Stalogy 365

Sorry for the LONG delay in posting. I've been up to my neck in editing and that has stolen all my time! There may be some light at the end of that tunnel in March.

Anyway, for 2020, I decided that my journal would be a B6 365 by Stalogy. I've used various diaries (as journals) over the years and fancied something a bit different.

For those of you who haven't come across Stalogy yet, they make a series of excellent notebooks. Some of my favourite B5 writing notebooks have been the Stalogy 016, but the 365 series is a little different. They come in a variety of sizes (B6, A6, A5) and the A5 come in different coloured covers and also a half-year option.

They are simple little things. There is little branding on the front, no 'bells or whistles' (so, no ribbons, no back pockets, no pen loops...), just some great quality, super-thin paper. The B6 and A6 sizes have 0.5 mm squared paper; the A5 has 0.4 mm squares. In both cases, the squares are in such a faint grey, you could probably ignore them if you so chose. At the top of each page, again in very faint grey (and in almost microscopic font) there are the days of the week, the months and the numbers 1-31 so you can circle them to note the date. Down the left-hand side of each page are time points. In the B6 they go from 7 in the morning to 11 at night. In the A6, the times go from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (I don't know what the layout is in the A5 as I don't have one). Again, this is so faint and in such a small font, you could easily ignore them if you didn't want to use them.

Some people think of them as a cheaper Hobonichi, but I think they are very different beasts. To me, the Hobnichi has a lot of duplication with monthly, weekly and daily spreads. I don't find the layout of the Hobonichi very flexible, either. I think the Stalogy wins for me because it can be used as a day-per-page diary (as I am - see below) or as a bullet-journal, with whatever layout you want. The lines and notes are so faint, they can be ignored, but are there if you do want to use them. They're also a lot cheaper at ~£17 (for a 368 page books - not bad!). I like the B6 size -  big enough, but not too big.

How I'm using it...
I have a time-log on the left of each page and my journal entry for the day on the right. I'm also trying to use more colour and decoration than I usually do, though this doesn't appear to come naturally to me! Along the bottom of each page I'm logging various things, but they're too personal to share - hence the image being trimmed.

I've also bought a cover for it... more on that in the next post.

The paper is super-thin, but takes most pens well. There is a bit too much show-through/ghosting for me to want to use a fountain pen in it, but that's because I have a huge aversion to ghosting.

So far, I'm really enjoying using it!

Anyone else out there a Stalogy 365 lover? How do you use it?

Leuchtturm lined slim softcover notebook

My good friend Stu, from Nero's Notes sent me a couple of notebooks recently. One was this little number; the other was from Poach My Lobster, and a review of that will be coming soon. Although these were a gift, these are my honest views on the notebook.

Stu knows my penchant for slightly differently sized books (see all my recent posts on B5 and B6 stuff). I find that A5 can be a little bit big for a handbag, but A6 is a bit too small for me. I've slowly been shifting towards B-sizes, using B5 for writing notebooks (see here, here, here and here), and looking at using B6 for a Traveller's Notebook (see here). So both of these notebooks were a brilliant size for me.

The Leuchtturm softcover slim notebook measures 125 mm x 190 mm (making it almost B6 size:125 mm * 176 mm). It would fit in my B6 TN cover, but it would be as tall as the cover (probably making the stringing a bit tight - I don't know, I've not tried it). But, I don't want this for my TN, I want it as a satellite notebook to keep in my handbag! The one I was sent is lined, but they are also available in dot grid or plain.

B6 Traveller's Notebook

If you've read my blog much recently, you'll know that I've become a recent convert to the B5 size, having a) converted an old Filofax Deskfax to a B5 Traveller's Notebook and b) found that B5 is a great size for book planning notebooks (see my reviews of a Zhi Jin notebook here, a B5 Leuchtturm dot matrix book here, and a set of Rosaliny Green World B5 notebooks here).

Before my conversion to B5, I had already been exploring B6 as a size. Now, don't get me wrong, I do love my Traveller's Notebooks (original size), but sometimes they are a bit big. This is probably because they are wallet, diary and notebook, all in one, but sometimes I think I want something a bit smaller.

Way back in January (!), I decided to dip my toe in the B6 water and bought (secondhand) a B6 TN via a Facebook group. I don't know why I haven't blogged about it before now... perhaps because I'm not using it yet.