Notebooks

Michael Bierut's Notebooks

Merlin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:30:41 -0500

Design Observer: 26 Years, 85 Notebooks

Why a notebook link from the guy who’s supposedly over notebook pr0n? Easy. This is all about how Michael Bierut has used his 85 notebooks over the past 26 years.

The notebooks function like a security blanket for me. I can’t go into a meeting unless I have my current notebook in my hand, even if I never open it. Because I carry one everywhere, I tend to misplace them a lot. Losing one makes me frantic.

It’s a fascinating mini-memoir, told through almost three decades of lines in a go-to capture tool. To me, this is much more about habits, cognition, and memory than paper and cardboard.

Like most designers, I get asked a lot about my process. A lot of my ideas are so simple and dumb that a simple dumb drawing is all it takes to describe it. I probably did the drawing for the cover of Tibor Kalman’s monograph in a meeting. Picture on the front, stacked type on the spine: what if we did something like this? That’s how it came out. If a process is supposed to have steps, to reﬂect a method, that isn’t much of a process.

I disagree. Any process that stops feeling like a process has become an ideal process.

[via: Kottke: 26 years of notes]

[Note: This post originally appeared on our daughter site, “43 Folders Clips,” and we liked it enough to republish it here.]

”Michael Bierut's Notebooks” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 29, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Building a Moleskine hard drive case

Merlin — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:59:16 -0400

zonageek: blog: The Geekster Moleskine

Oh, this is a fun mashup of two things I love. Transforming a standard Moleskine sketchbook into an external hard drive:

A few weeks later I accidentally placed my WD Passport external drive on top of my Moleskine notebook and, what do you know, they were pretty much the same size. That got me thinking.

Clever, geeky stuff.

”Building a Moleskine hard drive case” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 25, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Patrick Rhone: Excellent productivity whitepaper

Merlin — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 09:41:42 -0400

patrickrhone.com: Org-Fu Überpost - Productivity Whitepaper

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but if you also hadn’t spent much time with it yet, I suggest you check out Patrick Rhone’s whitepaper on his version of a GTD system.

Some high points:

paper-based capture and task tracking via a Moleskine notebook
sexy “dash/plus” notation system for identifying item status (scroll way down for an image showing all the characters he uses)
Backpack for tracking projects and tasks
OmniOutliner Pro for “vertical mapping” of higher-level outcomes (20,000-foot view and up)
inbox kept at zero in Mail.app
further details on physical note-taking using notebooks

Great and thorough post – and, for what it’s worth, this is exactly the kind of thing I’m hoping people will post to the new “Projects” forum on the 43f board – in my experience, people really enjoy hearing about implementation systems and love discussing how they can be improved and tweaked.

Good work, Patrick.

”Patrick Rhone: Excellent productivity whitepaper” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 18, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

New GTD resources page

Merlin — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 07:01:10 -0400

52 Reviews » Getting Things Done, Resource Edition

52 Reviews has a handy reference page on popular GTD implementation tools. Although, personally, it looks incomplete to me without Kinkless GTD on there :) .

Many of these will be familiar to GTD fans, but there are a few I hadn’t seen or that are worthy of a second look:

gsd3 - “It’s all about checkboxes, baby. Bang out a list of the things that you have to do, and draw a little box next to each of them. Finish one up and check it off. Decide to blow it off forever? Just draw an ‘X’ through the box. Simple, clean, done.”
Creating a Custom Moleskine Planner - “With the Palm, I could see a full week, but it was either ﬁlled with very tiny type, or the type was large but clipped off, requiring additional taps to see an entry.”
Jason: My GTD Implementation - “This system is working well for me. I enjoy the freedom of using 3×5 cards in that they are portable (I also use a Hipster PDA…) and disposable. I love being analog!”

I don’t use Moleskines as much as I used to these days, but some of these paper systems get me itching to pick one up again.

”New GTD resources page” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 10, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

David Sedaris, and the stuff we do and don't buy ourselves

Merlin — Fri, 05 May 2006 11:04:09 -0400

The New Yorker: Fact [MEMENTO MORI by David Sedaris]

Another, as usual, hilarious New Yorker essay from David Sedaris. Mentioned here, ﬁrst, because of his opening paragraph, which reveals David’s personal method for “ubiquitous capture”:

For the past ten years or so, I’ve made it a habit to carry a small notebook in my front pocket. The model I favor is called the Europa, and I pull it out an average of ten times a day, jotting down grocery lists, observations, and little thoughts on how to make money, or torment people. The last page is always reserved for phone numbers, and the second to last I use for gift ideas. These are not things I might give to other people, but things that they might give to me: a shoehorn, for instance—always wanted one. The same goes for a pencil case, which, on the low end, probably costs no more than a doughnut.

For what it’s worth, I have a similar “buy me stuff” capture device, but more for the purpose of outgassing my brain’s frequently mindless consumer pollution. My ﬁle is called “crap I just don't need.txt,” and I have fended off many ridiculous purchases just by parking the desired item there. Just viewing the long list of previous entries is an embarrassing exercise in aversion therapy. Not to say this always ensures a non-purchase – consumer lust has a permanent apartment in my heart – but at least it provides a satisfying speed bump on the race to the checkout screen.

Adding items to this ﬁle always reminds me of the story my Mom tells – of the early, lean days of my parents’ marriage – when she would ﬁll out catalog order forms, “buying” everything she’d ever wanted to have, and then just never mailing the orders in. A kind of Tantric shopping, I suppose.

I wonder how much of our (our at least my) rage for consuming could be molliﬁed by this kind of pantomime spree. Worth a try, and it doesn’t cost you a dime to ﬁnd out.

[ Sedaris link via Mr. Kottke ]

”David Sedaris, and the stuff we do and don't buy ourselves” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 05, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Tool Updates: DIY Planner; GTD Tiddly Wiki Plus

Merlin — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 07:52:45 -0500

There’s been some interesting activity lately on two of the productivity tools that a lot of our readers like to follow.

DIY Planner 3.0

D*I*Y Planner 3.0 (Classic/A5 Edition) | D*I*Y Planner

Douglas Johnston has recently released v 3.0 of his Classic/A5 D*I*Y Planner. If you haven’t seen this before, Douglas has put together a Creative Commons-licensed version of the plain-paper templates usually associated with Costly Paper Planners. But he’s added some lovely design touches as well as some creative templates that are meant to support GTD and other popular productivity systems. Douglas says, of this version:

Way more professional and extensive, covering not only time/project management but also lifestyle, health, creativity and more (e.g., life balance, storyboards, diet tracker, ﬁnances, exercise log, story submissions, etc.). Nearly 200 pages of templates are included.

While, in my opinion, the recent ‘net obsession with “things you can print at home” has gotten out of hand – y’know they have graph paper in stores now? – Douglas has added a lot more than blue quadrille lines here. This is thoughtful stuff, and if you love the immediacy of paper but don’t want to spend a fortune on a big folio from Staples, this may be right up your alley.

N.B. Fans of a tricked-out Hipster PDA can look forward to an index card edition late next month. Until then, the 2.0 HPDA edition is still available on his site.

GTD Tiddly Wiki Plus

GTDTiddlyWiki Plus - your simple client side wiki

Although I’m a little confused over exactly who’s doing what to which version (why does my brain freeze up whenever I see words like “wiki” and “plus”?), it appears that GTD Tiddly Wiki Plus is a project to revive the popular (but stalled?) GTD Tiddly Wiki. According to Ted Pavlic, on the 43F wiki:

GTD TiddlyWiki Plus is much better than GTD TiddlyWiki because it is not a derivative of TiddlyWiki; it actually is TiddlyWiki. This means that plugins and macros can be added and the system can be upgraded as new versions of TiddlyWiki come out.

I haven’t spent much time with this new release, but I’m intrigued by the idea of “plug-ins” as well as the idea that Ted plans to afford a “kGTD-like usage” for the GTDTWP.

I played with the last release of GTD Tiddly Wiki last summer, and I think it’s a fascinating chunk of functionality. It’s not really my particular cup of tea for everyday usage, but I really recommend you have a look for yourself. I get so much mail about the best way to “live” on two or more computers, and – at least from a “GTD system” standpoint – this seems like one novel solution.

”Tool Updates: D*I*Y Planner; GTD Tiddly Wiki Plus” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 13, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

2006 Moleskine planners available

Merlin — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 07:38:25 -0400

Moleskine 2006 Datebook Planners, MoleskineUS

Just a quickie to let the Moleskine fans know that the 2006 diaries and planners are now available from MoleskineUS. They tell us:

The popular daily format is the same as ever, but - due to customer feedback - the format of the 2006 Pocket Weekly Planner has reverted back to the previous “row” format, while the 2006 Large Weekly Planner will keep the “column” format.

One pattern I’ve been hearing from people lately is the desire to separate work and personal calendaring. It may be prefereable to maintain an electronic work calendar in iCal or Outlook or what have you and then keep your home and family stuff in a paper diary like these. It’s still easy to take it from home to work and back, but some people feel the separation helps encourage them to leave their work at work (the larger trend I’ve been hearing lately).

In any case, if you dig the high-quality feel of the classic Moleskine, I think you’ll enjoy these a lot.

Moleskine 2006 Diaries & Planners:

Moleskine 2006 Large Daily Desk Diary / Planner - 5.25 by 8.25 inches; one page per day
Moleskine 2006 Large Weekly Desk Planner - 5.25 by 8.25 inches; week on two pages in a column format
Moleskine 2006 Pocket Daily Diary / Planner - 3.5 x 5.5 inches; one page per day
Moleskine 2006 Pocket Weekly Planner - 3.5 x 5.5 inches; week on two pages in a row format

(Your purchases from MoleskineUS help support 43 Folders)

Technorati Tags: calendars, moleskines, notebooks, productivitypr0n, schwag

”2006 Moleskine planners available” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 07, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

PigPog PDA: A simplified Moleskine GTD system

Merlin — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 07:54:46 -0400

PigPogPDA - PigPog Creativity Wiki [Introduction]

Michael Randall lays out a paper GTD-based system that should appeal to a lot of folks here.

What Is It?

A Moleskine hack.

An extreme Moleskine hack.

A simpliﬁed GTD system (What system? See our GTD Introduction), with relatively little actual organising. May be useful if you fancy Doing GTD Without Doing GTD.

A complete personal management system for those who’s needs aren’t too complicated.

A rather over-the-top system for dealing with just the capturing and processing end of GTD.

Why?

I was ﬁnding GTD a bit much for various reasons, but didn’t want to stop entirely - I needed to be Doing GTD Without Doing GTD. This is the system I came up with in the end. It’s simpler than GTD, and wouldn’t scale to the sort of level that GTD will, but it works pretty well for me, so it seems reasonable to think it might work well for other people too.

Read on for details of a clever system for turning a Moleskine Reporter into a kind of über-notebook, in which capture, processing, and related work are handled using sticky-note ﬂags and some light templating.

Again, it’s great to see folks adapting the most useful aspects of systems like GTD to their needs. I especially like how Michael’s moved beyond the canonical implementation drill to stripping the actual system down to just the concepts that work best for him— then applying them in the medium he’s most comfortable using: in this case paper. Nice hack, man, and well documented.

[Thanks, Michael]

Related Stuff

43 Folders: Getting Started with Getting Things Done
43 Folders: More Moleskine Hacks
43 Folders: Moleskines & Notebooks
Moleskine - 43FoldersWiki
Category:Notebooks - 43FoldersWiki
Moleskine notebooks at MoleskineUS (including the Pocket Moleskine Reporter Notebook Michael uses)

Technorati Tags: gtd, loﬁ, moleskines, paper, productivity

”PigPog PDA: A simplified Moleskine GTD system” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 05, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Remainders: Notebooks, NextBus, the Wiki, and more

Merlin — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:32:48 -0400

Reporter update - So I got my Moleskine Reporter’s Notebooks a few weeks back (see earlier drool) and I’m ready to share two opinions. First, although the Large Reporter is beautiful and pretty well-made, somehow it’s not really doing it for me. Way too bulky and cumbersome to use, and the top-ﬂip isn’t happening for me. Could be cool to use an unlined Large horizontally for sketching (if I sketched). But, the Small Reporter is totally ace. Great for jotting on MUNI. Although, I must say I’m a bit disappointed that neither model is a true reporter’s notebook in that they can’t completely ﬂip open any better than a standard bound notebook. (Ironically, it inspired me to pick up a real $1.80 reporter’s notebook to play with. Loving it.)
Engineering notebook affection - Tip of the propeller cap to Josh Carter for turning me on to BookFactory.com and their amazing engineering notebooks. Apparently, it’s very important for engineers, scientists, and researchers to carefully document all their work since it may eventually need to be used to defend a patent, etc. There are tons of squirrely rules for using these things that don’t apply to us uncreative civilians, but I do love the table of contents, line numbers, page names, and how it makes it easy to point to the pre-numbered page that something is “continued on” or “continued from.” Dunno if I’ll keep buying the wire-o laboratory model I got for perpetuity, but there are some smart new notebook habits I’ve learned that I’ll be taking with me, for sure.
NextBus adds SF bus lines- My old pal NextBus has recetly added two new SF MUNI lines to their amazing, GPS-based tracking service, including the 24-Divisadero and the 33-Stanyan buses. W00t.
Lazyweb: Widget for SF Muni - Related to NextBus, if any of you smart Tiger-loving kids can come up with a Dashboard Widget that pulls up NextBus data, by stop, for SF MUNI, it’ll buy you a home page link from one grateful middle-aged man’s moderately popular website about ﬁling things. Just saying. So, let’s go: chop chop!
Wiki getting really good- If you haven’t been following the 43F wiki—and I know it can be a little bewildering if you’re new to the wikiwiki world—there are a few bits that I do recommend you check out, because they’re growing fast and furiously. In particular the Life Hacks category is blowing up with great submissions from readers, and has even broken out into myriad sub-areas. So many great tips.
html2wiki - If, like me, you’re spending an increasing amount of your time on a wiki, you should check out html2wiki. It’s a badass little perl module that converts HTML into Wiki markup in the language of your choice (including converting URLs). In related news, if anyone can hack Mediawiki to work with Markdown, we should talk.
Quicksilver to go - We Quicksilver fans frequently complain that whenever we use a Mac that doesn’t have our favorite app installed, we feel like we’ve lost a limb. To get around this baleful situation in the future, zip up the latest copy of Quicksilver and mail it to your own Gmail account. Wherever you go, you’re just a couple clicks away from sanity. I’ve also been doing this for a few weeks with my big pile of txt ﬁles; takes less than a minute to gzip it and mail it to myself. Never hurts to have the extra backups, either.
Many thanks - A few folks have kindly sent lovely presents from my Amazon wishlist and I just wanted to say “Thank you, thank you!” Unfortunately, stupid Amazon makes it virtually impossible to ﬁgure out how to contact the giftor. Grr. (Steal this idea, AMZN: make it easy to send an electronic thank you note when you receive a gift, including the ability to send in return something off that person’s wishlist. Think “online greeting card.”)
Quote of the week - Since there seems to be a lot of fellow Anne Lamott fans here, today’s quote comes from Bird by Bird: “[Y]ou can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

Enjoy Tiger, and have a swell weekend.

”Remainders: Notebooks, NextBus, the Wiki, and more” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 29, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

New model: Moleskine Reporter Notebooks

Merlin — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:13:10 -0500

Moleskine Reporter Notebooks, MoleskineUS

Drool. Spanking new Moleskine reporter notebooks look really nice. Can’t wait to pick one up for myself.

Looks like they’re very similar to the old-school classic Moleskine, but with the ﬂippable top-binding and a vertically-oriented accordion pocket. The immediate improvement I can see would be for writing in cramped places—like the top of your thigh while riding the bus. I wonder if the binding allows it to ﬂip over completely without damaging the spine.

Anxious to hear what other folks think of these. Anyone tried them yet?

Disclosure/Plug: MoleskineUS purchases made via our site help support 43F.

”New model: Moleskine Reporter Notebooks” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 18, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"