5. Notebook
This is a simple post to write! Since 2016 I’ve had one notebook for everything: my #KNITSONIKbulletjournal.
I use an A5 Leuchtturm1917 with dot-grid pages. I like the size, the handy gusset pocket at the back for FELIXTREATS, the matching pen loops; that I can get them embossed if I want to; the many colour options I’ve tried other types of notebook, but this is my favourite. I love having a shelf that contains almost a decade of FELIXTHOUGHTS.
There’s nothing neat or tidy about my growing collection of journals, but it’s really useful and joyous to be able to go to any date from the past eight years and see what I was doing, thinking about, cooking… how my health was, what I was happy about. What was on my mind. Using one notebook for everything has saved me so much time and energy. I no longer fret about which one to use; fuss about putting things in the wrong place; suffer angst from having the incorrect notebook or worry about messing up a new or special notebook. A few pages into each new journal, I’ve usually made a mess… which takes the edge off, so I can continue with abandon.
Shopping lists, doodles, posters, notes-to-self, to-do lists, recipes, sketching, project plans, calendar – absolutely all and everything goes in my journal. I use the index, page numbers, and different washi tapes to keep track of all the different things and I never try to allocate pages to a project to keep things together – I just decide, for example, “all the pages with pink washi tape are knitting charts for the KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Playbook”.
Naturally, this is the notebook I now use for all my studying; currently I’m using yellow and blue tapes to keep track of my progress in Catherine Price’s 30 day challenge.
The only exception I might make to the ONE NOTEBOOK rule is to use a thicker-paper art paper note book for MORNING POSTERS – about which, more tomorrow!
Yours in KNITSONIK BULLET JOURNALING,
FX
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A silly geeky thing that I’ve started doing with my Leuchtturm notebooks for work (I’m an academic and still take many notes by hand) is separating things by quire — the bundles of pages that are sewn together to make a larger notebook. It makes it easier to keep longer series together, like the lettered bibliographic lists running from one notebook into the next, while still only using one notebook for everything. Otherwise, though, my organisation is also largely ad-hoc!
Ooh I like this geeky approach. For myself I think I have more concurrent projects than there are quires in my notebooks, and I would lose my way quickly and forget the system! But I love that you’ve found a way to make this work for you – and I know many folks have the urge to keep all the info on one theme together, for which your solution is a very clever and good one. Happy Journaling!
Oh my, I just went down memory lane and remember my Trapper Keepers. That was the 1970s version. I used to get a new one every year for school
I had to look up Trapper Keeper as it’s not a thing we used to have here! Love the sound of your 1970s versions and the new one every year. Hurrah for tactile learning memories!
Love this! I’ve used a single BJ since I bought your course a couple of years back and it’s a blessing to have everything in one journal. I make a couple of exceptions, though. Shopping lists and daily to-do lists I usually write on post-its that I put on the current page in my BJ. That way I can easily bring my list in my purse when going to town or the store. Weekly to-do-lists I have in my BJ.
I also have a special journal with recipes for dyeing yarn and wool as I want to keep it with my dyeing utensils, but I’m not 100% sure on that one and might include it later.
ooh that is a BRILLIANT tip about the post-it notes, thank you for sharing! Much easier to have the post-it note in purse, rather than bringing the whole journal. So happy to hear you found my KNITSONIK Bullet Journaling course helpful!