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.

Journaling for People Who Don’t Like Journaling | Chris Brogan on LinkedIn

I’m so twitchy about sharing this. It’s really not very good and isn’t something fancy like what Mike Vardy or the Bullet Journal people do. But listen: let’s both agree. YOU aren’t those people, or else you’d already be like a journal GOD. You’re like me: a schlub who really hasn’t done this journaling thing and we’ll both figure it out.

A good post that’s worth a read (On LinkedIn! Who’da thunk?). Like Chris, my best and most consistent journaling has been the Daily Log I’ve kept for years now.

My wife got me a nifty new-to-me typewriter for my Birthday. As usual, brought it in to Vale today for a tune up. I feel so lucky to have such a shop within easy driving distance. Can’t wait to get it back.

Analog Office – A Life in Pocket Notebooks

I had only met him in passing; but his paper notebooks held a kind of self-portrait, touchable records of what was on his mind.

A lovely little story. This is the why. This is what we believe in.

Yep. They do. Take it from Matthew McConaughey.

(via Mike Vardy)

Today, December 9th, is a day I’ve designated as Journal Day. The idea came up many years ago in discussions with my friend Garrick van Buren. The idea was a day for celebrating journaling, preparing ours for the coming year, and committing once again to the daily practice.

I celebrate the day by opening up past year’s journals, logs, and notes and tease out any ideas that may have gotten lost in the shuffle and see what I might want to put into action the coming year. It is also a good way to tease out old memories and reminisce.

I’ve unwrapped my 2023 Hobonichi Techo and started to prep it for the coming year. Filling out my contact info on the page provided and starting to note special events and mark important dates.

But, that’s just my way to mark the day. You might decide to do something else. Need some help? Here are some ideas I’ve mentioned in the past…

• This might be the day to take out previous journals and reflect on where you were then versus where you are today.
• You might let someone you trust read one you have kept and get to know the “real” you.
• Perhaps gift a journal to another person in your life who practices or you feel could benefit from doing so.
• Or, maybe, be so bold as to spend a year keeping a journal for someone else in your life whom you love and spend your days with — write down their day as you saw it or the things you were thinking about them at that time. How wonderful a gift would it be to allow someone close to you to “see” themselves and their year through your eyes?
• Like the above, start a journal for your kids that are too young to keep their own. We forget so much of those early years. This is a way to remember those special times. This is the sort of thing that would make a meaning high-school graduation gift when they get older.

These are just a few of the ways you can celebrate. If you come up with others, I would love to hear about them. Shoot me a message on Twitter and I’ll try to add them here. Happy Journalling!

Analog Office – Bookshelf

Thanks to @manton for creating such wonderful bookshelves! The Analog Office is now sharing a bookshelf with some favorite resources about working, and thinking, and playing with paper … organizing information stored on paper … how paper and tech shape us … and of course, old school office tools.

A great list of books.

Projects and Methods – The Homebound Symphony

After fumbling around for a while to figure out how I could organize my thoughts in for this project, I realized that once again, the good old multicolored index cards were my best friends.

I always love getting a peek into how someone organizes their work.

Black Owned Planner and Stationery Companies – The Well-Appointed Desk

Just before the new year I stumbled on a great Twitter thread compiling black owned planner and stationery companies. I browsed a number of them, and bought from a few. But I thought I’d share a few on the list today with you!

There was no way I was not going to link to this.

How I use my Hobonichi – Stationery

This planner works really well for my to kind of have a high level overview of things both at a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily level. And makes it really easy to plan.

As a Hobonichi Techo (A6) user myself, I’m always fascinated to see how other folks are theirs.

Recently, reader Rahul Gaitonde alerted me to this with the following thoughts:

“Hi, Patrick. I thought this tweet might be interesting to The Cramped. It’s a photo of a page from the user’s grandfather’s diary where he recorded (in Tamil) the movies he’d seen in the 1960s. Including movies from the West the user didn’t think his granddad had had a chance to see. Lists from the past have always been fascinating to me. This one particularly so, maintained in a language other than English, from over fifty years ago, of movies both local and from half a world away.”

Long long ago, my grandfather has created his own version of Letterboxd to keep record of the movies he had watched. I’m awestruck by the fact that he’s watched Hitchcock and James Bond films in theatres. pic.twitter.com/uiVhk7RqOY

— A K (@iamakshy_06) February 25, 2023

I agree. Very cool stuff.

Habit and mood tracking in my Hobonichi Techo – cygnoir.net

The “three lines” method described in the video impressed me with its simplicity and its forgiveness. The pattern looks prettiest when I’ve done all my habits for the day, but even if I haven’t, the result is still pleasing to the eye and encourages me to try again tomorrow.

This is a seriously beautiful way to do habit tracking. Could also work for other purposes with imagination.

Analog Office – Reader Question 2: Notes on Paper, Notes in Apps, Here, There, and Everywhere, Should I Just Give Up and Accept the Chaos?

There are some really great ideas and suggestions within but I absolutely love this:

The magic is in the fact that writing is a transit system, which transports little electrical sparks in your synapses into things that affect shared reality.

This is truly magical, and amazing, and a continuing source of awe to me: that we are alive, that we can create things, that we can use our thoughts to help ourselves grow, and to better the lives of others. A tremendous gift and power!

This! So much this! This is why we do it. This is what we believe in.

I just bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing | Ars Technica

At a time when it’s hard to know what information to trust, I felt delight when I recently learned that World Book still prints an up-to-date book encyclopedia in 2023. Although the term “encyclopedia” is now almost synonymous with Wikipedia, it’s refreshing to see such a sizable reference printed on paper. So I bought one, and I’ll tell you why.

My Grandmother was a college professor and one thing she made sure of was always having up-to-date sets of all of the major encyclopedias in the house. Among them, World Book was always my favorite. As a child, I was a voracious reader. I would spend hours and hours paging through them and reading them whenever I was at her house. I’m fairly sure I’ve read the entire set cover-to-cover at least once. This article has me pondering doing so again.

The Wisdom of the Bankers Box

The Bankers Box has remained the same shape and size for a lifetime and won’t change for at least the rest of your life. You can know exactly how much space you’ll need now, and how much space you might have available in the future when taking on more stuff from relatives.

This is an excellent post on all the ways the humble Bankers Box rules.

What Is Killing Cursive? Ballpoints. Probably. | Hackaday

I get it — you hate writing by hand. But have you ever considered why that is? Is it because typing is easier, faster, and more convenient here in 2023? Maybe so. All of those notwithstanding, I honestly think there’s an older reason: it’s because of the rise of ballpoint pens. And I’m not alone.

A cut too far: The people who can’t give up paper – BBC Future

For decades, computers, smartphones and tablets have provided an alternative. Their illuminated displays can be virtually written upon or erased with the press of a few buttons or taps of a screen.

But the crisp flex of an off-white sheet held in the hand, or the way freshly-deposited ink from a favourite pen soaks into the fibrous surface – there is arguably nothing quite like paper.

Yep.

(via Aaron Alfano)

Dessa Can’t Do Without Her Pilot Razor Point

Pen snobs suck: the loud talking about fine lines and ink flow, the zipper cases, the theater-kid pledges of absolute devotion to a singular make and model. And yet here we are. For me, it’s Pilot Razor Point, write or die.

Dessa is a brilliant recording artist and poet. If you never engaged with her work, I highly recommend it.