My Life in Three-to-Five Notebooks: Armchair Method

One shelf in my office is full of books I wrote. While I’ve never actually published a book, that’s not to say I haven’t written dozens of them over the years. In a way, it seems I actually wrote only one book that stretches out across the decades, like Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (but not as well-written). When I page through my messy medley of vignettes, I notice there are tons of collections and lists of random facts. It feels like Kerouac tried to write Moby Dick—but just the chapter where he defines the different types of whales. Some stuff is brilliant and I don’t know where it came from. Some stuff is a bore and unfortunately familiar. Even still, I put in the time and the ink—I wrote those pages and filled those books. Maybe I’m not alone. I bet you have written a couple of books like this as well.

Naturally, I’m referring to my notebooks. Several years ago, I put all of them on a shelf and began the process of categorizing them and indexing their contents. Along the way, I discovered I keep three main species of notebook, which I label with the symbols ⊞, ≈ & ◫. Along with them, there are two more that have become just as essential (⨁ & ✗). In future posts, I’ll cover my approach to each of these more in depth and how I cross-reference them. But here I want to lay out my general notebook taxonomy in case you’re also looking for a way to organize your written life.

Book-writing is the province of specialists, living is the business of us all. Moral life, sentimental life, religious life, whatever is above the terre à terre of mere existing, also consists of illuminations which once departed return no more. A diary, a few old letters, a few sheets containing thoughts or meditations, may keep up the connection between us today and our better selves of the past. I was deeply impressed as a youth by the advice of a spiritual writer to read one's own spiritual notes preferably to even famous works. All saints seem to have done so. The moment we realize that any thought, ours or borrowed, is pregnant enough not to be wasted, or original enough not to be likely to come back again, we must fix it on paper. Our manuscripts should mirror our reading, our meditations, our ideals, and our approach to it in our lives. Anybody who has early taken the habit to record himself in that way knows that the loss of his papers would also mean a loss to his thinking possibilities.

Ernest Dimnet, The Art of Thinking

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⊞ : Planners

• Accommodates diverse content: tasks, events, habits, reflections, meeting notes, etc.

• Organizes content logically, in terms of time, status, or topic.

• Using Leuchtturm A5 dot grid and labeled with a ⊞

When it comes to organizing my written life, my most important books are probably my Planners (⊞). As a child, I filled stacks of sketchbooks with drawings. As an adolescent and college student, I filled countless notebooks with lecture notes and thesis ideas. But it was only with Ryder Carroll’s introductory video to the Bullet Journal System in 2013 that I became an adult when it comes to my notebooks.

This Bujo approach allows my Planners to hold a diverse range of content. Events get put on my monthly and yearly layouts. Running lists help me keep on top of work and personal projects. Meeting notes and wireframes get logged. My habit trackers tell me when I’m on a streak or in a rut. Occasional journal entries are scattered throughout. Ideas get outlined. This Planner really holds it all.

More important than taking in all this content, my Planner also keeps everything organized by time, status, or topic. Obviously, it orders things according to time: its structure of yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily checkpoints helps me quickly reorient myself within a given year. While coming upon these checkpoints, I regularly migrate open tasks and collate pages dealing with recurrent themes; this lets me know the status of projects or other trends at a glance. Finally, I log topics and pages worth revisiting in the Index or Table of Contents in the front.

This serves as the brain of my analog system. Each one is marked with a grid icon (⊞), because it provides a receptive structure for anything I come across in my life. All the other kinds of notebooks flow into the Planner or flow out of it, so if I had to choose just one way to keep a notebook it would be this. Thankfully, that’s not our world—paper is cheap and we have other ways to organize our written lives.

≈ : Journals

• Allows you more room to explore ideas and emotions

• Chronologically ordered and keyword indexed

• Using Leuchtturm A5 blank or Rettacy B5 and labeled with a ≈

My Planners answer the question “What happened?”, while my Journals answer the question “What were you thinking or feeling?” The Planner (⊞) usually doesn’t give me enough room to flesh out an idea, so my Journals (≈) offer more real estate to stretch out and explore. If my Planner serves as my brain, my Journals serve as my heart.

This is the most free form of my notebooks. Sometimes I write morning pages à la Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, and sometimes I take a break from work to do a couple minutes of midday journaling. Some things are brilliant revelations (at least to me) and they end up on this blog. Some things are whiny, uninspired, or just bored scribblings. It doesn’t matter. It’s all welcome in a Journal. The goal is to exhaust a topic so I can move on. This is why I brand them with the carefree flowing symbol (≈) that represents letting go.

Structurally speaking, each entry is dated. At the end of the book, I create an index of dates and include a couple keywords for each entry. I discovered these B5 notebooks a couple of years ago, and they instantly became my favorite notebook for journaling. They’re slightly larger than my A5’s, which helps keep me from grabbing my Planner by mistake. The extra space also gives more breathing room for my writing sessions. Both the paper quality and soft cover feel incredible. They’re also ridiculously affordable. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Pick one up, and try it out.

◫ : Book notes

• Keep records and notes from all of your reading sessions

• Separate out book notes from your own ideas

• Using various pocket notebooks carried in a leather cover for Reading Logs, and an A5 cahier for dedicated book journals, all labeled with a ◫

There are ideas that come from myself and there are ideas that come from others. If my Planners (⊞) and Journals (≈) help me understand myself, my Book Notes (◫) are dedicated to understanding others. My most common type of Book Notes are my Reading Logs which hold notes and data from my everyday reading sessions. If I’m spending a lot of time with a book—breaking down individual chapters, outlining arguments or characters, defining important terms, etc.—I’ll have a larger Book Journal dedicated to that particular work. Obviously, they’re symbol (◫) looks like a book open with two facing pages.

For more on Reading Logs specifically, check out these posts:

Reviewing Reading Logs: Armchair Method

Reflecting on Books: Armchair Method

Now for those other two notebooks…