On finishing a notebook
I bought a little notebook recently.
I've done this many times in my life, so it isn't in itself remarkable. What is remarkable is that a little over a month later, that notebook is full. This hasn't, in my memory, ever happened before. I always think it's worth noticing when something so habitual (for me) as the process of aspirationally buying, using-for-a-little-while and then forgetting about a notebook suddenly changes. So what happened? What changed?
Almost directly responsible is this one reasonably unassuming YouTube video that the algorithm put on my phone while I was lying in bed some time in May: This pocket notepad is (slowly) replacing my phone (2023), by Austin Schrock. I've never watched any of Austin's videos before, or indeed since, and I've never really gone looking for "notebook content" on the internet either. I wasn't out here looking to better myself by cracking the secret to finally actually using a piece of stationery. We'll get to the core of what it was about this video that make me click and watch at the end, because there's something to cover there.
In this video, Austin talks about a few things. None of them are particularly groundbreaking: primarily he's excited about the peacefulness-of-mind he gained from taking the time and mechanical focus to physically write thoughts down on paper, and specifically the freedom from his phone and the wider attention economy that this grants him. What stood out to me was how absolutely enthusiastic he was about two things: first, that a notebook should go everywhere with you (at least as "everywhere" as we typically keep our phones) and second, that it should not under any circumstances be treated as precious.
The first point is largely practical: if it's going to occupy the right place in your life, a notebook should be small and unintrusive enough to keep on your person at pretty much all times. For many people, this means "small enough to go in the back pocket of your trousers". For the not-always-pocketed amongst us, it needs to go wherever your other "always valuables" go: a handbag, backpack etc.
The second point is the one that I found really liberating. In the past, I've bought nice little notebooks, with the intention of keeping a neat diary, or a kind of curated creative sketching space. I would then encounter much more mundane and everyday uses for notes: shopping lists, to-do lists, sketches to illustrate a point, and avoid using said neat little notebook in the name of keeping it for its original neat little task. I'd use my phone instead, and each time I did, this sort of protective enchantment on the perfectly usable pad of paper nearby would grow ever so slightly in strength until it faded out of usefulness or presence in my mind.
The key to it all, for me, was deliberately going out and choosing a notebook that looked sturdy enough to survive being in pockets and bags on a daily basis, and not-too-fancy enough to avoid tricking me into looking after it. Once I did that, everything flowed. I would write everything in this book: shopping lists, to-do lists, sketches, careful plans, silly little poems, and a ton of creative ideas. If I went too many pages away from the last time I wrote a to-do list, I didn't try to keep going back to it: I copied what was still to do onto a fresh page and added new things. I treated it wastefully (admittedly in a very small scale way). Who cares if each page is used right? If I fancied squeezing a new note into some remaining space on the most recent page then I did. Otherwise, I just started a new one.
This might all seem completely "why is just writing normal things in a normal notebook such a big deal?" to you. To me, a woman who in her worst Hobbycraft moments had literally tens of not just unfinished, but often unstarted notebooks and sketchpads cluttered in the flat, it marks something of a milestone.
NB: I mentioned that I'd say a little about why I clicked that video in the first place. The title fed so perfectly into this desire I've had for quite some time now around moving away from my phone, specifically by deliberately replacing its all-functions-in-one-place model with a set of well-designed, single-purpose tools. A phone is undeniably convenient, but it excites my soul to imagine it substituted for a sturdy notepad, a nice pen, a good camera that weighs a bit and physically (not just audibly) clicks when you press the shutter. Maybe even a film camera that needs developing at the shop so that you can literally hold your pictures in your real hands. An alarm clock that stays in the one place an alarm clock needs to be, next to your bed. Imagine telling an alien that we all like to carry our alarm clocks around with us in our pockets all day every day. That's weird. We're weird. Maybe alongside this set of useful, tangible, satisfying tools there'd be space for a device that did some things well: a calendar that can remind you of things, a phone to call and text people from. But the more that device and its apparently isatiable desire for my attention can be kept at arm's reach, the better.