Notebooks

I work in a software company, but I couldn't do my work without paper notebooks. I'm running several at once:

Five Year Diary
A gift from Paul six years ago and again last Christmas, this book from Levenger gives me five lines a day, for five years. It's eerie to read back several years and remember what I was writing about, I'm about to finish year #1 of volume #2. I love the short snapshot format. I write this first thing in the morning for the preceding day, while I'm sitting in front of my light-box.

Gratitude Journal
I started this in August 2013, but made it a daily practice on September 1st, 2015. Only good things go in here, it is my second morning journal. I read some of Janice Kaplan's book The Gratitude Diaries, and I liked her ideas. This feels like a good exercise to remind myself of good things when I can't currently see good in my world. This is a Rhodia Webnotebook in a (now discontinued) Saddleback Leather cover.

Sketchbook
After the five year diary and the gratitude journal, I do some sketching in a Strathmore wire-bound sketchbook until I fill up a page. 28 days straight as of December 20th. There's some progression in my doodles and I'm finding I want to draw things from sight, not by memory, so I'm staging a few objects there, including a small model of a person, a wooden bead, and a piece of driftwood from my parents.

Diary
This is the all-purpose book I carry around with me, I leave 3 pages blank in the front for an index and hand-number the odd pages. When it's full, I put a full index into Indxd and make a written index of highlights in those first three pages. It holds song lyrics, quotes, diary entries, musings, answers to questions, notes from talks I attend, notes on books I'm reading, sermon notes, this is my catch-all. It's another Rhodia Webnotebook in a Gfeller cover periodically treated with One Star Leather balm, which has saved it from a leaky water bottle.

Work notebook
My daily companion at work, this travels with me in a waxed canvas clutch. Meeting notes, status updates, doodles during meetings, lists, all the work-related note-taking lives here. I use a Clairfontaine 1951 notebook in a custom leather cover from Graham Keegan. I'm on the third one of these and I managed to put this one into the holder upside down. I'll need a new notebook soon because it's well over half full.

Task list and Mood Log
I use a Word notebook for task lists with personal tasks in the front and work tasks in the back. Twice a day, at lunchtime and around 5pm, I put a mood rating in a second Word notebook, from 1 (hideously awful) to 10 (best day ever). I average over the week and keep an eye on the week-to-week trend. Walking into your annual check-up with metrics gets a doctor's attention. These two travel with me in a Nock Hightower case.

End of day notebook
This is new, an experiment from Shawn Blanc's Elements of Focus course, which is a free video course with small assignments. One assignment is to leave myself a note with what thing I should do first tomorrow, another assignment is to list what I accomplished today, and two things I'm grateful for. It's going to be interesting to compare the gratefulnesses with the gratitude journal over time. This is a 3x5 Calepino notebook.

Handbag notebook
This is another Calepino notebook in a One Star Leather cover that lives in my handbag. It's for out and about notes, things I think of while driving, songs I want to buy when I get home. I don't write in it while I'm driving, but I have pulled off the road into a store car park to jot something down.

Nine notebooks, and all of them have their own purpose, I didn't realise it was that many. I have a preference for the Rhodia and Clairfontaine papers because they can handle a fountain pen. I've already filled a Mood Log, a Task List, a Handbag Notebook, two volumes of Diary, and two Work notebooks this year.

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