#23

Some story here - print rubs off on every single one, but I still love them! Can never decide which size I like best though…

I just wanted to highlight this from the other thread, because for me this is so true. I go through periods where I keep everything in my head - my calendar, my todos, my goals, ideas… and it gets so stressful… it gets marginally better when I start writing things in .txt files, .mds, phone notes, phone to-do lists, but it is so decentralized that I still lose track of things. When I get in the habit of writing in a centralized, indexed notebook though, it is really like a weight is lifted. It also gives me something to look forward to doing in the mornings when I wake up and throughout the day.

Sometimes I fall out of the habit though, and it usually has to do with when I am struggling to meet goals and start feeling bad that I am not meeting targets or seeing a lot of blank checkboxes…

This thread thankfully has gotten me to sit back down and start-up again with my notebooks this morning and start thinking more about how I want to avoid the same mistakes that have led me to stop in the past.

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#24

Thanks @alanza!

There are only 48 pages, after all! :smiley:

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#25

Y’all have soothed my worried heart.

#26

Y’all indexing your notebooks makes me feel like I’m slacking :stuck_out_tongue:

I really like having a notebook as an ephemeral place to collect thoughts and reflect upon them but I find myself doing so sporadically, mostly because I don’t keep them on hand… so as an alternative I’ve hung a whiteboard (large, 2ft x 4ft) in the middle of my apartment and I find myself jotting things down there a lot more frequently. I’ve been starting to transcribe these in my notebooks and use them as a jumping off point for deeper points of reflection.

Also, I have a really hard time writing in a lined notebook. I love blank pages for organizing separate thoughts into a geographical location on the page. Recently been using a graph paper notebook which I really like for more orderly notes / diagrams, but the paper is so thin… maybe it’s time to actually find “my notebook.”

Also also, I really like Micron .05s but I have a bit of a heavy hand and tend to wear the tip out faster than I’d like… any recommendations on pens that have a similar ink flow with a more sturdy tip?

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#27

I found my perfect pencil, but, alas, sold out.

#28

Speaking of paper …

Once you use Tomoe River Paper you will never go back to anything else for use with your fountain pen, because of course you take notes with your fountain pen.

Unless you’re one of those Smythson’s Featherweight Paper junkies. Like me.

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#29

For personal notes, I’ve been using Zequenz notebooks for a few years (I used to have Moleskines before) and I really like them. They’re typically thicker than things like Field Notes, but their main strength is that they can be bent as much as you want without damaging the cover or the binding. They use a custom circular binding method that works really well, I never had any issue with them (and I usually have the notebooks in a bag with me). They also give a nice little magnetic bookmark thing with each notebook that is surprisingly convenient.

I recently bought an A6 sized one (9*14cm), same size as a Field Notes but 256 pages so much thicker. I’d actually prefer 100-128 pages but this one works for me,

[Edit : this one is btw cheaper for me than a set of 3 Field Notes]

At work I use bigger notebooks with “soft rings”, i.e. flexible plastic instead of metal, and they’re really nice to use. I typically need bigger notebooks for work so these work perfectly.

And I used to have nice-ish pens (Rotring, Schaeffer, etc) but I now only use Pilot Frixion pens. I have one in my bag, one on my desk at work and one on my desk at home. They use a special ink that becomes invisible when heated enough, which is what happens when you use the “eraser” tip of the pen on it, so you get erasable notes without any of the problems of actually erasable ink. The 0.5mm are perfect for me.

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#30

I’m a part-time anthropologist and wanted to say I never thought lines would come through with some great advice on organizing my research. bless you all.

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#31

Yes, same here, particularly on the end which has the number that identifies the nib size.

#32

I was 100% computer based for a long time, so writing things down was never something I needed - I might jot down a few notes on a staff if I happened to be offline, but software saved everything else. Now I’m almost 100% off the computer, so writing down patches and presets has become a necessity.

I’ll use anything with Claire Fontaine paper (Rhodia are my favourite). Although I love the idea and execution of Field Notes, they don’t play well with fountain pens, so I can’t use them (I find their paper too dark for pencils).

I used to have a notebook per “theme”, until I discovered bullet journalling and the joys of The Index. Not having to think about which notebook to use is one less hurdle to getting the notebook out and writing. I also used to worry a lot about how things looked and whether I was using the “right” wording. Pah! Don’t worry, just write it down!

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#33

A while back I would, each year, turn over a new leaf in an effort to be a smarter/happier/healthier person. This would often coincide with buying a new notebook - a Leuchtturm, a Moleskine, a Field Notes (expensive in the UK!). I would have the notebook on my desk and would sometimes find myself staring at it for a time, as though hoping that a rich and consequential life would somehow now inevitably burst forth from the page. These notebooks would quickly gather a thick coating of dusty failure.

Anyway, a couple of years back I became disheartened with how many books I had read in the past but about which I could not recall even the slightest detail. I tried for a little while taking notes on a Kindle or iPad whilst reading and this was, as you’d imagine, quite horrible. I had the idea of using a notebook as a bookmark in a (physical) book. The notebooks would have to be thin and cheap. This lead me to discover Rhino Exercise Books. In the UK I can get 10 for about £4. They’re sustainably manufactured and recyclable. I take notes in pencil so I’m not sure how well they take ink. It really has transformed my reading and, most importantly, it’s been sustainable. I’ve churned through these notebooks and I like to transfer my notes to the Bear app once I’ve finished a book. What I like about them is that they’re so thin and unassuming that they they don’t intimidate me like my previous notebooks. They don’t introduce themselves as the companions of Hemingway and Picasso.

That said, I enjoyed how thoughtfully designed the notebooks I used to buy were, and now that I’ve developed a habit I should dig them out and use them for journaling. I really like the indexing stuff mentioned above.

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#34

I was using Frixions (and Muji’s own version) for a year or so, until I discovered that earlier notes were starting to deteriorate, with some sections completely invisible. Fine for scrap notes, but useless for long term documentation.

(However, I suspect this could be a function for some prescriptive working processes.)

#35

For pens, perhaps because I’m a lefty (or perhaps because I write weird :smile:) I’ve always found pens (especially ink/fountain pens) to be a bit of a nightmare. The Mitsubishi Uni-Ball Eye Micro 150 is a joy.

I’ve used them for years and the ink dries nice and quick, they write well, and they require hardly any pressure.
image

I also love clutch/mechanical pencils and I’ve used Pentel 120 A3 DX for years (my Dad always had them knocking round the house so they also make me think of him :heart:):
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#36

This thread has been very timely for me as i’m rethinking my note-taking materials and process. Thanks to everyone for contributing. I’ve got a solid system sketched out now for a more nuanced and planned approach to ‘daily’ and ‘deep’ notebooks, which will help me navigate projects a bit easier than my current approach that puts everything in one…

#37

Same here as well, but I love them all the same.

Their brush pens have a nice feel, though with my handwriting, I have no business attempting to use them.

#38

Surprised that it hasn’t come up, the Rotring 800 (0.5mm) is my go-to mechanical pencil for all calculations, note-taking, modular patch ideas/sketches, and intermittent journaling. I love its weight, balance, and design. For a while I was using a Cross Bailey with a fine nib, but a fountain pen felt far too slow when performing computations on paper. From all of the recommendations above, I’ll have to test out Leuchtturm 1917 when my current cheap student shop notebook is full.

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#39

Do you live in a particularly hot area ? The fading must be a result of exposure to heat. I thought the temperatures at which the ink fades/goes black were outside the range of normal daily life for most people but if that can be an issue then it’s indeed far from optimal.

I checked older notebooks and my notes from 3-4 years ago are still fine, so at least the extremes of Tokyo temperature are compatible with these :slight_smile: .

This does make me rethink a little bit what I want to use for notes that are supposed to have a long lifetime… I do like the convenience of the erasable ink without any garbage accumulating on the page though.

#40

I have a hard time committing to nice notebooks and pens.I have a tendency to misplace things, the same reason I have a pair of cheap ear buds in each of my coats, instead of one nice pair. Does this happen to anyone else?

I received this pen from a friend recently, and am happy to extol it’s virtues. Very smooth writing, doesn’t easily smudge or fade and has a satisfying tangible weight. It’s nice but not so nice it’d be upsetting to misplace it.

SX425

I am also a fan of parker ballpoint, which to me is like the casio f91w of pens. Relatively cheap, extremely reliable.
h396

Muji Notebooks are nice, and I can get them locally. Haven’t had the smudging problem, but that’s good information to consider. Does anyone else print out schematics/tutorials/articles? I have doutang folders that I keep with my projects, with synth circuits, and articles. I find it easier to process information from print.

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#41

Field Notes aren’t so available here in the UK, but they look quite similar to these pocket notebooks by Moleskine, which I’m fond of and carry around at all times:

They’re cheap and portable, nice paper quality, and - a really important feature - 16 of the pages at the back have a very fine perforation, so they’re detachable. So you can rip pages out neatly.

#42

perhaps, against nature of this thread, but I switched to a remarkable digital notebook a while back, and love it. it has totally replaced the notebooks I used to keep.

its feels enough like paper to be a pleasant experience to do things like sketching on, and immediate enough that you don’t have to think about it (unlike my experience with ipads/computers which like structure etc) … (*)

I arrange things as a number of bullet journals based around loose ideas, like projects or explorations.

of course, unlike some here, I don’t really have a big attachment to nice pens/notebooks,
I used to use cheapish notebooks, with a 2H pencil, and that’s all i needed to be happy :slight_smile: ,
as I just enjoy the process of taking notes, a way to brain dump ideas - and move on.

I find it amusing that once i write/draw something, I rarely need that note again, but the process is some how liberating - also i find if Im procrastinating - writing/sketching ideas can be a good way to kick start me into action :slight_smile:

(*) actually, I weirdly/irrationally felt that my notes/scribbles were some how wasting paper, and didn’t like the whole storing them and finding them when i needed them - nor the idea, that they could be lost.
so, apart from the backup, i don’t really use any non-paper like feature - i only tend to read on the tablet, i dont use OCR - rarely use it for PDFs etc.

its expensive for what it is, and many seem to struggle with the fact it is just a digital notebook (so doesn’t have tablet features) - but its worked out for me.

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