My Notebook System

To be honest, I don’t have anything resembling a system, an ecosystem, a method, or whatever terms the cool folks use to describe their notebooks and how they use them.

Rarely, if ever, would I use words like that to describe how I use notebooks. I view how I use a notebook as part of the way in which I work, a way of working that I refined over decades of turning to pen and paper.

So, how do I use notebooks? Rather simply. I have three notebooks in play at any one time:

• A hardcover A5 one for planning and tracking larger projects.
• A pocket notebook for jotting down general ideas and thoughts, for writing drafts for my blogs and articles, and for taking notes for shorter writing projects.
• Another pocket notebook to take notes for my weekly letter.

Here’s what those notebooks look like side by side:

Thinking about it (and I have!), I can probably get away with only two notebooks. Chances are that I’ll go the two notebook route sometime in the future. I just need to get to the last pages of the notebooks I’m currently using before that happens. For now, though, I like the separation that those three notebooks give my work and my thinking.

What about the notebooks themselves? At the moment, they’re definitely not high end. One is a hardback notebook I got at an event. The other two I bought at a Japanese discount store in Auckland for $3 each. It just goes to show that you don’t need expensive notebooks¹ to record your thoughts or to be productive.

The way in which I use those notebooks is basic, minimal, and (to some, I’m sure) boring. I don’t hack or mod my notebooks. I don’t use a table of contents or an index with any of them. I don’t add tabs or colour coding². I use my notebooks as they are. I don’t coddle or zealously protect them. I use them as tools, as they’re meant to be used.

— Scott Nesbitt