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[16]Jan 20, 2024 ∞

How I Pocket Notebook

Many different creativity systems^[17]1 stress the importance of the “capture”
or “inbox” step — whatever you call it, it’s a place where you gather your
ideas. It should be frictionless and ubiquitous.

Though we exist in an age where technology has wrested the “frictionless and
ubiquitous” narrative away from analog tools, I maintain that the old ways can
be the best ones in this case. Enter the pocket notebook.

Much has been written by smarter minds about the pocket notebook and its myriad
uses. For this post, I’ll be focusing on my particular setup and sharing how I
use it in the hopes you might also find it useful.

First, the pocket notebook itself. My rules are minimal: The paper has to take
fountain pen ink well, and the notebook can’t be something too fancy to use for
any old thing. Currently I’m using a [18]Lochby Pocket Notebook refill for the
dot-grid Tomoe River paper, which is more fountain pen ink friendly than others
I’ve tried.

And this would be enough for my frictionless and ubiquitous capture notebook,
except I am very rough on notebooks and wanted a cover to keep it somewhat
intact. My local stationery store, [19]Oblation Papers and Press, sold me a
beautiful leather cover by [20]Goby Design that fits pocket-sized refills like
the Lochby one I use as well as pocket notebooks from Field Notes, Goulet Pens,
and Moleskine. The leather is sturdy and has worn beautifully.

OK, notebook in a cover.^[21]2 That’s enough, right? Well ... not quite. As I
started to use this combination, I realized that I needed something to keep it
closed when I wasn’t using it, and open while I was. There are fancy brass
clips that Traveler’s Notebook aficionados have shared, but I’m lower-fuss than
that. I had a couple large-size magnetic [22]OliClips lying around, so I tried
affixing one to the front cover and another to the back. Et voila! A makeshift
magnetic closure plus bookmark plus notebook-holder-opener (whatever that’s
properly called).

an open pocket notebook in an olive green leather cover with iridescent
OliClips on front and back and an iridescent Kaweco Sport fountain pen

Now we have a notebook in a cover with a magnetic closure and bookmark. We’re
done, right? But but but ... what if it had a pen loop? I tried sliding on a
spare pen loop, but it bulked everything up awkwardly. I stared at this a long
time until I simply slipped the clip on my Kaweco Sport onto the edge of the
OliClip on the back cover. And it stayed! I haven’t tested the pen-clippiness
with something larger than a pocket pen, so exercise caution here.

an olive green leather pocket notebook cover with OliClips and an iridescent
Kaweco Sport fountain pen

OK, now I’m done. 😂

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 1. I’ve stopped using the phrase "productivity systems" because it implies
    that our most important work is that of production. Creation is much more
    important to me. [23]↩︎

 2. And now I have The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma” in my head: “Notebook in
    a cover, I know, I know, it’s serious.” [24]↩︎

  • [25]#Photos
  • [26]#Fountain Pens

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[17] https://www.cygnoir.net/2024/01/20/how-i-pocket.html#fn1-862
[18] https://www.lochby.com/collections/products/products/pocket-journal-refill
[19] https://www.oblationpapers.com/
[20] https://www.goby-design.com/
[21] https://www.cygnoir.net/2024/01/20/how-i-pocket.html#fn2-862
[22] https://www.etsy.com/shop/OLIBLOCK
[23] https://www.cygnoir.net/2024/01/20/how-i-pocket.html#fnr1-862
[24] https://www.cygnoir.net/2024/01/20/how-i-pocket.html#fnr2-862
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