Matthew Lang’s Minilog

My friend Matthew Lang has been making mini-sketchnotes in his daily log and they are so great.

How hundred year old books are restored | Boing Boing

YouTuber Merphy Napier takes viewers into the world of book restoration in her series of videos about the world of publishing. Merphy follows a seasoned restoration expert as she breaks down the various steps necessary to preserve and rebind books that are centuries old.

Very cool. I have an early edition of my favorite Hemingway novel, For Whom The Bell Tolls, that will need some similar love sooner rather than later.

Finding an idea and creativity space with PLOTTER – Brad Dowdy [Interview No.003] – Plotter

I tried out many planners and notebooks at my job. My planner has rules, my journal has rules. However, I don’t have any rules when I open this up, so it just becomes a space to explore, freewheel, and expand on ideas. It’s an idea space that none of my other notebooks have.

PLOTTER is a Japanese notebook system soon to be released in the U.S. Nice profile of Brad and how he’s been using it while testing it out.

Why I Wrote My Latest Book By Hand | MONTECRISTO

The pencil is a tool; the laptop is a machine.

What we believe in.

World Sketchnote Day – Mattisms

Today is World Sketchnote Day and my friend Matthew Lang has a good write up about his own sketchnote journey.

Handwriting is still important – Julian Summerhayes

Grant you, the rubric is a bit tendentious — how do I know? — but none of us can entirely escape, even in an age of Smart Phones, the need, once in a while, to sign something, write a few words in a card, or (and we normally have to be in the right mood) send a hand-written letter.

My Journaling Webinar Is on YouTube! — Mac Sparky

Last week I did a free webinar on how and why I journal. It came out great, and I got a lot of positive feedback on it. I usually add the webinar content to the appropriate field guide after I’ve finished it. In this case, however, I don’t have any field guides where adding a 45-minute journaling webinar makes sense, so I’m posting it to YouTube. Enjoy!

Worth making the time to watch. Especially if you are looking to start, or re-boot, your journalling process.

Why Martha McPhee Carries a Notebook Everywhere | Wirecutter

I take it with me because it helps me track the uncharted territory of the present moment. In this act of gathering—scrawls about things noticed on the way to a store, the playbill for my son’s brief acting career, glue-sticked to the page—I’m forced to slow down and tend to the parts that evoke a whole.

(Via reader Rahul Gaitonde, published several months ago but I’m just seeing it now.)

I’ve always enjoyed asking the maker of a thing the “why” behind their making. What problem were they trying to solve? What was lacking in what was out there that made them decide to do their own?

Such is the case with Dan Provost of Studio Neat. I’ve love their products and have a couple that I use all the time. They are well made, beautiful, and full of nice touches and attention to detail. So, it was delight to have him answer the above questions regarding their pen, the Mark One:

I was introduced to the Schmidt P8126 rollerball refill when a friend gifted me a Retro 51 pen. I loved the way the pen wrote–the ink flow was so smooth and nice. But I hated the pen! I shared the pen with Tom and he agreed on both counts. So we thought, could we make a pen for this refill that is uniquely Studio Neat? And thus began the design process.

Probably my favorite thing about Mark One is it’s such a “pure” industrial design product. I don’t mean that in an arrogant or pretentious way, I mean it is an object that literally has a single button on it that you press to use. Our job was to make that button as satisfying as possible.

If you are in the market for a nice pen or unique notebook designed for a life where the analog and digital coexist, it’s worth checking out Studio Neat.

Journaling is fun! // Jack Baty’s Microblog

Journaling is fun. It’s a great way to put the little Instax printer to use, also. My big journal has become a sort of scrapbook with supporting commentary.

Very cool format.

Analog Office – Office Toy: the Date Stamp

My master calendar and task tracking apps are digital, but I use a paper notebook for my daily plan and work log. What makes it MORE likely that I will a) record the date, and b) be able to read it later (my handwriting’s not the greatest) is using a date stamp.

Kerchunk!

My Notebook System – ratfactor

This year (2022) is going to see my journal/log’s 10th anniversary and 100th notebook. After manyattempts to write this up, I’m just going to disgorge it all.

Incredibly long and detailed but if you are one of those nerds who enjoy gleaning ideas from other people’s systems then this one is for you.

Highlighting in notebooks – Jack Baty

For a couple of months now I’ve been going back through my notes periodically and highlighting key words and phrases. I’ve found that if I emphasize the most relevant bit of each note, I can find most things fairly quickly.

Intersting idea.

My Life in 3×5 – Rhoneisms

I run my entire life off of a single 3×5 card using my Dash/Plus system. I wrote a post about it several years ago but it could use some updating.

Yesterday, over on my main blog, I posted about how I manage my tasks using a single 3×5 card (with support from my Journal and Daily Log).

Some outside of the normal box ideas for journaling.

I have completely filled 6 journals in my life. I love journaling, but a lot of people think that they aren’t capable of doing it. So here’s my hot tips so that you too can say that you’ve filled out a blank journal completely and are a certified Journal Keeper.

I found many of these to be fresh ideas that may work better for some folks than the traditional “write daily” ones. Worth considering, regardless.

Fore-edge painting and indexing – Austin Kleon

The outside edge of a book’s pages opposite of the spine is called the “fore-edge.” Like many things that are neglected or overlooked, it’s a place of great creative potential.

A Return to Analog — The Focus Course

For me, one of the signs of health in emotional margin is how much I’m writing in my notebook each week. If pages begin to stack up without any notes, ideation, or doodling, it’s a sign that I’m not slowing down enough to think on paper.

Analog Office – Make Your Paper Notebooks Useful: How to Set Up a Table of Contents or an Index

Let’s nerd out about the difference between a table of contents and an index; and how we can use these in personal paper notebooks.

Some useful ideas here.

handwritten.blog

Yes, a blog written by hand. The author describes the process in nice detail.