When it came to choosing a notebook to use for drafting my next book, the last thing I knew I wanted was “fancy”. I didn’t want anything that made me self-conscious about doing the work or feeling OK with making a mess. I wanted something utilitarian, functional, and with enough room to stretch my ideas. I also guessed I might need more than one — so it had to be something I already had a few of on hand.
I settled on a spiral bound notebook that I received for free. I have several, in fact. It’s a branded promotional notebook from my friends at Clockwork — a local interactive agency. These were handed out at just about every tech related conference here in town for a couple of years. So, I always picked one up if I saw them and put it into my (large) pile of unused notebooks. I always appreciated the design. Each page has boxes in the header and footer for metadata. They are grid-ruled — a nice subtle dashed grid on recycled paper. A lot of pages too! In other words, I always liked them but did not have a use for them… Until now!
Most times, you don’t need a fancy notebook or perfect pen. You just need to get started. Just find something — anything you can live with — and get to work. The perfect notebook — the perfect anything — is always what is right for you and the task at hand.
If anything, the goal of this site is to help you find that and, then, to encourage you to stick with it.
This post was first drafted in the generic promotional notebook written about above using a Uniball Signo 207 Micro with black ink. A scan of the draft is available for download (PDF).
