How many notebooks do you use at once? Notebook Strategy.

[Keyless Works]

How many notebooks do you use simultaneously and how do you use them?

 

I always struggle with strategy for my notebooks. I currently have the following in active use (all are A5 and approximately 190 pages):

 

1) Scratch: disposable notes, doodles, morning pages, etc. These notebooks are always destroyed when finished.

2) Work: meeting notes and general work notes.

3) Ideas: things I am working out in my head and on to the page...this one is always a complete mess in terms of organization

4) Learning notes: notes for classes and things I am learning about. I can rarely fill these with one course's worth of notes and often keep notes for two courses I am taking at the same time.

 

I don't like having so many going at once but I also feel like this is the bare minimum I need.

[samasry]

Very interesting organization and seems like a good  structure to organize the different tasks.

 

I am looking forward to hearing and learning the different structures used by  folks  around here.

 

Very nice idea for a  topic by the way.

[LizEF]

I don't know, so let's count them...

1. Hobonichi A6 (bullet journal style with habit tracker, ink log, reading log, etc.)
2. Rhodia A5 webnotebook is my journal (wall-of-text style)
3. A Miliko Journal (between A5 and A6) that I use to record only happy stuff / gratitude; sometimes has the same things (often worded differently) as my journal
4. Clairefontaine french rule notebook(s) that I use to attempt to practice my handwriting - and always give up not long after I start.
5. Maruman Mnemosyne A5 blank that I sometimes use to make doodles
6. Maruman Mnemosyne A4 grid that I sometimes use to take notes in meetings
7. Leuchtturm1917 A4+ (Master Slim) that I use to copy the lyrics of hymns and my thoughts on the same
8. Various sizes of Rhodia dot pad get used on demand  (I have 4 in use right now - one for my ink reviews)
9. Scratch notebooks - I have a mini, an A5, and an A4/letter one in progress right now.  I use these to jot info I know I'll eventually trash
10. Hippo Noto - I have one of these that I use whenever I want to write a forum (or similar) reply by hand and post a picture
11. Black n' Red A5 is sometimes used to write letters (though I mostly use stationery for letters)
12. Midori MD A5 and some unknown journal my mom had, but had never used: - these were being used to copy stuff, then to take notes, and now they're on the shelf waiting for a new purpose.

The first 2 are used daily, the 3rd frequently, all the rest are more of an "on demand" situation.

 

Well, @Keyless Works, I hope that helps you to feel more organized.   I'm going to go now and let all that information drift back into my subconscious... 

[Linger]

Yeah - good topic! I am struggling with the same mild anxiety - not yet having arrived at a satisfactory strategy. My practice is worse though:

 

TN size (all three fit in one sleeve):

1. scribblings and drawings and sketches

2. to-do lists

3. short notes and quotes

 

A5 size (these two fit in one sleeve):

4. Notes and thoughts and concepts and stuff - business

5. Same - private

 

A5 size (stacked on my desk):

6. Lyrics of cool songs

7. Words with dictionary explanation

8. Habit tracker - an effort to keep me on course with resolutions and such

9. Journal - private stuff: doubts, hopes, worries for my eyes only

 

A4 size (NOT YET STARTED)

10. Journal - more general, less private, about interesting stuff that happened during the day, a real journal

 

To keep all more or less updated is already an effort. To also start with #10 seems too much. Double work. Or perhaps not as it might replace some of the others. Dunno yet, but ofcourse bought the stationary already: a Dingbat and a Life Noble…

[Keyless Works]

Great responses!

 

Hmm, maybe I need to experiment with having more active notebooks.

[flatline]

1. a tiny credit card sized notebook by Leuchtturm that literally fits in a credit card pocket of my wallet. I write appointments and important dates in it. Mostly a backup for the calendar app in my phone, but works even if my battery is dead and easier to check if I'm talking on the phone.

2. 2.5" x 3.5" notebook that rides behind my wallet. Filled with phone numbers, grocery lists, restaurant orders, math scribbles, anything I don't trust my short term memory for. I got a stack of these for free several years ago and am totally hooked on them now.

3. A7 journal that lives in my vehicle for whatever. Often functions as a journal when I'm traveling.

4. Another (thinner) A7 journal that lives in my vehicle for tracking vehicle maintenance. When I sell my  vehicle, this journal will go with it to the new owners.

5. A5 journal with slightly textured paper for journaling with pencils.

6. A5 journal with smoother paper for journaling with ink

7. Stack of composition notebooks (graph, college, and wide rule) that my kids bring home from school each year barely used. I find them to be convenient scratch paper when I'm pseudo-coding or diagraming for work (or play).

 

When the two A5 journals are done, I'm going to quit having separate journals for graphite and ink. I've found some journals that are good enough for both that I'll just use the same journal for whatever kind of writing instrument I happen to want to be writing with.

 

I  used to have a journal that I strictly used red ink in since I had a ton of red pens to use up from assorted packs where we had used the blue and black, but left the reds in the drawer. Turns out that one 200-page journal will empty 3-4 pens. I still have at least two dozen red pens in the back of the drawer, but I've lost interest. I just don't care for writing with red ink for some reason.

 

I think that's all the active notebooks I have.

 

--flatline

[arcfide]

I'm in a perpetual cycle right now between the "many small notebooks" and the "few larger notebooks" models. I'm...somewhat hyper-organized, and getting more so, which means that I'm still struggling to nail down a truly optimal notebook pattern for myself since my style of working and engaging with work is changing over time. 

 

There are a few that are stable items that pretty much stay relevant and "active" all the time:

• Kokuyo Jibun Techo planner with IDEA insert and LIFE insert
• Apica 5-year diary
• Midori MD A5 notebook labeled "Reference"
• Some notepad for loose leaf writing and a stationary notepad for writing letters (often the same notepad for both)

The Jibun Techo is used almost precisely as it was designed to use. I have found it to be one of the best and most addictive planners I have ever used, and it almost always has a well thought out layout for exactly my workflows, meaning that I don't have to have extra notebooks to handle things like lists of things, todos, schedules, habit tracking, weather, food, sleep, and so forth. This contains, at a meta level, my "actions" or "tasks" or "doing" elements of my life, and the metric for the same. I use the IDEA booklet for a catch all list of things if I have too many ideas or things that need to simmer and can't be scheduled. I have oscillated on a regular basis between different ways to use the main weekly planner pages, but they always revolve around journaling/tracking my time/schedule and what tasks I'm working on in a week and month, but how I make use of the lists and schedule and how that links with the rest of my notebooks has varied. 

 

The Apica 5-year Diary is my rock solid place to record the boring journal of a day's events and the primary chronological catalog of life and maybe some of my summary thoughts. 

 

The Midori MD notebook somehow made it in as my Reference book, but it isn't clear whether I would choose the MD as my choice a second time, but then again, I might. This notebook is very long lived, meaning that long term reference material that I want to remember or refer back to in time by subject/topic is in here. This includes outlines and summaries of big ideas from books or things I've read, as well as general hard to remember information. 

 

The above is pretty stable for me. What tends to change is how I deal with subject-level work. I was keeping Morning Pages for a while, but I stopped doing that, and now I do a type of freeform journaling on demand to augment my 5-year and Techo. When doing morning pages, I always kept a dedicated notebook for that alone. For freeform journaling, I sometimes have kept it inline with my other work, and sometimes as a separate book. 

 

I always need some book for meeting notes, project plans/outlines, and miscellaneous ideas. I usually combine this with my freeform journal, and the notebook itself is designed to flow chronologically through my work. The problem is what happens with I have bigger and deeper projects that generate a lot of written output, or that I touch only infrequently, meaning that the information on that project can end up scattered across multiple notebooks. I have been cycling through very many small notebooks and only a single notebook to carry all this information, with many small notebooks for each small subject or putting all those big projects into a single bigger notebook and making use of more sophisticated indexing. 

 

A consistent thing that I have identified as required is the ability to "age" information from transient books that are likely to fill up quickly into a Reference book that will live for a long time. 

 

Right now I have an Apica Premium CD B5 notebook that I use for writing out fiction, and I've found it beneficial to keep that in a separate book simply because it means that I don't have to carry it around all the time, and even if I don't write in it for a while, the narrative/record stays somewhat coherent. 

 

I have begun to find that a sophisticated index for subject level work in a large notebook tends to be unwieldy compared to many small notebooks, since I have trended towards fewer active projects at a time, and having them in separate small notebooks allows me to scale better when one project moves very slowly while another moves fast without causing the information to be hard to find. It also gives me more flexibility about when to take what with me. 

 

However, what I've been doing lately is *really* aggressively pruning my projects. This means that I am at a point where I might be able to realistically work on more or less a single project at a time with only small transient projects coexisting at the same time. In this case, I am trying to use a single notebook for this again, where my freeform journaling, meeting  notes, and so forth, are all kept in the single notebook for the convenience that provides. If I can keep my active projects small enough or few enough, then I suspect that this will work better than many small notebooks, but I still always keep a spare notebook ready in case I encounter some large project that I want to retain as a separate notebook for some reason. 

 

In short, I'm trying to find ways of doing two things: reduce the burden of grouping and organizing information within notebooks into local clusters around subject and chronology; and, minimize the number of active notebooks that I need to use and carry with me on trips. This means reducing indexing burdens while also keeping my notebook count small. I am approach this in part by changing the way I work and take on projects and not just changing my notebook systems. Right now I'm succeeding with using a single "Research/Journal" notebook for most of my work on top of the above, while keeping the "Fiction" book as a separate book. 

 

What most annoys me, however, is that I mostly have a different notebook type and brand for each of these functions, each with different paper. I really want to get a single standardized system with a single standard of paper, notebook configuration, style, and organizational principle. I'm not quite there yet. 

[ParramattaPaul]

I separate notebooks by purpose.  First, there is my Filofax diary for schedule and miscellaneous notes that I use through the day, and for planning.  Then there are two or three for technical and study notes for different subjects or purposes.  In a very real way, my notebooks are much parallel a filing cabinet with separate drawers being used for different types of files or a computer's folders and files system.

[ridiculopathy]

Oh boy. I am addicted to buying notebooks and notebook covers, so I WILL start one for the flimsiest of reasons.

 

Active:

1. Doodling and ink testing - Midori MD B6 Slim

2. Travel journal - Traveler’s Notebook Regular size (weekly + blank refills)

3. Work - Maruman B5 Spiral

4. Practical life notes - e.g. most recently it was how to buy a house (not the best timing…) - Midori MD A5

5. 3-year journal - Nanami Seven Seas A5 

6. Book and movie journal - Opinions on what I’ve read or watched - Nanami Seven Seas A5

7. Planner - Midori Datebook B6

8. Stationery purchases - Just a list, so I can keep track of how crazy I was each year - Kokuyo A6

 

Hiatus:

1. Foreign language - Against all advice to focus on one at a time, I tried/try to learn 3 with equal priority. Hence, it becomes a very on-and-off situation - a bunch of grid notebooks

2. Dream journal - Stopped out of laziness even though I like looking back on them - Monobukuro Boo B6 notebook that’s not FP-friendly. Maybe that’s why I don’t write in it, haha.

 

Retired:

1. Rants - I don’t like looking back at negative thoughts, so now I either don’t write them down or use loose leaf paper that immediately goes into the shredder

2. Redundant notebooks - So many partially filled notebooks that I start for the flimsiest of reasons (as noted above) that get retired because they serve the same purpose as my Active ones. 

 

[Ergative]

I also have multiple notebooks going. Currently I have:

 

1. Notebook that started as general journal/fiction sketches for stories I poke around at, but is now mostly devoted to a longer story that has really taken off: Nanami Seven Seas (A5, unlined paper)

2. Notebook that is currently for writing ink samples but will replace (1) above when it is full: Cosmo Air Light A5 from danika58 on Etsy

3. Notebook that started as a way for writing ink samples but is now editorial/story notes for (1)

4. Notebook that is for work notes: Nanami Seven Seas (A5) crossfield

5. Notebook that is for really janky work notes because I belatedly discovered that that a fat A5 is not appropriate for janky work notes when I need larger paper for sketching out ideas: Office Depot spiral bound, taken from office supply cupboard. (This is almost full).

6. Notebook for notes on work articles and research: Black & Red hardbound 

 

I really need to replace 5. I can use (4) in a pinch, I guess, but I prefer A4 for janky work notes. So far I've been using loose-leaf Kokuyo business printer paper for janky work notes (which I recommend highly, by the way--it takes fountain pen inks well, no bleeding or feathering, and even does quite well with dip pen calligraphy, which tends to destroy all but the best papers.)

[bogiesan]

Before returning, I used only one: Franklin Dayplanner. Everything was in one location which made life easy to organize and track. I was a dedicated user for three decades. Now, I have two notebooks, a pocket molie for journaling and scheduling and a medium sized molie for art and stained glass project tracking. 

 

I found having multiple notebooks is a disaster for anyone on the ADD spectrum. 

[Karmachanic]

1] A6 tracking inks/pens

2] Pocket Leuchtturm for informal weekly study/lectures

3] A6 Stalogy (368p) for serious lectures, which take place 2/3 per annum

4] A5 TR/Stalogy for transcribing Buddhist texts

5] A6 GoodINKPressions TR for resonant quotes from above.

6] A5 MR Basicos - mind dump

7] Pocket Moleskine for on the go notes

 

For now.

[JakobS]

1 Seven Seas Writer that is being used for a novel 

1 Seven Seas Note that is being used for poetry

1 Medium Leuchtturm that is being used for a separate novel

1 Medium Leuchtturm that is being used for poetry

1 Miquelrius 5x6 ring notebook that is used for another novel

1 Rhodia Color Staplebound pad 5x6 (I think), being used for a play

1 Rhodia Color Staplebound pad 5x6(?), being used for poetry

1 Miquelrius 5x6 ring Notebook being used for poetry(I think)

1 Maruman Mnemosyne B5 notebook for short stories 

1 Clairefonte 8x10 ring notebook being used for short stories 

1 Miquelrius 8x10 ring notebook being used for short stories 

 

I use them as I have them listed, and when the thought comes to me to continue on the stories or poems I was writing within each notebook. No method to the madness, or strategy, whatever I feel like at the time I pick up and write. I am really focused more on the paper than the need for anything to be in a notebook, so even having a notebook per se is not part of the overall purpose of their existence...

 

I switch writing between these notebooks and on loose leaf Kokuyo paper in A5 or B5 size, finding the B5 size to be my preference currently, and store it in a B5 Kokuyo slide binder, which I find to be a great binding system! 

 

 

[loganrah]

I think this is all going to depend completely on what your life is like.

 

There seems to be a strange idea on the internet that somehow the way to organise things for someone who works as a chef is going to be the same for someone who works in public policy but has 3 or 4 hobbies and is going to be the same as someone who works as a 'writer' (don't get me started on the uselessness of that term; writer of what?) and is going to be the same for someone who works as an academic. 

 

Use whatever number of notebooks you need or feel like and organise them however you find works best. I very much doubt anyone else's life will be similar enough to yours for their advice to matter (not even considering personal tastes etc.)

[aimi]

I really like your idea of a “scratch” notebook. My notebooks generally get messed up together haha. Right now I have:

 

- Work notebook (Midori MD)

- Sketch notebook (Yoseka): but I almost always sketch in all the other books too…

- Language learning notebook (Midori MD): but I put almost everything random in it too so it may just turn into a “scratch” notebook……….

- Quotes (Graphilo): such a beautiful paper with few pages, making it perfect for some large, handwritten quotes

- Misc (Hobonichi Weeks): I just put whatever notes in here— what I did one day, a restaurant I’d like to visit, PIN numbers (probably shouldn’t), etc 

[Ergative]

1 hour ago, loganrah said:

 I very much doubt anyone else's life will be similar enough to yours for their advice to matter (not even considering personal tastes etc.)

 

Nothing wrong with getting ideas from other people! Behold: 

 

47 minutes ago, aimi said:

I really like your idea of a “scratch” notebook. My notebooks generally get messed up together haha. Right now I have:

 

[derivativegal]

5 notebooks . . . I still use a Franklin Planner (25 yrs)  but only pencil and ballpoints work without bleed through. I have my main journal which is FP friendly paper. I subscribe to Field Notes, but they are not FP friendly. I guess I have a version of "morning papers" since my family buys me those inexpensive kitschy notebooks which I write my morning grumpiness in when I am drinking my first cup of coffee. I am always grumpy because I have to walk the dogs before coffee! I have an ink thoughts journal also.

[flatline]

In addition to all the notebooks I have floating around, I also keep a stack of 3x5 index cards on my desk for notes.

[inkstainedruth]

I have too many to count.  

I have a bunch of cheap composition books (various brands and countries of manufacture for various uses.  Three are for noting what inks work well in specific pens (but I'm hopelessly behind in that.  Several have been, or are, for poetry writing; others have been for trying my hand at fiction.  Some ended up being given to my husband so he could make work notes.

I have a stack (some full, a few unused as yet, of the Miquelrius 600 page soft cover journals for doing morning pages (I tend to go through about three per year). 

I have a stack (current count is four) of cheap Piccadilly sketch books, which I use to test and compare inks -- although the paper is very absorbent and can radically alter the color of the ink as compared to other paper.

I have several small notebooks that live in my purse or basket, including one of the mini composition books to keep track of expenses (at 3/$1 US at the local Dollar Tree, they're good for that).  I have some of the smallest size of Rhodia pads (the No. 10 size) that I do mini-tests of ink on (some are grid paper, others are lined).  I have a large range of smallish notebooks (bigger than those and sometimes bigger than the Dollar Tree ones) for quick notes or sketches.  I have a variety of other notebooks that are variously sized that I've picked up here and there (a couple at a recent yard sale, a couple of Fabriano ones I've gotten at the local Dick Blick's, a couple of the Ecosystem ones (one lined, for random writing if I don't want to carry a composition book with me, and one for drawing -- but you can't get them anymore).  I have a few of the small flip-top style ones (mostly topping out an order from Miquelrius as packing material) but those are mostly used up.  And I have a couple of cheapie (as in, I didn't buy them) pads for stuff like shopping lists.

I also have a B5 size (IIRC) Namami boxed notebook, but have almost been afraid to use it.  And a handmade journal commissioned by my husband (along with two smaller sized ones I commissioned) from a now, sadly deceased friend for when I got the highest level service award in the organization I'm in a little over 5 years ago.  I though the smallest one was unnecessary, since it was just to keep track of who came in to talk to me before the awards ceremony but I got outvoted); the mid-sized one was for people to write stuff in; the big one, which was a surprise, sat in a desk drawer for two years while I figured out just what to do with it, then decided it would be excellent for doing the Artist's Way exercises.  Someday, I'm going to take another stab at it (NOT during Christmas holidays this time!) because I still have plenty of pages in that (I think the paper might be Fabriano -- the books were commissioned with the thought of people being able to use fountain pens with, because my friend was a skilled calligrapher and illuminator and I'd had a couple of interesting chats with her about what pens we used.

And, well, I see that Target has composition books on sale this week for 50¢....  (Must be strong against the call....   Especially since I just got a 100 sheets of Tomoe River B5 size paper from Anderson Pens a couple of days ago....)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for typos

[Paul-in-SF]

Since I'm retired and don't need a planner beyond my wall calendar, I only have 4 (and only if you count a scratch pad with it's own dedicated pen nearby as one). 

 

Journal, for journaling my precious thoughts - A4 (various brands used, currently on Franklin-Christoph)

Ink journal - A5 (using the InkDex guide behind the pages; Tomoe River paper, only using one side)

Books read journal - A5 (preformatted pages)

Scratch pad, nothing is kept from that for long term.