My Collection, Nostalgia, Resketch, Rhodia

How to Use a Notepad

December 16, 2025 Nifty Notebook 2 Comments

Another reader has gotten in touch with a burning question, something I hadn’t really thought about much. Stephen asks:

What are the optimal use cases for a notepad, as opposed to a notebook?

I use Rhodia A4 and A5 Bloc pads all the time at my desk, ruled with that great ivory FP-friendly paper; and the square No. 210 is my scribbling, calculating, equation-writing standby for pencil.

But the only two items I’ve found that could compete with smaller EDC notebooks, in particular that might merit investing in leather covers, are the Rhodia No. 14 pads (5 x 5 grid, 170 x 110mm) and the lovely Quattro grid/lined/plain “hand●book journals” (5.5 x 3.5”). The latter are printed only on the front side, which subtly highlights my question….

Are there reasons why you might want to carry what would effectively be a one-side-only “notebook,” i.e., a top-stapled/-glued notepad? The classic example is the spiral-bound reporter’s notepad, where speed of transcription is presumably the prime consideration. The other instance, which I have tried a few times myself, is the “disposable to-do list,” finish all the items on a page, then tear it off and throw it away. But beyond that? No ideas.

You seem the obvious person to ask, especially after I used your site’s search function and got 837 hits on “notepad.” Wow!

Thoughts? I’m prepared to be suitably humbled when you rattle off a list of things that you use them for all the time.

This did get me thinking. “Do I ever use notePADS?” The answer is pretty much no, if we’re talking about the format this reader is describing. (I’m going to disagree with Stephen slightly and define a notepad as a stapled or glued pad of paper designed to be torn off along the top edge. I personally consider a reporter’s notebook a top-opening noteBOOK, not a notePAD.)

I also wondered “837 hits? What notePADs have I even reviewed?” I had to use the site’s search function myself to check. I have reviewed a few that were sent as free samples (such as this Rhodia notepad and some from Resketch), and I have some in my collection of childhood notebooks (such as this one), and I even bought a notepad (in 2014) because it was cute and super cheap, though I think I ended up giving it away.

Notepads from my childhood, late 1970s to early 1980s.

But what about the potential uses for this format? I do always have a notebook on my desk that serves a notepad-ish purpose. Since it’s a wirebound notebook, I end up using both sides of the page, but it’s used for disposable jottings and doodles, things that I don’t need to save in the Filofax where I keep more important work notes. When I worked in an office, I always had a paper blotter on my desk that served a similar purpose. So I do think there is a value to having a notepad that lives in a certain spot, for those times you just need to jot something down, or might want to mindlessly doodle. In the house where I grew up, there was always some kind of notepad next to the landline phone in the kitchen, and next to the other landline phone in my parents’ bedroom. It’s not like you’d be calling directory assistance and having to write down a phone number from anywhere else in the house!

The location-based usage of a notepad also makes me think that they often work best with some kind of base that holds them in place, making it easy to jot things down one-handed without fumbling. I know I’ve been given little gift sets where there are square notepads in some sort of base with space for a little pencil– I’m not sure these are substantial enough to really work. You want something that won’t slide around while you write, and won’t go flying if you try to tear the top page off without holding the rest of the pad down. Nowadays this sort of thing seems to be made more for sticky notes than notepads, but here’s a couple that might be similar to what I’m thinking of:

Howard Miller Notepad Caddy II

Dacasso Dark Brown Bonded Leather Memo/Note Holder for Desktop

Other uses for notepads: playing games like Boggle or Pictionary or Scrabble, where you have to write or draw something or keep score. I can’t remember if those games come with some little notepads of their own, but if you play enough, they’ll run out. The last time I played Scrabble, there was no notepad near by, but I was able to save the day since I had a sketchbook in my pocket. But it’s a bit of a waste to use a nice notebook or sketchbook for writing down Scrabble scores. And I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to tear out a page for each player in a game of Boggle. (Topic for another post: have you ever been overly protective of your precious notebook when other people just wanted a piece of paper and didn’t get what the big deal was?) Rhodia’s tear-off pads are not as cheap as they used to be, but are still inexpensive enough that I wouldn’t be bothered using them for games, even if the paper seems nicer than you really need. Back in the day, it seemed like there were always cheap, plain, glue-bound 3×5″ notepads around the house that could be used for this purpose– these, to me, are the classic definition of a “notepad.”

Reminders and shopping lists have always been a typical use for this kind of notepad, particularly when you are going to hand them off as a to-do item for someone else. My mom usually has one on her kitchen counter, the top page of which is usually a grocery list she wants me to go out and get as soon as I’ve arrived for a visit. But she also uses sticky notes nowadays. Sticky notes didn’t even exist when I was a kid. When Romy and Michelle invented Post-Its, did they inadvertently kill the notepad? Sticky notes have taken over as a very popular and practical form for the traditional uses of notepads, and they ensure that handed-off notes won’t blow away or get lost as easily.

Notepads can also be handed off to a child who needs to be kept entertained. Most of us don’t want a toddler’s sticky hands tearing at our expensive notebooks, but you can hand them a cheap notepad and a crayon to draw with and they’ll be perfectly happy.

The other things that come to mind are formatted notepads with a specific purpose, like a doctor’s prescription pad, or a scorepad for mini-golf. Maybe real golfers use scorepads too? Or perhaps that’s all going phone-based…. I seem to recall ordering lunch at a place where you had to tear off a notepad sheet and check boxes for what you wanted in your sandwich or salad, but that’s also probably going electronic.

So to sum up, notepads are for:

A place where you need disposable scratch paper at hand
Notes you don’t need to archive, like shopping lists, quick reminders, calculations, doodles
Games where you need to write down words, or draw, or keep score
Notes you want to hand off to another person
Children who want to write or draw
Formatted sheets like prescriptions, scoring sheets, order forms, etc.

Otherwise, I’m running out of ideas. I’m definitely more of a notebook person than a notepad person. To me a notepad seems pretty limited, and pretty much anything it does can be done by various types of notebooks. There’s a reason this blog isn’t called Notepad Stories! But I appreciate the question, and the chance to spend more time thinking about another classic paper note-taking tool.

This post contains affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission.

books, creativity, Diary, Journal, Moleskine, My Collection, Other People's Notebooks, Planner, record-keeping, Sketchbook, Travel Notebooks, Writing Notebooks

Orhan Pamuk’s Notebooks

December 12, 2025 Nifty Notebook 1 Comment

Orhan Pamuk’s Memories of Distant Mountains was published last year. I bought a copy right away but it’s taken me a while to review it!

orhan pamuk book memories of distant mountains

I wrote about Pamuk once before, quoting a passage from one of his books where he talks about his grandmother keeping notebooks that she wrote in every day. He must have picked up a version of that habit himself, as Memories of Distant Mountains is full of spreads from Pamuk’s own illustrated journals kept between 2009 and 2022.

memories of distant mountains orhan pamuk notebooks interior spread

The pages are very densely packed with writing and drawing– scribbled words in what looks like ballpoint pen and markers, sketches in markers and perhaps crayon or colored pencil and watercolor. The images seem to be views of various places in Istanbul and from Pamuk’s travels, or perhaps imagined images and doodles in some cases. The pages are presented as actual-size spreads, more or less– some slightly larger, some slightly smaller, as far as I can tell. I think this is to accommodate varying amounts of translated text around the images (where all the writing is in Turkish).

The way the notebook spreads are aligned with the book page spread allows for nice flexibility in how the translated text is arranged, but it’s a bit unfortunate to have some of the art right in the gutter between the pages, as the binding doesn’t open completely flat. I prefer the way the Spanish edition is laid out, in a landscape format book with the translation on the left hand page, and the notebook spread on the right.

recuerdos de montanas lejanas orhan pamuk notebooks libretas cuadernos

The texts are a mix of jotted phrases and words, almost like poetry, on some pages, and what sound like more traditional journal entries on other pages. Sometimes the text seems to relate to the image, but elsewhere Pamuk may just be pairing a sketch of where he happens to be while he’s writing.

The notebooks themselves are all Moleskine planners. Most of the pages shown are from page-per-day diaries, but some have other formats. I think they are all pocket size, which seems to be confirmed by a couple of videos (here and here) where Pamuk pulls his current diary out of his pocket. Looking at my own Moleskine diaries, the daily spreads match my 2001 daily planner except that they started capitalizing the month names at some point, and I found an example of the travel notes spread in a weekly Moleskine diary I used in 2009.

moleskine page per day diary planner vs orhan pamuk illustrated page — Comparison to 2001 Moleskine Daily Planner from my collection

moleskine pocket planner travel memo pages — Comparison to 2009 Moleskine Weekly Planner from my collection

I had not seen a pocket Moleskine diary with the kind of month-on-one-page layout that appears in the book. I found an example of it in a 2010 post from Plannerisms, but that was in a large Moleskine diary. It seemed like the boxes would be too small to be useful on a pocket size page, so I thought Pamuk might occasionally use a large diary too, but Moleskine’s own site does show an image of a month-per-page spread in a listing for a 2024 pocket size planner.

moleskine pocket diary month per page spread

memories of distant mountains orhan pamuk notebooks interior spread close up monthly moleskine

Aside from my notebook fascination, it’s hard to know how to approach this book. Some of the art is really stunning, and it’s wonderful just to flip through for visual inspiration, but I haven’t tried to read through very much of the text in order. “In order” is a strange concept here, as the dates of the pages skip back and forth in time. On some of the illustrated spreads you can barely see the day and date, but all pages of the book are annotated in the upper left corner with a year and sometimes a letter, as Pamuk kept multiple notebooks in some years. A “Chronology” at the end of the book gives broad strokes about what Pamuk was doing during the years he was keeping these journals but there’s no foreword or afterword or any other explanatory texts about the book as a whole.

memories of distant mountains orhan pamuk notebooks chronology

Ultimately, I kind of agree with some of the NY Times book critic Dwight Garner’s take on it:

Diaries and notebooks from writers (and others with a gift for language) matter because they’re forums for observations on manners and morals and art and food and sex and politics; they track another human being’s impulses, appetites and philosophies. They’re a groovy back door into a mind.

Pamuk’s notebooks lead us to such a door, then ask us to remain outside….

His wife warned him not to publish “anything too personal” in this book, and he has succeeded all too well. Sometimes the prose is gnomic: “If you follow the river you will reach the valley where words and images are one,” he writes. Duly noted. At many other times, he displays a tiresome sort of mock innocence. At a reading: “Lots of people! A large, jam-packed hall!”

The review is a bit harsh– it doesn’t have much to say about the art, and is mainly concerned with the bland and cryptic nature of the text. I guess if you are really a big fan of Pamuk’s writing and want to learn more about him, this book may not be the kind of rich source material you’d desire. I’ve read a couple of Pamuk’s books and enjoyed them, but don’t feel the need to delve into his psyche that deeply, so I can enjoy the book as an inspiring example of dense, colorful visual journaling by a very talented artist (Pamuk wanted to be a painter before turning to writing novels).

I’d like Memories of Distant Mountains even more if the text was full of more interesting storytelling about the author’s life, or more observations about the places he’s sketching. But if the text is sometimes a little obscure or banal, maybe that’s comforting in a way: I think anyone who’s ever kept a journal has probably questioned the point of recording boring, random things about their life. We wonder if our activities and ideas and feelings are really worth memorializing on paper. We cringe at the idea of anyone reading our inner-most thoughts. Well, here’s a book that shows that even a Nobel Prize-winning author isn’t filling his diaries with super-deep insights 100% of the time. The pressure’s off.

My Collection, Nostalgia

Vintage Looseleaf Notebook from Woolworth

December 8, 2025 Nifty Notebook Leave a comment

This notebook was a fun eBay find– so retro, with a kind of sexy-ugly vibe. Often I see things like this and just admire them without buying, but for some reason, I had to have this one, even though lots of things about it don’t fit my usual notebook preferences.

vintage woolworth notebook zipped looseleaf

The size is about 6-1/2 x 9-1/2 x 7/8″– I guess the closest thing you’d find today might be a Filofax A5 size organizer, but I think the Woolworth notebook is narrower. It’s made of a faux-leather textured vinyl with a mottled green color to it. It’s a very old-fashioned green– I feel like I knew someone with car seats made of this material in the 1970s.

The edges zip closed with a rather chunky zipper, which is sewn on with brown edging.

Inside, the lining is a black vinyl with a different texture. There is a sort of pocket on each side– oddly, the pockets are quite shallow and open outward. I guess they figured they didn’t have to hold things in very securely since the notebook would be zipped closed.

The rings are attached to the cover with a rivet that goes all the way through, so you can’t open the rings up and adjust them if they have gaps– which they sort of do, slightly. The ring spacing does match other A5 notebooks and Filofaxes.

The paper that’s included is obviously what originally came with it, as it has a cover sheet with all the information about the cover itself. I’m not sure why they call it a “Miniature” Zipper Book, as “miniature” would suggest something much smaller to me. The 5-1/2 x 8-1/2″ paper is close to Filofax and other A5 notebook paper sizing– theirs are 5-7/8 x 8-1/4″, so they’d be a little too wide to fit this binder. You can still get basic 5-1/2 x 8-1/2″ looseleaf paper, but the ones I saw seem to have different hole punch layouts, for either 3 or 7 rings. So if I end up using this actively, I may have to either trim 6-ring A5 sheets, or punch different holes in the right size paper!

woolworth zipped looseleaf notebook lined pages

This notebook was priced at $2.99 according to the cover sheet– but the question is when? I would guess maybe the mid-1960s– it feels very 1950s somehow but the Woolworths company address has a 5-digit zip code and those weren’t used until 1963. The notebook doesn’t say where it was made, but I would guess it was in the USA.

This Woolworth notebook is an odd but pleasing part of my collection– I never realized I had such a soft spot for pleather in baby poop green, but this notebook definitely brought it out!

Art, books, creativity, Other People's Notebooks

Francesca Woodman’s Artist’s Books

November 24, 2025 Nifty Notebook Leave a comment

I sometimes shudder at the idea of old notebooks being altered in any way, but I came across a book that captures what I think is an interesting and beautiful use of old books and journals. Photographer Francesca Woodman bought various old books, notebooks and exercise books at flea markets in Italy in the 1970s. She then used them to create her own artist’s books by adding her photographs and annotations. These works are collected in The Artist’s Books, published by Mack in 2023. Looks like a beautifully produced book. The publisher is sold out, and 2nd hand copies get pricey.

The publisher’s website doesn’t show much of the content, but at the Woodman Foundation website, there are some more detailed images of one of the works that is included, called Some Disordered Interior Geometries:

Sadly, Woodman died shortly after that work was created. You can read more about her life and work here.

Leitz, My Collection, Notebook Reviews, Places to Buy Notebooks

Leitz Premium Notebook Review

November 19, 2025 Nifty Notebook Leave a comment

I forget how I came across this Leitz notebook on Amazon— I might have seen the brand mentioned somewhere else, or maybe it was just some algorithmic recommendation. Whatever it was, it intrigued me enough to spend $19.30 plus tax to try one out!

This notebook is made in China but Leitz is a German company, a division of the global conglomerate Acco Brands. (Mead, FiveStar, Derwent, At-A-Glance, DayTimer, Esselte, and Hilroy are a few of their other stationery-related brands.) Based on the languages and addresses listed on the packaging, the Leitz brand seems to be distributed mostly in eastern Europe and Russia.

The Leitz notebook has a very business-y, serious look to the packaging. It comes shrinkwrapped, with a paper wrapper underneath.

Once I got past the packaging, I immediately noticed the feel of the cover material– it is a slightly shiny cloth, probably nylon, as it feels like the kind of fabric that might be a lining in clothes, or used for an umbrella. It’s odd, but I don’t mind it, or the stitching around the edges. The cover is also unusual in that it has thick boards that don’t extend all the way to the spine.

There’s a debossed Leitz brand logo on the front, and a plainer name and model number on the back. The back also has a plastic rivet that holds the pen loop on, something I don’t recall seeing elsewhere. If you don’t like pen loops, it’s probably going to be hard to remove– I haven’t tried yet. A wide elastic holds it snugly closed. The notebook has a bit too much overhang for my taste but not the worst I’ve seen. The size is said to be A6, but it measures about 96 x 141mm, or about 5-9/16 x 3-3/4″. It’s a little wider than a Moleskine but smaller than true A6.

leitz notebook vs moleskine — Leitz notebook vs. pocket Moleskine

letiz notebook vs moleskine — Leitz notebook compared to pocket Moleskine

The Leitz notebook has a little paper pocket in the front cover, and space to write your details. Some other features are two ribbon markers, and at the back of the notebook, 8 plain, perforated pages. The stitched binding is flexible enough that it opens quite flat, but it won’t lie totally flat on its own, at least not when new.

The inside back cover has a metric ruler, gusseted paper pocket, and whoa, silver metallic sticky notes?? That was a cool surprise but they are very slippery so you can’t write on them with most pens– a Uni oil-based marking pen will work, but otherwise I think these are meant to just be page markers.

leitz notebook back pocket and page markers

The page format is not typical for this type of notebook: squares with a header and border all around. I’ve only seen this layout in some Japanese notebooks and planners.

The paper in the Leitz notebook is 100 gsm. It’s not super smooth– it has a pleasant amount of feedback and feels good to write on with all pens. Its performance is better than average on show-through and I only got a few spots of bleeding with the wettest pens. Most fountain pens did great, so I’ll call this fountain pen friendly.

leitz notebook fountain pen friendly test

I don’t think I’d go out of my way to buy another one of these, especially given the cost for US delivery, which is now even higher due to tariffs. But for notebook users in Europe where the price is around 11 euros, the Leitz notebook is a solid option with good quality construction, nice paper, and some extra features that distinguish it from its competitors. You can find these on Amazon, where lined versions and other sizes are available.

Art, books, creativity, My Collection, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

J. M. W. Turner Facsimile Sketchbooks

November 17, 2025 Nifty Notebook 1 Comment

Several years ago I posted about some of Turner’s sketchbooks that were available in book form: J. M. W. Turner Sketchbooks.

I recently went to another exhibition of Turner’s work, this time at the Yale Center for British Art. In the exhibition, there was an actual sketchbook displayed in a plexiglass case, opened to a beautiful spread that looks as if it could have been painted yesterday:

Happily, these photos weren’t the only way for me to remember it. Yale has also published a beautiful facsimile edition of this sketchbook: Turner’s Last Sketchbook. Every page is reproduced at actual size, even the covers and the gorgeous marbled endpapers. Even the pages he left blank! He worked from both ends of the sketchbook, so you have to turn the book upside down to see some of the spreads as intended. It is really lovely, giving the intimate feel of an artist’s experiments and scribbles and visual note-taking.

The introduction to the book mentions that this kind of notebook was known as a “pocketbook,” and was usually used vertically. The label in the inside front cover confirms that intended orientation, noting that it was made and/or sold by “Pilsworth, Stationer, Printer & Account Book Manufacturer.”

This sketchbook is also referred to as “The Channel Sketchbook.” You can see all the pages digitized at the Yale Center for British Art’s website.

The sketchbook above is the last known intact sketchbook used by Turner, but I also have a facsimile of one he used almost 50 years earlier, which is known as The ‘Wilson’ Sketchbook. This one is so tiny! And the work inside is very different, from a time when Turner was experimenting with a darker ground. This facsimile isn’t quite as complete– they don’t show the outside covers of the sketchbook.

Turner was a bit of a notebook addict: these are just two of the over 300 sketchbooks he filled during his lifetime! I love seeing how these little pages relate to his larger paintings– you really get the sense of an artist just quickly capturing momentary impressions.

These and other facsimile sketchbooks are included in my Amazon shop, in the Artists’ Facsimile Sketchbooks section.

This post contains affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission on any associated purchases.

At-A-Glance, Diary, Full Focus, Hobonichi, Journal, Laconic, Leuchtturm, Marquette, Moleskine, My Collection, Nolty, Places to Buy Notebooks, Planner, Prism, Stalogy, Standard Diary, Sterling Ink, Wykeham's

Reader Question: Seeking A Pocket Sized Daily Planner That Isn’t a Moleskine

November 10, 2025 Nifty Notebook 4 Comments

Here’s another question from a reader who needs help finding a specific type of notebook:

I’m looking for a pocket-sized daily planner (that’s NOT Moleskine). Something that has a full page for each day, not a planner that has a week layout on two pages. There are a thousand of those and I use them and I like them. But I’m looking for one that has a day to a page. (Ideally I’d also like to have a monthly layout in the planner as well, but it’s not necessary.)

The planner I think comes closest to it is the old Marquette planners you wrote about here:

1940 Marquette Diary

I’m sure this reader isn’t the only one who has this question. I remember that last year, Kathrin Jebsen-Marwedel, one of my favorite notebook artists, was looking for alternatives after finally deciding she couldn’t live with the decline in Moleskine’s paper quality anymore. After 24 years of keeping an illustrated diary in a daily pocket Moleskine, she switched to a Leuchtturm daily planner, and it sounded like she was happy with it. Leuchtturm’s size is 3.5 x 6″ vs. Moleskine’s 3.5 x 5.5″, but if you can handle an extra half inch in height, Leuchtturm is probably the closest design to Moleskine’s in every other respect. The 2026 version is now available.

If you are open to an undated daily planner, Nolty‘s Dailybook is something to consider. It has the 3.5 x 5.5″ format, and the pages are laid out with a header where you can put the date, and then a section with a light grid pattern. The paper is a creamy color, super smooth and fantastically fountain pen friendly. I reviewed the original limited editino 2020 dated version of the Nolty Dailybook here and the undated Dailybook here. The undated Dailybook was also produced in a leather covered “Gold” version for Nolty’s 60th anniversary. It’s still available here.

The only problem with the Nolty Dailybook is that it might be expensive to order from Japan– I’ve found that shipping can be around $25 and up. It’s available via Nolty’s online shop, which has an English-language international purchasing service built in. I also noticed an Etsy seller offering these.

undated nolty daily book vs. 2020 version

nolty dailybook page layout — Undated Nolty Dailybook on left, vs. 2020 dated version on right

Another undated option is Stalogy. I reviewed the Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 Day Notebook a few years ago. At the time, the only “pocket” size option was a true A6, but they have now introduced an “A6 Slim” size that measures 3.5 x 5.8″– close to the size of the Leuchtturm diary. Here too the pages have a header space and a squared layout. The smooth, lightweight paper is fountain pen friendly.

stalogy notebook — A6 Stalogy I reviewed

stalogy slim size notebook — Stalogy slim vs. regular size comparions

Then there’s Sterling Ink. I reviewed some of Sterling Ink’s plain pocket size notebooks and was very impressed by the quality. Their planners also seem to be very popular, and a 2026 pocket size daily planner is available. (Or it was when I started writing this post, anyway. These seem to have now sold out, but other sizes are still available.) In addition to the daily pages, there are yearly, quarterly and monthly layouts, and some plain notes pages.

If you’re open to a standard A6 size, there is of course the Hobonichi Techo. I reviewed the 2014 Hobonichi Techo when they first launched the English language version in the US. They’ve since become wildly popular and branched out into loads of options, but my favorite is still the classic version with the black cover.

As for brands I haven’t reviewed, here are a few that look promising:

Wykehams is a relatively new British brand that I’d never come across until now. Their “Executive Journal” planners have a traditional style, and the 2026 diaries come in various sizes and page layouts including an A6 daily diary, which is surprisingly affordable at $22.00, marked down from $24. The price even includes free shipping from within the US. This may have the closest format to the old Marquette diary, even if it’s a bit chunkier.

The Laconic Pocket Log Diary is a little smaller than a Moleskine, measuring 3.5 x 4.7″. The layout (undated) may not be free-form enough for some users, but others may enjoy having some structure. The other potential drawback is that there are only enough pages for 6 months, so you’d have to buy two a year. There’s a detailed review at The Pen Addict. Jet Pens sells it (as did Yoseka, but they’re out of stock). It’s also listed on Amazon but not currently available there.

The Prism 365 Days Daily Planner is a Korean diary available from Mochithings. It comes in various colors and at 5.94 x 3.86 x 1.06in. it’s close in size to the Leuchtturm daily planner. I had not heard of this brand before, but I found a review on YouTube that seems to have some concerns about the quality of their bindings.

prism 365 days daily planner page layout

There are some other options if you are open to a larger size like 5×7″. To me that’s not really “pocket” size any more, but if you have big pockets, check these out:

The At-A-Glance Standard Diary is a classic. The smallest version is about 5 x 8″, unfortunately. Weirdly, they are crazy expensive if you buy them directly from At-A-Glance’s website ($71.27!) but heavily discounted from a lower price on Amazon (currently $27.60, 54% off the $60.39 list price).

at a glance standard diary daily planner

at a glance standard diary daily planner layout

The “pocket” size Full Focus Planner comes in a 4.5 x 7 inch size so it’s a little more pocket friendly than the Standard Diary. The grey linen cover looks attractive. The pages here have a format that is designed to work with the Full Focus system of productivity and goal achievement which aims to “help high achievers live their best lives,” via selling them planners and corporate coaching. It all seems a bit intense but the planner looks nice. However, it stays slim by only having enough undated daily pages for 3 months, so you’ll be spending over $100 to cover a full year. Other sizes are also available.

Well, I’ve given it my best shot! I hope one of these options will fit the bill. I’d love to hear from other readers who are using pocket size daily planners too!

This post contains affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission on purchases.

Art, creativity, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

Ruth Asawa’s Sketchbooks

November 3, 2025 Nifty Notebook 1 Comment

There’s a fabulous retrospective of the artist Ruth Asawa on view now at MoMA in NYC, through February 7, 2026. Asawa is best known for her hanging sculptures made of woven wire (the header photo of this post is the shadow of one of them), but this exhibition really opened my eyes to the breadth of her work and the way she developed as an artist. I was also happy to see quite a few sketchbooks on display!

She seems to have mostly used spiral bound sketchbooks in a few different sizes, around 8.5 x 11″ or a little bigger or smaller. Some were displayed on the wall, and some were in a large glass case.

There were also some sheets of 3-hole punched looseleaf notebook paper that contained drawings and notes from her classes at Black Mountain College.

I enjoyed the exhibition so much, I walked through it twice, and the catalog of the exhibition is now on my Christmas list– I didn’t have a chance to look at the book much at the museum but it sounds like the sketchbooks are included in it. Check it out if you can’t make it to MoMA for the show!

Other People's Notebooks, Pen-Tab, Ready Wire-Glo, record-keeping, Travel Notebooks

Moe Berg’s Notebooks

October 28, 2025 Nifty Notebook 1 Comment

I recently read the book The Catcher Was a Spy, a fascinating account of the life of Morris “Moe” Berg. Berg was a catcher for several major league baseball teams from the late 1920s to the early 1940s. While his record as a player wasn’t that great, he was one of the most quirky and interesting people ever to play baseball. He graduated from Princeton University and Columbia Law School, then worked for the OSS (the precursor of the CIA) during World War II. He was addicted to reading multiple newspapers a day, and spoke several languages. He studied in Paris for a time, and visited Japan and South America, all of which gave him the reputation of a globe-trotting intellectual among his fellow baseball players at a time when few of them shared such pursuits. It also gave him plenty to write about in notebooks!

The author of the book, Nicholas Dawidoff, notes that Moe Berg saved lots of the papers he accumulated during his life, including documents, menus, and ticket stubs. Dawidoff’s research for the book relied on various personal papers, letters, notebooks and photographs. Some of these materials are owned by private collectors but many are in archives, including 25 boxes at Princeton, which include notebooks, and other papers at the Columbia Law Library , the New York Public Library, and the Center for Jewish History.

A couple of his notebooks also ended up in auctions in recent years. The blue Pen-Tab notebook below was listed for sale twice, once when it didn’t sell and in a later listing that says it sold for $2,000. (I have a few Pen-Tab notebooks in my own collection of spiral notebooks, but their cover design is different.)

The red notepad below was also part of an auction lot. “Ready Wire-Glo” is a brand name I hadn’t seen before. There don’t seem to be any traces of it via Google search either…

It’s a bit hard to read Berg’s handwriting but apparently a lot of the notes related to his interest in languages and linguistics, as well as baseball, and his work for the OSS.

The Catcher Was a Spy is definitely worth reading if you enjoy baseball and/or unusual biographies. The notebooks are mentioned here and there in the book, but not shown– that’s what got me googling to see what I could find out about them! Another book called My Time with the Catcher Spy, Morris Moe Berg supposedly shows full color images of one of Berg’s notebooks, but I haven’t read it and couldn’t find any pictures of the interior online. But I’ll be keeping an eye out for any more auctions!

See my other posts about baseball-related notebooks.

Filofax, Mead, MeePlus, My Collection, Organization, Places to Buy Notebooks, Planner, Plotter, productivity, record-keeping, Travelers Notebook

Reader Question: A Notebook to Track Several Employees

October 23, 2025 Nifty Notebook 1 Comment

Here’s a question from a reader:

“I just took a job managing several employees. I’d like to keep a notebook that will have a section for each employee (roughly about 10). I have a travelers notebook and thought about several inserts for them but as much as I was addicted to travelers notebooks, I am no longer so. I even thought about a good old fashion mead college ruled notebook with dividers (ugh). Any suggestions?”

This is a great topic, and can expand to any situation where you need to track multiple subjects or ongoing projects in a notebook, not just employees.

I wouldn’t use a Travelers Notebook for this purpose. While having a separate insert for each employee might seem like a good idea, ultimately I don’t think it’s flexible enough. Each insert has a finite number of pages, so there might be too many pages for one employee and too few for another.

The good old fashioned Mead college ruled notebook has the same problem, but even worse– while it offers a way to keep each employee in one section, what happens when you run out of space in one of the sections? Then the rest of the notebook will go to waste, as you can’t add pages or replace a single section.

mead five star college ruled notebook 5 subject — Screenshot

To me, the obvious solution here is a refillable loose-leaf notebook of some sort. In a loose-leaf binder, you can add and remove pages and dividers, and arrange them however you like. You could have a section for each employee, and then even have pages for different topics within each section, such as running notes from one-on-one meetings with that employee, a list of future projects and goals for that employee, a tracker of that employee’s vacation and sick days, and notes for the employee’s next performance review. You could keep a lot of other information in that loose-leaf notebook too, such as notes relating to your own work schedule, tasks, and goals.

My own work notebook is pretty much an example of what I’m suggesting. I’m now closing in on my first full year of using a loose-leaf system and it’s been working really well– I have a section for my own weekly calendar and to-do list, a section for general notes, and a section called “Projects” where I have sub-sections for my boss, the person who reports to me, and various committees I’m on. Whenever I have those meetings, I just flip to the relevant tabbed section and make sure I review any notes already there and add new ones as needed. I can move pages from the general notes to the calendar section or the projects section, and I never have to worry about running out of space. At the end of this year, I’ll file away the calendar and anything relating to projects that are now finished, and add a fresh calendar for next year. If a new committee or project arises, I’ll add a new section. I don’t know why I spent so many years using wire-bound notebooks for work!

I’m using a vintage personal size Filofax Gloucester, shown above, and covered in more detail in this post. A Filofax is a great option if you want to have a nice leather binder, but there are lots of other loose-leaf notebooks and organizers that would work just as well. It just depends what size you want and how much you want to spend. You could buy a brand new Filofax or Plotter organizer and all their branded inserts if you want to go high end. MeePlus is another option that is a somewhat less expensive, and there are many similar options on Etsy and Ebay. You could search your local stores like TJ Maxx or Marshalls or even thrift stores, where you can sometimes find Filofax and other organizer brands at reduced prices. And for even less, you could buy a very basic, generic, inexpensive ring binder and set it up with plain paper and some tabbed dividers. (My one caution about some of the cheap binders is that the rings can be kind of chintzy– loose or misaligned rings can be very annoying to use. Ideally, you should look for a brand with Krause rings, as these have a reputation for the best quality.)

Most loose-leaf notebooks and inserts fall into standard sizes and ring spacing, so don’t be afraid to mix and match different brands of inserts and binders– just confirm the measurements are what you want, as one brand’s “pocket” may be another brand’s “personal” or “mini.” My work Filofax has a mix of vintage and contemporary Filofax dividers, a Plotter calendar, and RayMay Davinci blank pages for notes. My pocket size MeePlus notebook is filled with a mix of Plotter and Filofax inserts, as well as some hand-made tabbed dividers that I cut out of heavy weight paper.

meeplus slim pad notebook with plotter inserts

The beauty of any loose-leaf system is that you can change your mind so easily! If you set something up and don’t love it, you can swap out covers and rearrange inserts and let it evolve until you find what works for you.

For more ideas, see some of my other posts about loose-leaf notebooks.

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