The whole point of [keeping a notebook] is to make it yours… and do it in your own way…. That’s how you need to treat every notebook you’ve got! You need to be okay with whatever you put in there being complete garbage…. This means that even if you don’t know how to draw, it’s okay for you to draw. Even if you don’t know how to doodle, it’s okay for you to doodle. Even if you don’t know how to write, you know what? You are totally okay to just go write something. And if you don’t like it, you can tear it up, and throw it in your neighbor’s yard.
Wednesday is such a good day to connect deeper and draft a real letter. Imagine one real letter per week, some fifty great letters written per year. Real paper, real pen, real envelope, real stamp, real walk to a post-box. Posted and love sent.
It’s not Wednesday. But it is what we believe in for any day of the week.
The Hobonichi Techo has been the one stationery constant in my life this year. I use it every day to record things that have happened, places I have visited and big occasions that I want to remember. I am now 10 months in and I have only missed a handful of days. This post is a round-up of the good and the bad of the Techo and my plans for next year.
As I’ve stated before, I absolutely love reviews of products months, or even years, into using them. I think such long term experience means one has really taken the time to see how something works for them in regular use. This is a great one filled with gorgeous pictures and key insights. If you’ve been on the fence about the Hobonichi Techo, this is sure to sway you one way or the other.
I really enjoyed Austin Kleon’s wonderful talk about journalling. Features many examples of how famous folks journaled. Quite the variety and for many may help expand the idea of what a journal can be.
Use it as a datebook, task manager, or a daily journal.
Your whole year, laid out in one well-designed book,
make it yours—and make every day count.
Baron Fig, one of my favorite notebook companies, has just released their first planner and it’s so beautiful and so nice and I so can’t even…
Just, well, look. Baron Fig is one of those companies that cares. They care about the details. They care about aesthetics. They care about good materials. They care about nice paper and how it feels to write on it. They care about the experience — how nice it is from the purchasing to the packaging to the purpose. They give a damn. When they have sent me things to check out, they always take the time to send me a hand written note of gratitude. And there are so many others out there that just don’t care.
Caring is rare and special these days. So I have no problem whatsoever supporting what they do. Because, unlike many other companies, these guys really appreciate and care about each and every customer and making the best possible products they can. If you are in the market for a good planner, or even a really solid well made notebook, you should take care to check them out.
I believe in the benefits, yet theres’s a disconnect. Each time I try to maintain a journal in earnest, I fizzle out.
I’ve been there too Dave. At many points in my life. There are many things that helped me — building it on existing routines, letting “anything count” even if it is a single word or a doodle (and there are a few days it’s been only that), and allowing myself to “back fill” where I fill the current day’s entry in the next day.
But, while I certainly believe in the benefits of keeping a journal I certainly understand it is not something for everyone. It’s OK not to journal if that’s you.
As a kid, I remember my father at the dining room table in the morning jotting down his to-do list for the day on his mini legal pad as he sipped coffee and took in the busy goings on in our household. I remember his orange or brown or red Paper Mate felt tip pens scratching out instructions to himself in perfect architect block script. My father could make a grocery list look like a precise set of life specifications. But he made lists or, as he told me more than once, it was gone.
I don’t think I’ve had a conversation with my Dad in years where a list of things he wished to discuss with me or questions to ask was not present — Jotted down. Usually on yellow legal paper. Pen in hand ready to capture notes and followups. And, my life is largely driven by lists I keep on 3×5 cards. Most of the commitments on my calendar begin life as an item on a list. Lists keep me moving forward.
I believe that these tools inspire us and ignite our individual urges to create. They free our creativity and sometimes even fuel them. Each pen, ink, notebook, pencil or scrap of paper gives us an excuse to tuck ourselves into our little paper world and spend some time with our thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, they make the icky tasks more palatable — why not turn your grocery list into a place to practice your calligraphy or drawing skills?
As amazing as our current electronic technologies are – despite their strengths – are terribly, terribly ephemeral. The code that worked yesterday isn’t support today. The processors of – five years ago, ten years ago – are brought to their knees by the computational complexity and presumed processor capabilities of today’s software. The runtime environments required by the digital creations I manifested as a University student not only do not exist – computers of today don’t even recognize the file types.
Perhaps it’s good that my chances of becoming a world-renowned graphic designer are quite slim. For if they were higher, and exhibits celebrating my early digital work were to be held, recovering that early work would be a significant undertaking. Even today. Unlike like my drawings and pastels – for those seem to be holding up just fine. I looked at them just the other day. The same day I went through the box in my office containing 25 years worth of my sketchbooks. All the paper – just as I remembered it. All the sketches just as they were the last time I looked at them.
I didn’t need to convert them into a different file format or upgrade the software before I opened each sketchbook and revisited each page. I simply opened it. I simply turned the page. No need to for anything more. The paper persists.
One story at a time, I’m writing down the stories of my life. In a book. A high-quality, hardcover book. One story at a time, handwritten on paper in the book. A book I want to exist for a century and a half, if not longer. The book will go into the box with all the other family stories and photos – all of which are on paper. Stories and photos that – while they may not be on their original paper – are on paper.
Sure, I could type out these stories in typerighter.com just as I’m writing this. I enjoy writing in typerighter.com (I better, I built it for me, for long-form writing). But there’s no chance this typerighter.com will be around in more than a century. I even have a hard time envisioning it living beyond this next decade. Even if it does, that will mean countless technology migrations, not just server migrations, but also application layer and database migrations. All of these changes requiring regression tests – however humble.
Somewhere out on the internet there’s a story describing the problem of archiving electronic art. In it, the author describes the process. The process of picking the ideal computer for perpetually running the archived software, completely isolated from the rest of the internet. They described the need to prevent any of the bits of software from ever updating, from the intended application, all middleware, to the operating system, everything. All of which will ensure that this singularly valuable bit of software can continue to provide value for generations to come.
Unless those generations have something other than electrical service expected by the computer’s power supply.
Then – poof. It’s gone.
Last month, I brewed a batch beer. This particular recipe was originally used by a British brewery circa 1868. It was included in a book collecting a number of British and German beer recipes from 1850–1950. Theses recipes were extracted from the actual brewers logs of the time. Brewers logs that were written on paper in books and shared in-house to ensure a consistent product from batch to batch.
Am I using the same ingredients the Tetley Brewery did 147 years ago? Highly doubtful. Today’s grains, hops, and yeast are far more optimized for brewing than they were a century ago. But, since I have the beer’s characteristics; alcohol, bitterness, color, clarity, along with specified grain, hops, and yeast, I can get very close to recreating this beer. As can anyone else.
I don’t necessarily need their equipment or their process for creating fire. That’s all changed. I need the identifying, distinguishing characteristics. The same distinguishing characteristics that were originally written down 150 years ago on paper to help the next brewer on the shift.
This essay was originally published in Garrick van Buren’s weekly newsletter, Expand, and is posted here with his permission. While it is not always about the stuff we cover here it is always worth the time. Check it out.
