DIY Planner - Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal - Comments

Now look what you've done!

Bluetiger — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:29:44 -0400

I'm new to this site, and like someone else has already mentioned, I was caught up in the downloadable templates for my new filofax more than anything else really.

I have a journal myself and I love writing in it, it's just a cheap one from Woolworths but has a nice 'feel' to it and like I said, was cheap.

I've been looking at Moleskines for a while but couldn't figure out why they were so expensive and whether they would be any different to my cheap Woolies one....seems I was in denial! After reading all these comments I want to rush out and buy one! Good job it's midnight!

I would also admit that over the past year or so I have written such negative drivel that I cringe when I read it back. I was going to throw it out or burn it as I hated the thought of someone reading it and thinking that I was some bitter woman with a life of regrets when really I'm the total opposite! The reason for my pessamistic rantings was that my job was so awful, it drained me of all confidence and worth...looking back I paid it far too much energy and emotion but that's easy to say now that I've got a new job that I love. I needed somewhere to dispel all the hatred and despair that I was feeling at the time and it's all in that book. I've decided not to throw it away but to continue with it. When it's finished I will put a note in the front warning any reader with emotional tendancies to step away and read no further! It has taught me a valuable lesson - and hopefully it will teach the reader the same lesson - nothing is worth making yourself feel that awful over! I wasted a year at that job and for what? I almost destroyed my very being - I know that sounds dramatic but you only have to read a few pages to realise that it's probably an understatement!

My new job and new fresh outlook on life has drastically changed what I write now. I add photographs and snippets of interesting things (usually my horoscopes when they depict great things for me!) and it's filling up with optimism, positive thoughts and inspirational quotes.

And the lesson learnt is that no matter what, my life will never be that dark again! I have learnt to appreciate things and myself more than ever. No-one has the right to treat me that way or make me feel as bad as that again - and they wont. Ever.

So my fountain pens are out as usual, my filofax will be starting to fill up with all the fantastic templates I've found on this site, my heart is light and I'm eager to end this journal on a high note and buy a moleskine to continue with my ramblings...

Speaking of which...sorry for the length of this post!

Sam xx

I like Moleskines but

Anonymous — Wed, 7 Nov 2007 02:04:24 -0500

I like Moleskines but really, they are over-hyped marketing and too expensive. Moleskine can get away with this because they have literally no other formidable compeition. Most notebook paper and journals are pretty crass and Moleskine isn't. But I write way too much to spend more than $10, significantly more, on such a small journal that I'll go through so quickly.

Joining the club

caligatia — Mon, 1 Oct 2007 16:37:19 -0400

I just bought my first Moleskine last week. I went to Borders and bought the small sketchbook, but took it back and exchanged it for a ruled journal when I realized the sketch paper hated my fountain pens. So I've been using the pocket size ruled journal for a week now, and I'm really enjoying it. It's small enough to take with me everywhere, and the paper feels nice. I'm only writing on one side of each page, though, due to slight bleed-through.

Moleskine + Lamy Studio = one very pleasant writing experience!

--
Steff
[ blog | photos ]

Y'know, I actually journal

Kat12 — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:03:56 -0400

Y'know, I actually journal for the opposite reason: because it IS where I can get things out that I could never tell to another a person. Things that are important to me that I want to remember and be able to re-read in years to come but are too private or too mushy to tell another person. Things I want to remember--maybe funny quotes that wouldn't mean anything to someone else reading them but I can remember them. That sort of thing.

I have never written a journal to be something for someone else to read. It's for my eyes only.

Geocaching is, as far as I

Kat12 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:04:46 -0400

Geocaching is, as far as I can tell, just a high-tech version of letterboxing.

It's also how my partner's sister's fiance proposed--they're both into geocaching, and his uncle likes creating caches, so he asked his uncle to make a special one and then they went out and did it and the ring was at the end...

Moleskin

Lotus — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:15:27 -0400

Oh how I love the Moleskin books too! They're inspiring in themselves and they offer so many possibilities. How can a plain black notebook offer that much? It's amazing!

Nice to see

Arthur and Trillian — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:47:01 -0400

yet another geocacher out and about in the wide world of the internet.

Great pen....

Addyson — Sun, 8 Apr 2007 12:22:54 -0400

I have used a Moleskin for a variety of things...journaling...writing...wine journal...

A pen that I use is the Retro Tornado pen with black ink. It feels good in your hand, it is a heavy pen, and refils can be purchased almost anywhere!!

i cant wait to buy mine

elissa23 — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 00:39:21 -0400

i cant wait to buy mine

"I see" said the blind man to his deaf dog....

Sardonios — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:42:45 -0400

Thank you for the explanation. I think it is one of those things that I will have to try in order to fully appreciate.

Geocaching log Moleskine/ HPDA template

J. Diniz — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:04:34 -0400

Geocaching.com already has you logging your finds (or not founds). There really is no need no track down all the piece of info regarding a cache (type, coordinates, name, location, etc.) But it is nice to keep a sort of a diary in which to register additional data about your geocaching expeditions, stuff that may be a little too personal to get into the site. Your stories.
And for this, nothing beats a Moleskine's blank page. No information is too much, no info is too less. Write just what you want.

The whole purpose is to activate your memory in the future, not to keep a scientific track log.

Enjoy!

Found your keys? Here's a greater challenge...

Sardonios — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:52:09 -0400

Please excuse my ignorance, but what form does a geocaching logbook take? Could a Hipster Template be drawn up for the purpose?

Way OT, way cool.

drifting — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:19:42 -0400

J. Diniz wrote "Green is for my geocaching logbook" as though I should know what he was talking about, so I had to find out.
http://www.geocaching.com/
Man, that looks cool! My father-in-law just bought himself a GPS unit, and there are a dozen of caches within minutes of his house. Finally, something to do during our annual visit to the inlaws! Thanks!

Using the Moleskine

J. Diniz — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:21:27 -0400

I've been hooked on these for a few months now, and did quite an extensive internet research on usable hacks. My favorite models are the squared and blank pocket book, and the blank reporter notebook, as well as the small blank or squared cahier for individual projects or trips. Here's what I came to (and this is just my implementation of other peoples' ideas):

1. Writing implements
Pilot G-2 is the smoothest, darkest, silkiest pen around. Best for general use. Mini version available, called XS or Pixie.
Pilot G-TEC-C4 writes the finest line ever. Great for stuffing lots on info on a small paper landscape.
Fisher Space Pen, for the adventurous ones. Very pocketable and strong, impervious to the elements. Nevertheless, in regards to the writing pleasure, it's still just a ball pen.
Leadholders (2 mm, 2B) are classy and versatile for writing and sketching.
Mechanichal pencils (0,7 mm, HB) are really fine for writing, especially on the blank paper Moleskines.
Pencils are the way to go for the traditionalist, the artist and the cost-concious out there. You do, however, have to carry a knife or sharpenner to keep going anywhere. Best to chose a good brand like Staedler, and a B or 2B grade for softness and darkness.

2. Labeling Moleskines
Since I use three or four Moleskines at the same time, for different uses, I paint the rims of the pages with a highlighter. Just close the book, hold it tight, and run the thing through. Green is for my geocaching logbook, orange for my diary/planner, yellow for my profession, and blank for my personal use Moleskine. Can spot them a mile away.

3. Extras within
3x5 sticky notes on the front inside cover used for lists and handouts.
3M page color labels on the back inside cover for marking sections on the Moleskine.
Half a dozen 3x5 ruled index cards used for notes, page markers and blotter use (this is important with the G-2 pens).
Numbering pages seems to be mandatory, and I did it, but never actually got to use them as hyperlinks. Don't bother anymore with those.

4. Organising the pages
I just start by leaving a few pages blank at the beggining, for the more permanent stuff like calendar and dated matters. Just draw the calendar myself for the next three months or so, depending on the life expectation of the book. Next comes the main section, which I will divide only when needed to create a new category. The last pages ae set aside for contacts and other type of reference material. Doodles get to be backward written from the end of the main section. Important lists go to the main chapter, shopping and transient lists go on the sticky notes or index cards.

5. Wallet use
When travelling light, just stick VISA and ATM cards on the back cover pocket, ID and car documents amongst the last pages, close it up with the elastic band, and it's good to go.

6. Miscellaneous
A knot tied at the end of the page marker keeps it from sliding with the book closed, and from unravelling. Simple and efective.
Reward offered on the first page: a brand new Moleskine for whoever returns mine, if lost. Or, if preferred, a couple of gin tonics and a coffee appeal to lots of people (to me, it does).

Regards from Portugal.

I use one of the electronic

Andy — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 11:44:38 -0400

I use one of the electronic Dymo labellers and put the label on the back page in a bottom corner. Easy enought to find for my purposes and discreet too. One of the notebooks is for the new job that I recently started filling in for, for which I have to keep copious notes. As the department has a long name I abbreviate the label to DDS Ref1. Other Moleskines have Gen Ref1, Gen Notes1 & Gen Notes2 etc. Gen being short for General. The holidays will be upon us soon so there will be a label with the 3 letter reference of the airport that I flew into and the year after that.

Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal

ndench — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 06:00:50 -0400

By day, UK-based Neal Dench is a mild-mannered project manager and technical writer. By night, he assumes his secret identity of Mr. Porkpop, a fearless crusader in the war against... uhm... technical... and, er... project stuff.... *cough* Is this mic on...? Okay, I confess. I wanted to put a spotlight on journalling and Moleskines, and he was just the perfect chap. - DJ

The key to keeping a successful and effective journal is to make sure the writing process is an enjoyable one. By using materials that make writing a pleasure, and by giving yourself the freedom to do what suits you, rather than conforming to traditional diary formats, this can be easier than it sounds. In this article, I'll explain some of the materials and methods I've used to reinvigorate my journal writing in recent months.

I think we owe it to ourselves to make some record of our lives. I hate the idea of waste in general, and I know how much of my time, how many thoughts, ideas, and memories, would be lost forever if I didn't write at least some of it down. Consequently, I have written journals on and off for around 25 years now; I have recorded my thoughts in diaries and PDAs, written regularly every night, written on an occasional basis, and yet, until now, never been satisfied with my efforts, often giving up altogether after only a few months. My diary often descended into a mundane list of things that no-one, not even me, was interested in. What did I watch on TV? What homework did I do? Who cares! When I wasn't writing lists, my diary became an excuse to descend into maudlin self-pity. Sure, life isn't all roses, and a diary can be a useful medium for sounding off about the world and working off your everyday frustrations, but it's all too easy to overdo it, and ultimately that's not good for the soul. It doesn't make for very interesting re-reading either!

So what has changed things recently? Why am I happy with my journaling efforts now? One simple word: Moleskine. Now, before you stop reading, I know how tritely 2005 that sounds, so my aim in this article is to explain why the Moleskine works for me, and tell you a little about how I use it.

For those not already in the know, a Moleskine (the correct pronunciation is "Mo-leh-skeen-eh" but I confess to being unable to think of it as anything other than "Moleskin") is a distinguished hardback notebook with a black oilskin cover, a cotton bookmark, an elastic closure, and an expandable pocket in the back for keeping stamps, money, photographs, or whatever else takes your fancy. Moleskines come in small or large sizes, and with blank, ruled or squared paper. There are also sketchbooks, diaries, reporters' notebooks, address books, and so on, the total number of variations adding up to quite a sizeable range. My journals are kept in small plain notebooks, and I also have a large ruled notebook for longer pieces of writing.

On removing the plastic wrapper, you will find that every Moleskine has a short "history" of the notebook slipped into its pocket. This history does its best to convince you that this is the same notebook that was used by intellectuals and artists of the likes of Hemingway, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Chatwin; a piece of marketing that the manufacturers, Modo & Modo, could arguably have omitted. Opinions about the Moleskine seem to divide into two opposing camps: ardent fans who feel that the Moleskine's quality justifies its price, and sceptics who can't understand why you would want to spend so much on a notebook. It will probably come as no surprise that I fall into the first of these groups.

What drew me to the Moleskine in the first place? Was it all that stuff about Hemingway and Matisse? Of course not. Was it the thriving Moleskine internet community? Well, perhaps all the online enthusiasm helped persuade me to part with money, but it wasn't what made me buy another, and another, and I had coveted a Moleskine for several years before I'd even heard of Moleskinerie or 43Folders. To be honest, the biggest attraction for me was a sort of nostalgic appeal. People often say "they don't make them like they used to", and yet here, in the form of a small (albeit quite expensive) notebook, was the exception that proved the rule. As a child, I was captivated by all the old notebooks we had at home, some belonging to my parents in their youth, and some belonging to their parents or even grandparents. There were books for random thoughts, books that my Dad had used for his projects, sketch books, autograph books, diaries, some rich with the ideas of others, some empty, all with that same musty "old book" smell, and all of them with an overwhelming sense of potential. Like boxes of old photographs, they were something from a past age, that somehow was no longer available to me. Now here, in the form of the Moleskine, was my own opportunity to create something similar.

What surprises me is that the initial rush of enthusiasm for the Moleskine hasn't gone away. I've kept on writing. Why haven't my little black books just become the latest repository for boring lists and depressed recollections? I think it's partly down to a sense of freedom. My Moleskine has no boundaries, not even lines (I use the small plain notebook), and so doesn't try to confine what I do in it. Feel the need for a sketch? No problem. Want to write sideways, rather than from top to bottom? That's OK. Try doing those things on a PDA. Because I'm not confined by a diary format, I need only write a sentence, if that's all it takes. Alternatively, I can write pages and pages if I'm so inclined. My Moleskine even gives me the freedom to write nothing at all if I want, which is something a diary doesn't, with its pages and pages of empty days constantly reminding me of events left unrecorded.

I've also found that I write about different things, and I don't necessarily just write for myself, and perhaps this change is the most crucial. My diary is no longer about what I did today; it's about what I might want to remember tomorrow. And it's no longer for my eyes alone. If my wife or kids (or just about anyone else) want to have a flick through, that's fine. Perhaps that restricts what I might want to say a little, but it also makes me think harder about what I want to put in my Moleskine, and the end result is that I have something that is a more enjoyable read â€“ something that I'm happy to pick up and read myself â€“ and that, surely, is the whole point. These days, my diary can contain anecdotes, funny things people have said, jokes, interesting websites, ideas that I have read about on the web, or anything else that takes my fancy.

And then there's the quality of the paper in a Moleskine. Get a good pen â€“ I don't particularly care for all the debates about which pen is best, which pens cause the least bleed-through, which produce archival quality writing, and so on, just get a pen that you enjoy writing with â€“ and write on some Moleskine paper. It will make you fussy about the paper you use whenever you're not buried in the pages of your Moleskine. Yes, these things are expensive, but for a reason.

A lot of people talk about Moleskine "hacks", or tips on how to put Moleskines to the best use , and I use a few of them myself, mainly to help me refer to old entries. They've become so ingrained into my daily journal writing that I don't really think of them as hacks any more.

I put a page number in the bottom right hand corner of each double page spread.
I use a basic table of contents, starting on the first double page spread in the book, and then flipping over to the last double page when that's full. The table of contents just lists each page number in the book, together with the major topics of conversation on that page. If I keep my writing as small as possible, I can fit most of the table of contents at the beginning of the Moleskine.
I use "Moleskine hyperlinks" to relate entries together. For instance, if I write down a joke that I want to remember, I'll link back to the last joke that I wrote down, and also put a forward reference from that older entry to the new one. That way, if I want to find all the jokes that I've written down, all I have to do is find one of them, and then follow the chain in either direction.

The first two hacks I'm religious about. Every page gets a page number, and every page has an entry in the table of contents. I only use hyperlinks when they occur to me. My nature is such that I could become obsessed with making sure that everything was perfectly linked with everything else, even to the point of linking between different Moleskines. So my answer is to just not stress about it. If a related entry occurs to me, and I can find it in, say, 30 seconds or so, then I'll add a link. If I can't, then I leave it. I also tend to keep 2 or 3 blank Post-It notes on the inside front cover, just so that I always have some on me, and a piece of blotting paper in the back pocket, for when I'm using a fountain pen.

You can find out more details about these and other Moleskine hyperlinks over at 43Folders, as well as many other places on the internet.

I hope I've managed to convey a little about how I use my Moleskines, and about why I'm so enthusiastic about them. For me, the combination of immediacy, permanency, and quality in these little black books has provided me with the means to write a journal that I am happy with, and have a bond with. That's something that I've never had before, whether my journal was kept in a Lett's diary, on a PDA, or a file on a computer. I have a feeling I'll be going back to the shop for more Moleskines for a long time to come.

D*I*Y Planner - Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal - Comments

Now look what you've done!

I like Moleskines but

Joining the club

Y'know, I actually journal

Geocaching is, as far as I

Moleskin

Nice to see

Great pen....

i cant wait to buy mine

"I see" said the blind man to his deaf dog....

Geocaching log Moleskine/ HPDA template

Found your keys? Here's a greater challenge...

Way OT, way cool.

Using the Moleskine

I use one of the electronic

Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal

DIY Planner - Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal - Comments