen

To Loura, who posted another cool journal page spread right here. (Accessed: 13 February 2023)

References

‘Medieval Monks Wrote in Their Books and So Can You – Another Word’ (2018), 12 November. Available at: https://dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/medieval-monks/ (Accessed: 7 February 2023).

‘How And Why To Keep A “Commonplace Book”’ (2013) Thought Catalog, 28 August. Available at: https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2013/08/how-and-why-to-keep-a-commonplace-book/ (Accessed: 7 February 2023).

‘Reading’ (no date) annie mueller. Available at: https://anniemueller.com/reading-all-the-books/ (Accessed: 7 February 2023).

‘Making and Using a Writer’s Notebook,’ North Dakota State University (no date). Available at: https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/cfwriters/Handouts/Writer_Notebook.pdf (Accessed: 7 February 2023)

Benefits of a daily diary and topic journals | Derek Sivers (2019), 28 January. Available at: https://sive.rs/dj (Accessed: 7 February 2023).

Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: I wrote about journaling as a tool for action at my other blog, annahavron.com.

Get into the habit of writing the date next to your notes, and you may not need to bother with numbering pages or making a table of contents.

I don’t over-organize my morning pages or my capture notebooks, but I do put the date next to each entry.

Since I often use these notebooks to map out plans, record questions, and think out logistics for myself, it’s handy to be able to refer to particular entries without having to rewrite everything.

Let’s say you have a meeting with your accountant on February 27.

And let’s say a rather involved tax-related question popped into your mind the other day and you grabbed your trusty capture notebook, wrote out your thoughts and questions about it in there, and dated the entry (let’s say it was February 5 when you thought of the question).

You can drop a note to yourself in your tickler file that reminds you on the day of the meeting: “Check out note about taxes — capture notebook, Feb 5”

Very handy.

And of course, routinely putting the date on your notes is an excuse to use one of these.

I usually just stamp the day’s date on my capture notebook each morning, and let the games begin from there.

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I know many people who love using apps to track their health, including a relative who used his Apple watch to make some excellent lifestyle changes. He is motivated by the number tracking: calorie counts, exercise tracking, etc.

If this works for you, more power to you!

But I discovered, when I tried a Fitbit a few years ago, that I am de-motivated by health-related numbers. They bring up all kinds of emotions for me, ranging the gamut from “resentment” to “rebellion.”

When health-related numbers stream at me from an app, I feel like I am being micro-managed by a robot informed by every finger-shaking health-related article I’ve ever read.

An Apple Watch would send me straight to the couch with a bowl of Tillamook Mudslide while binge-streaming Drink Masters, because robots are not the boss of me.

So there, neener neener! I sure showed those health apps who’s in charge around here!

And… yeah… obviously I needed to figure out something else, for the health-related changes I actually did want to make.

I realized I needed to toss the apps.

What I needed, was a paper planner.

Numbers versus Narratives

For improving my health, I do MUCH better by creating a log that lets me create a narrative of my own.

I’m informed by the same health-related knowledge the apps use. I keep up with the science. I’m not resistant to health-related information per se; I’m resistant to it coming at me through an app.

Instead, I internalize health information by writing things down for myself.

A paper planner gives me the power I apparently crave: I am making the knowledge, creating the knowledge, reviewing the knowledge, and applying the knowledge, by observing myself and jotting down a few sentences about my observations.

And although I’m not motivated by numbers, I AM motivated by drawing cat cartoons for myself: “Make Gooooooood Choices, Anna!”

So there’s that.

My planner* gives me the typical monthly calendar spreads, as well as weekly spreads with a column to write in, for each date. Also: a routine tracker layout. Slick!

Well, So? Did Using a Paper Planner Actually Help You Make Changes, Anna?

It sure did! Thanks for asking!

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to do whatever I could, to get a good night’s sleep. (Nobody likes me when I’m sleep-deprived: not even me. Especially not me; everybody else gets to leave the room.)

I don’t care how many times an app reports that I woke up during the night, or what my heart rate is, or any of that. I don’t get a sense of meaning from health-related numbers.

I get it from describing, in writing, how my mind and body actually feel, after I wake up.

A bad night’s sleep: sluggish physically, with a defeatist mindset, eyes feeling like there’s sandpaper under the lids. A good night’s sleep: energized physically, optimistic mindset, excited to start the day.

Before I go to bed, I note down in my planner what I did that day, that might affect how I sleep: alcohol and / or caffeine consumption, whether or not I got in some exercise, whether I watched an intense movie right before bed. I also check the time on my alarm clock before I hit the lights.

The next morning I make a note about when I observed “lights out,” and what time I woke up. I count up hours of sleep and jot that down. I write a sentence or two about how well I slept: did I get up a lot? Insomnia? Or did I snooze through the night (yay)? And then a sentence or two about how I feel: do I want to drag back to bed, or do I feel excited about engaging with this day?

In order to get a good night’s sleep, over the past two years, confronted with what I recorded in my planner, I made the following changes:

• installed blackout shades in our bedroom
• stopped drinking anything caffeinated after 2 p.m.
• cut down on alcohol use
• cut down on watching intense shows before bed
• increased time outdoors
• increased exercise
• set a “lights out” bed-time for myself

I also made some compromises.

I would certainly sleep better if we didn’t allow the cats in the bedroom. However, I love those little monsters, even when the Stripey One brings me his toy bird at 4:00 a.m. (The cats don’t wake my husband; so this one was my call.)

I would also sleep better if I didn’t stay up too late reading. Working on that one, still.

It Was Harder to Dismiss a Logbook in My Own Writing, Than It Was to Dismiss Health-Related Apps

What I like about my paper planner is that it is so personal.

I can ignore an app, rationalize it away. Much more difficult to rationalize away this daily log: I’m recording actionable information, and furthermore, it’s private.

I am observing myself, making notes in my own handwriting, figuring out what does, and does not work, over time.

It shows me my limits: e.g. the evidence in my own handwriting, shows that I really can’t have coffee after dinner, if I want to sleep well that night.

Paradoxically, my planner also shows me my power.

With a paper planner, I am making the knowledge, creating the knowledge, by observing myself and jotting down a few sentences to record my observations.

Because I created the knowledge bank, this knocks away my knee-jerk resistance to health-related information.

In my own handwriting, I see that when I choose to moderate alcohol and caffeine, when I choose to get moving, when I choose to put down the mystery novel and turn out the light, I choose the way I will feel the next morning.

I see that Night-time Anna has great power over how Next Day Anna will feel.

It is not an app telling me what to do (oh, the horror!).

Instead it’s my record of observing myself over time, learning from what I observe — and then acting on it.

So, yeah.

For me at least, it works.

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NOTES

* I use an A5 Wonderland 222 planner, and as long as they make them, I will be buying them.

I buy two: one for habit tracking, one for conventional planning. These planners include Tomoe River paper for fountain pen people, thoughtfully designed layouts for yearly, quarterly, monthly planning and review — and dedicated routine and habit tracking layouts for each month. I think of this as the planner’s planner: great layouts for planning, and no inspirational quotes cluttering up my writing space thus leaving room for me to draw motivational cat cartoons for myself, as needed.

If your priorities for a planner are similar to mine (fountain pen friendly, a “let’s get down to business” design approach), check them out. I stick mine in journal covers, so I can tell the planning planner from the habit tracking planner at a glance.

In the fall of 2020, I started a blog. I write a lot for work, but found myself still restless.

I wanted to do more of my own writing; maybe even write a book one day.

I wanted to develop some ideas and share things that I had found to be useful, in hopes that others might also find them useful.

So I set up the blog, and posted some things; and then my blog started growing cobwebs. Months went by without me posting anything.

Why, if I wanted to write and publish stuff, wasn’t I writing? I knew I wanted to write my own stuff.

So what was the problem here? So frustrating.

But I’m a pragmatist to the bone.

What Do Other People Who Write and Publish a Lot, Actually Do?

The first thing I do when I find I’m struggling to do something, is to find out which things that a lot of people who do the thing I want to do, have done.

I trust general patterns more than exceptions; so I also look for things that LOTS of people do, when I want to succeed at something new to me.

I also firmly believe that what makes people improve is not so much native talent, as dogged practices.* In other words, I think if average people take on certain practices, it’s the practices that are the pole that vaults them over the bar.

Talent is common. Discipline, not so much.

I believed if I started doing the things that people who publish regularly do, I too would be able to write and publish more of my own thoughts.

I found a few practices I could try out, right away. It turns out LOTS of people who write and publish regularly do these things:

1) Set up a writing schedule. This was not hard for me; I already do this for work. So I scheduled regular time to get my personal writing done. In practice, this means my backside is in a chair and I am typing into my computer for about an hour most days.

2) Many people who write and publish regularly, send out a newsletter, not just a blog.** A newsletter acts as a deadline. This also was not hard for me. For work I have several regular writing deadlines. For work, I also send out email newsletters. Admittedly it was not much of a struggle for me to get this in place, either.

3) Use paper notebooks to capture their ideas. Lots of people advised carrying a paper notebook around with you everywhere, and recording random thoughts and ideas about your writing, and whatever else occurs to you.

You know what my initial gut response to this, was?

“Oh, HELL, no!”

For Developing Ideas, Paper Notebooks Are Less Efficient But More Effective

And now we come to the practice I resisted. I really struggled with this, I pushed back hard on it.

You know why I fell in love with computers? Because I didn’t ever again have to go through the tedious process of typing up my chicken-scratch handwritten paper notes, that’s why. I actually remember when I had to write papers by hand and type them up. Yeah, I’m that old. And what a pain. I’ve written what I think of as my REAL writing, on computers since the 19-coughty-coughs and never looked back.

I’ve written on computers since Word Star. Since the first screen to come up was a black DOS screen.

Use paper notebooks to record your writing ideas? That’s so… early 20th century. All right, also all the way back to the Renaissance, people have done this.

But that’s all they had!

We have antibiotics and computers!

I journaled and doodled in paper notebooks, sure; but real writing? Public writing? Writing for money, writing academic papers, writing for grants, writing for magazines, writing fiction, writing for my old parenting blog?

I did all that on the computer, of course; like a grown-up. Much less work. Much more efficient.

Who in their right mind would want to go back to handwriting their ideas, and then tediously typing them up again? Been there. Did that. (And hid from my boyfriends the fact that I knew how to type.)

Then I remembered Cal Newport; a prolific contemporary writer who uses paper notebooks to ignite all kinds of his ideas: mathematical ideas, and lifestyle ideas, and writing ideas.

What if a paper notebook actually would help me write and publish on my blog more?

The only way to know for sure, was to try it.

So I tried it.

It worked so well for me, I started another blog. Carrying a paper notebook around with me everywhere, and recording my random thoughts in it, has made me far more productive as a writer.

I didn’t write more because of my talent. I wrote more because of my new practices.

Including carrying a paper notebook everywhere I went.

Why Keeping a Paper Notebook to Capture Your Writing Ideas Works So Well

So why use paper first, instead of going straight to a device?

Some initial thoughts:

Making writing means you are making something out of nothing; out of thin air. Anything that helps to lessen the intimidation of a blank screen, matters very much. It is much easier for me to get writing into my computer when I can start with some handwritten notes from a friendly notebook.

You will also write different things into a paper notebook, than you would if you were writing on a computer. Writing on a computer feels much more public. It’s like writing while you’re at a New Year’s Eve metro street festival. You might excuse yourself to the hotel room that is the writing app on your device — but on the internet street below, are the food trucks and the jazz bands and the journalists with their cameras and microphones and all your friends wearing novelty hats and glasses with the new year printed on them, and the fireworks and the parade and all the distraction and entertainment you could possibly desire, to get away from the hard, deep work of thinking.

Writing in a notebook is a much quieter mental experience. You can hear your own thoughts better. It feels private. Personal.

If writing on a computer feels like writing in a hotel room while a street festival is blaring on below, writing in a paper notebook feels like writing in a snug cabin in the mountains on a snowy evening, with the only sound being the crackle of a cozy fire.

Writing in a paper notebook changes what you record. Because it is so private, it makes you braver, more willing to try stuff, more willing to write down a phrase or even draw something, to make it clear in your mind what happened, or what you’re thinking about. Sometimes I will draw diagrams of interactions, so I can understand what happened, better. Or little maps of places. I can’t draw things to help me think, in Scrivener.

Anyway. You will write DIFFERENT things in a notebook, than you would on a computer.

Using a paper notebook for writing ideas, for random thoughts and questions and wonderings, also serves as an editor in two ways:

• First, you’ll type some of those ideas into the computer. But not all of them: some of them will cease to resonate for you; it was enough to get them on the page, to clear them out of your mind to get to the “keepers.”

• Second, because you cannot copy-paste from a paper notebook into a digital file, as you type in or dictate ideas in that you plan to work with more, you will inevitably make some changes — you’ll think of another angle, a new question.

The iteration will only make it deeper, and better.

Try it.

————————

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NOTES

Since the fall of 2020, I have written and published 107 posts on annahavron.com and analogoffice.net, most of them long-ish. If you’re reading this, it’s now 108.

* One of my favorite quotes is from Anthony Trollope, who published dozens of books: “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”

** Why a newsletter, and not just an RSS feed? Sometimes doing something that feels less efficient, is more effective. An RSS feed feels too abstract to me: there’s no dialogue, no feedback. I’m hardly aware that the RSS is there. Knowing that one of my newsletters is going out, however, FEELS different, far more personal. One of my newsletters goes out automatically each Friday. The other is every other Friday, and I set that one up manually. Either way, I feel pressures both to produce in the first place; and then to stop endlessly tweaking and editing something because the newsletter is going out. And with a newsletter, I have the great pleasure of hearing back from people. Who in turn give me writing ideas…

Think of meetings or appointments where you are receiving the proverbial fire-hose of new information, such as:

• buying a house or a car
• job interviews
• informational meetings
• meetings where you’re joining a new team, or volunteering for a new organization
• grant or business proposals
• feedback on a major project or product

How do those meetings end?

Usually someone closes by saying, “Do you have any questions?” — and you know you will, but can’t think of any in the moment.

Or, you might think later about a point you wanted to make and forgot to bring up.

The Topics / Thoughts Log: Save Everyone from Unnecessary Follow-Up Conversations

Today I’ll show you a notes layout that saves you from realizing the next day, that you forgot to bring something important up.

The Topics / Thoughts log allows you to track the questions that arise in your mind, and any points you want to make, during meetings where a lot of new information is coming at you.

Log the topics that come up in the conversation on the left side of the page; log your thoughts that come up in the moment, on the right side.

At the end of the conversation, when they ask, “Any questions?” you say, “Just a moment, let me look at my notes.”

Review the log of your thoughts to make sure all your questions have been answered, and all your points have been made before the conversation closes.

Example: Preparing to Buy Your First Fire-Breathing Dragon

Let’s say you’re in the market for a fire-breathing dragon; just a little one, to toast some marshmallows, and start up the wood stove on a frosty morning.

But small dragons are hard to find! Most fire-breathing dragons really need to be homed with castles and serious acreage. You want a mini-dragon, and those are in high demand.

The breeders at Waggin’ Dragon Enterprises assure you they have one mini-dragon available. Since you’ve never owned a dragon before, they want to meet with you first.

You’re feeling excited, and a little nervous (what if they don’t think you can care for a dragon, and won’t sell one to you?).

Before you sit down for that important meeting, set up your Topics / Thoughts log.

Start your Thoughts / Topics log with a header including the date, the main topic, and the names of people present for the conversation. Get in the habit of making sure all your meeting notes have context.

For the actual Topics / Thoughts log, below the header, you’ll set up your notebook page with two columns:

• Topics column on the left
• Thoughts column on the right

In the left column, you’ll note down what the Waggin’ Dragon people say; you’ll keep a running log of topics as they come up in the conversation.

In the right column, you’ll note down what thoughts pop into your mind as the conversation flows: questions, concerns, things you want to bring up before the meeting ends.

In your quest to acquire a mini-dragon, the Waggin’ Dragon people bring up the following points; which you log into your Topic column:

“Some people think dragon smoke smells pleasant, like incense… Say, have you ever tried smoked toast?… We find, when it comes to something as important for your family as home heating, it’s wise to have backup fire-lighting sources on hand, like matches; it takes a lot of dragon breath to get one of those going.”

On the right side, you write down your thoughts in response to the topics that came up.

“Ooooh, hadn’t thought of that; I’m glad dragon smoke smells relatively pleasant … Smoked toast. Hmmm. What about toasted toast? This is the second time they’ve brought up the topic of smoke, instead of fire… But… I want the dragon to light the fire… wait a minute… “

“Any questions?” asks the Waggin’ Dragon rep brightly.

So you clear your throat and say, “I just want to clarify something: you’ve brought up the benefits of dragon smoke a few times, but can your mini-dragon reliably breathe fire …?”

And good luck with finding the right dragon!

It’s out there for you, I know it.

NOTES

Normally I hand-write my meeting notes; which keeps me focused. In the example photo above, however, I typed the notes so you could read them.

Gaaaah, numbering notebook pages.

How tedious is that? Maybe your idea of fun is not sitting around numbering the pages of a notebook (unless you have one of these, of course).

Maybe your idea of fun is using notebooks without page numbering, just you and the naked page.

You’re a free bird, a free spirit, a freewheeler, a free thinker, a freehand writer, free to be! Me, too!

But you still want to find stuff in your notebook.

Yeah… me, too.

Fore-edge indexing is a free-form note tagging system that can be done on the fly, to help you find specific pages in your notebook, without numbering the pages or organizing anything else ahead of time.

Drawback: you have to have a bit of hand-eye coordination, and perhaps a grid or lined notebook to make this work; especially if you have lots of topics you want to find again.

Fore-edge Indexing: The Index That Lives on the Outside of Your Books

Let’s start with a little book anatomy: the fore-edge of a book is opposite the book’s spine; the longest edge of the pages in most books.

Here are two books published with fore-edge indexing: a 5-year diary, where the fore-edges mark the months, and a medical dictionary with thumb indexing for the alphabet:

And speaking of that diary above, since popular Japanese planner notebooks like the Hobonichi Techo use fore-edge indexes to mark the months, some people refer to this system as “Japanese indexing.”

Okay, so it makes sense to use fore-edge indexing for consecutive series like the months of the year, or the letters of the alphabet for a dictionary. (Address books often have fore-edge indexes, too.)

But what if you want to be able to quickly go back to a few notes that aren’t in any kind of sequence; notes that are random?

Fore-edge indexing is really useful for this.

Finding a Few Useful Notes: How I Use Fore-edge Indexing

Below is the capture notebook that I currently fling into my purse.

I used fore-edge indexing to mark the Secret Route to my husband’s office, the one that the GPS never shows.

I made a mark on the page with the directions, and then I marked the back page, making a line at the same point on the page that the directions are. Then I wrote down a title: “Back Road Directions to (husband’s office).”

Before I use up the notebook, let’s say I write down two more things I want to refer back to, quickly, without going through the effort of making a more formal table of contents.

I’ve already got Note 1: the directions, where I made a mark near the top of the notebook page; and its corresponding mark at the same location near the top, on my index page.

If I make a Note 2, I could make a mark halfway down the page on Note 2; and a matching one halfway down the index page, with a title for my second note.

For a Note 3, I could make a mark almost to the bottom of the page, with its matching mark also low down on the index page.

I like this system because for me, it’s my seat-of-the-pants way to find a few notes again.

But you can do a lot more with this elegant little system.

Check out this excellent guide to do some next-level organizing with a fore-edge index. Also check out Austin Kleon’s post here, to see different uses for your notebook’s fore-edge.

And speaking of fore-edges, wouldn’t it be cool if we still did this?

—————————

REFERENCES

Barnum, G. (2018) ‘About Thumb Indexes’, American Printing History Association, 22 February. Available at: https://printinghistory.org/about-thumb-indexes/ (Accessed: 14 November 2022).

The High five Notebook (no date). Available at: https://www.highfivehq.com/ (Accessed: 15 July 2022).

Fore-edge painting and indexing - Austin Kleon (2022). Available at: https://austinkleon.com/2022/04/21/fore-edge-painting-and-indexing/ (Accessed: 14 November 2022).

Remarkable invention: fore-edge, the ‘disappearing painting’ on the edge of a book, now an endangered art form (2018) thevintagenews. Available at: www.thevintagenews.com/2018/03/0… (Accessed: 14 November 2022).

The parents of a young farmer — who died much too soon — told me how hard it was to go over and collect his things.

I asked if he had kept any journals.

No, they said; but he always had a pocket notebook.

What did he write about? I asked.

And they both started talking at once.

He loved the farm so much. His heart was in that farm. As he worked the farm each day, he’d take out his pocket notebook and jot things down. Notes about cattle, equipment, repairs.

So these were like log books, I said.

Yes, they said. He was so conscientious, they said.

They told me about how, when he hired equipment, he took care of it like it was his own. They told me about his system for tagging the cattle. They told me how good he was with the business aspect. How he noted it all down. Livestock. Machinery. Commitments to others. All in the notebooks.

As they reminisced, they even began to smile a little, telling me the stories that emerged from those paper notebooks, reliving the times they saw him stop to jot something down.

As I listened, I began to see him better in my own mind.

I had only met him in passing; but his paper notebooks held a kind of self-portrait, touchable records of what was on his mind. Like a piece of clothing or jewelry from someone you love, those physical objects created a fragile bridge beyond death for his family.

His hand and mind had touched those books.

He’d carried those notebooks around on his person.

And he wrote about what he loved.

Over-organizing is a great way to procrastinate.

It gives your anxiety the sense that it is doing something useful, when you are just avoiding something that is emotionally or intellectually harder (“you” in this case meaning me, and possibly, you, too?).

Sometimes it is useful for me to remind myself of what I am not.

So. What am I not?

• I am not an archivist.
• I am not a professional indexer.
• I am not making notes for legal documents.
• I am not drawing up plans for D-Day.
  

For 99.9999999% of my notes, lists, notebooks, drafts, files… simple is better than complex, and done is better than perfect.

If I can reliably find my stuff and figure out later on what I meant when I wrote it, that’s all I need.

…right?

If you think with paper and write a lot, consider using a fountain pen*. Modern pens strain your wrist and hand far more than fountain pens.

Fountain Pens vs Ballpoint Pens, Rollerball Pens, Gel Pens

Josh Giesbrecht, in his Atlantic article “How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive,” wrote about why he switched to fountain pens:

A lifetime writing with the ballpoint and minor variations on the concept (gel pens, rollerballs) left me unprepared for how completely different a fountain pen would feel. Its thin ink immediately leaves a mark on paper with even the slightest, pressure-free touch to the surface. My writing suddenly grew extra lines, appearing between what used to be separate pen strokes. My hand, trained by the ballpoint, expected that lessening the pressure from the pen was enough to stop writing, but I found I had to lift it clear off the paper entirely. Once I started to adjust to this change, however, it felt like a godsend; a less-firm press on the page also meant less strain on my hand. (…) My experience with fountain pens suggests a new answer. Perhaps it’s not digital technology that hindered my handwriting, but the technology that I was holding as I put pen to paper.

Like watches, fountain pens quickly morph from tools into (desk) jewelry or collector’s items.

Therefore, like watches, you can pay as much as you are willing to pay for a fountain pen… but they do not have to be expensive.

How to Try Out Fountain Pens and Fountain Pen Friendly Paper for Under $10

As of this writing, you can buy three Pilot Varsity (a.k.a. VPen) disposable fountain pens on Amazon for $7.99. I’ve seen single Pilot Varsity pens listed for $3.00.

Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens work reliably* * as writing tools. If you’ve never used a fountain pen, I think these are just dandy to experiment with. They are low cost, have plenty of ink, and you can test to see if you even enjoy writing with a fountain pen.

On the right paper, fountain pens flow. Your thoughts can flow with them. On the wrong paper, fountain pens scritch and scratch; the opposite of flow.

Look for paper with a smooth finish. To do this on a budget, go to your local discount store and buy a composition notebook made in Vietnam. In my neck of the woods, I find these for less than one dollar. Comp books made in Vietnam tend to have nicer paper.

You can also buy non-disposable fountain pens without paying a fortune.

Here is a beginner’s guide to using a fountain pen. Lots of other good videos and guides to fountain pens on the JetPens* * * site as well.

NOTES

* The big drawback? If anyone knows of a fountain pen and ink combo that works well for left-handed folks, let me know. (If you’re left-handed and you’re writing in a language that goes left to right (rather than, say, Hebrew), the ink smears. Lefties writing in English need quick-dry ink.)

* * Since I have loved fountain pens for coughty-cough years, I do have pens that are not disposable. But I still use Pilot Varsity pens for some things.

* * * I wish they paid me to promote them, but nope! I pay them… Anna’s Fun Money often wanders to jetpens.com.

REFERENCES

Giesbrecht, J. (2015) How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive, The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballpoint-pens-object-lesson-history-handwriting/402205/ (Accessed: 15 September 2022).

The Beginner’s Guide to Fountain Pens | JetPens (no date). Available at: https://www.jetpens.com/blog/The-Beginner-s-Guide-to-Fountain-Pens/pt/927 (Accessed: 23 September 2022).