For the Love of Notebooks
"Officially starting a List Makers Anonymous group. Who loves well-crafted notebooks and the perfect pen?" Three years ago, I shared this post on Instagram and since then, my notebook collection has only grown. Confession: I have a slight notebook addiction. There is nothing more pleasing to my soul than opening the cover and seeing a fresh, blank sheet of paper and all the possibility that it brings.
However, there is a major flaw in my collecting paradigm.
I often find myself purchasing the "perfect" notebook, only to put it on my shelf and hold on to it for the right moment to use it... which never seems to come. Over the years, my collection has grown from my trusty Ampad Gold Fibre steno pad - spiral on top for us lefties - to this:
I shamefully present my stack of notebooks for your judging pleasure. Sadly, this does not show the notepads I've accumulated. Those probably deserve their own post. As I was gathering all of the specimens for this photo, I began to think about my notebook habits and realized a few things about myself.
I have a deep-seated love for composition books stemming back to junior high school.
I had the same English and literature teacher from 7th grade until I graduated high school. (The perks of being in a small private institution.) She would have us keep a composition book to take notes of the books we were reading, break down poems we were studying, jot down vocabulary we wanted to remember... Basically, the composition book was our own little reference book and I went through dozens of them.
I carried on this habit as I entered college and still use it to this day. I have one notebook for my daily journal, one where I keep track of my health, fitness, and measurements, another for the classes I take, one for research I'm doing... The list goes on and on. Whenever I see a good composition notebook that has a cute cover (either patterned or a bright color) and is a good price (think back to school sales) I will always buy a couple because I know I'll use them!
I prefer wide-rule paper over college-rule.
I will only bow to my perfectionist Enneagram one-self when I'm writing something I know someone else is going to see. This is the only time I will make the effort to keep my handwriting pretty and neat. Otherwise, it's pure chicken scratch as I scribble down notes, often in shorthand, that I can sometimes decipher later on.
My mind moves a mile a minute and I have to write fast so I can download all that info onto paper before I lose it. I write big and in cursive with furious downstrokes, so wide ruled paper is imperative. I've tried college, but it was too cramped and it didn't leave room for me to make edits and additional notes in the margins.
Usually, I'll use a spiral-bound notebook for my daily notes. I always keep one open next to my workspace and it will accumulate reminders, inspiration, phone numbers, or any other pertinent information that I need throughout the day. I scribble out the notes I no longer need and once I fill up a page, I rip it out and start on the next. I will use every single bit of whitespace before tearing it out. There is something so satisfying about the abstract pattern of scribbles and doodles that I end up with.
When it comes to notebooks, I prefer quality over name brands.
I have three Moleskine notebooks and three from a generic line that I picked up at a craft store. They are both the same quality, but Moleskines cost about three times more. They both come in a variety of styles (graph, dot, ruled) and different colored covers, although I prefer neutral shades.
Right now, I use the larger notebooks for my daily gratitude journaling and the smaller ones to keep track of finances since they are about the same width as a checkbook register. I do like how this style of notebook is thin so they don't take up a lot of space on a shelf or in a drawer. I am able to keep the smaller income and expense registers in a pouch along with receipts and other documents.
Since I've been using both brands for quite a while, I can honestly say that I don't see any difference between the two. I know there are a lot of people who stick with a name brand, but I can't see the point of paying so much money for a good quality product that you can get cheaper.
Book-bound notebooks are pretty, but not for me.
I do have a handful of thick, hardcover, book-bound notebooks. A few of them I found in a bookstore and they were just too beautiful to pass up. Others were gifts from loved ones. None of them have been used.
Because of the quality of the product, somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel like I need to have a really good reason to write in them, and so far, I haven't found one. I'm afraid I'm going to mess up a page and then I'll be stuck with it because it's bound into the spine. Why do I feel so guilty about using a product how it was intended?
I've learned how to be intentional when it comes to purchasing and using notebooks. I don't buy anything new unless I know for sure that it will have a distinct purpose, and I'm trying to work through what I have before I even look at the stationery aisle.
One of the biggest challenges I have to work on is my need to be a perfectionist when it comes to using these books. They were, after all, created to be written in, and I need to embrace the messiness that is sometimes me and pick one of these babies up and begin. I'm giving myself six months to start using these book-bound notebooks before I make the decision to find new homes for them. They are too pretty to just sit on a shelf.
