A Year of Pocket Notebooks
Today marks exactly one year since I started carrying a notebook in my pocket everywhere that I go.
I did this to try and reduce screen time on my phone and my iPad, and just generally move away from the digital world. I had started working from home the majority of the time, and I found myself scrolling Instagram reels instead of working. Fine if it is every once in a while, less fine if it became a habit, which it quickly was. Using the notebook was one step to avoid this.
One of the nice things about having physical notebooks is being able to look back through them, read about what was on my mind, and what was troubling me most.
Common themes
The way I used the notebooks changed over the year. They weren’t really journals, just an analogue space to write down lists, thoughts, inspirations and ideas.
In all of the notebooks, a common theme was frustration, mainly with the way I consumed media, particularly YouTube, but also with my screen time, or my lack of motivation. I would chastise myself or write down encouraging phrases, depending on the mood.
Another common feature is lists. Oh so many lists! Shopping lists, to do lists, want lists, forbidden lists. the worst list that I found was Goals for 2026. It is June now - guess how many I have achieved? I cut this list out and stuck it into my current notebook.
I am no good at drawing, but doodling is also present in all of my notebooks. These sometimes go hand in hand with the frustrations or the lists, little characters attached to motivational or deriding statements. In one book I had a phase of writing all the titles in bubble writing!
What I did then that I don’t do now
I used to write down far more project ideas when I first started using the notebook. I think this is because I was much stricter on phone use. I restricted my access to the internet, with the goal to only look things up when I was at home.
I miss these brainstorming sessions. Not many came to fruition, but the act of thinking a plan through was enough in itself.
Maybe I will try and limit my phone again. It has slowly but surely become less dumb and more smart, the world of information at my fingertips again. I enjoyed the delayed satisfaction of looking up an answer to a question I had earlier in the day.
Takeaways
I will continue to use my notebooks. It feels wrong to not have them on me, even when I go weeks without actually writing anything down. It has also been weirdly handy having a pen on me at times!
Going back through the finished notebooks has been an overall good experience, even if I have felt a numbing lack of progress in some areas. This process has helped me refocus, and hopefully I can take this forwards.
I would recommend using physical notebooks having one near you or on your person. It really does beat any app on your phone for jotting down those quick lists or spur of the moment ideas.
I’ll try to rebalance my own phone/notebook use again over the coming months!
Quack