Leuchtturm B5 dot matrix book

Following on from converting an old Deskfax Filofax into a B5 TN and getting a great new B5 notebook for it (review here), I also took advantage of the fact that Bureau Direct were selling off their Leuchtturm B5 dot grid notebooks. I just looked at the Bureau Direct site and they were out of stock and I suspect they aren't going to get them back in. But... Amazon do sell them (though not at 20% off like the Bureau Direct ones were...). If the price of them on Amazon is a bit rich (it seems to be going up and down), then there are also ZenArt's Bullet Journal Notebooks available on Amazon (but I don't know what they are like as I've never bought one).

But... back to the ones I do have! Given that Bureau Direct said that they were discontinuing stocking them and because delivery is free over £20, I grabbed a couple - a raspberry pink (berry) coloured cover and a sea-green (emerald) coloured cover.

Front

Back

There are 121 numbered pages, a blank table of contents, 8 perforated (detachable) sheets, an expandable pocket, and a page marker. The pages are thread bound so the book opens flat and paper is cited as ink-proof and acid-free. I've found other Leuchtturm paper a bit iffy with fountain pen ink (see a review from a few years ago here) and I haven't yet tested these ones. I suspect I will find them a bit iffy too, but I'll use them nonetheless.

Dot spacing is 5mm and the dots are fairly unobtrusive. Although the notebooks are described as soft-cover, the cover is nonetheless pretty sturdy and certainly withstands being slotted into the slip pocket in the cover of my Deskfax TN.

These would probably make a great bullet journal. I wouldn't know... I've tried to bullet journal and it doesn't work with my brain. For me, these are notebooks to go in my renovated Deskfax-TN as writing books - books to plan out new novels etc. I did a post over on my author blog about my "writing Deskfax" - see here.

I tend to use slim notebooks when I'm starting out on a novel - when I'm just noodling around, trying to work out if the initial thoughts will ever grow enough legs to make it to a full book (sometimes they do; sometimes they don't, but I keep them all, just in case!). But once I genuinely think a book will emerge from all the noodling about, I need a decent sized book to write in. I'm looking forward to using these for that.

For bullet journallers out there, these may be the missing size between A5 being a smidgen too small, but A4 being a bit too big to be portable. Page size is good, but the overall thickness of the book is manageable if you have a decent sized bag (or use a briefcase). If I could get my brain to work with bullet journalling, I might contemplate using these with a week to view layout including enough space for tasks for each day (though I do already have a B5 diary that would do just that, by United Bees. I've not reviewed it yet, but it's available here if you want to check it out).

Since I went on a bit of notebook-buying splurge, I 'm hoping to have more blog posts coming soon.

Still to review:
Ya Jin Classic Lined Casebound Hardcover Notebook
Rosaliny Green World 4 Assorted Softcover B5 Composition Notebooks
Nero's Notes Leather Notebook
Nero's Notes 6 for £6

B5 books at Amazon:

Review of New Darkstar Collection Notebooks

Stuart from PocketNotebooks kindly sent me two of the new notebooks in the Darkstar collection. These would make brilliant Bullet Journal notebooks!

So, what's new? I reviewed their original notebook here which was a lined notebook (that came in packs of three). The new notebooks have both a black and a kraft coloured cover and the paper is grid.

Darkstar is a UK based company and the notebooks are made in the UK. They come as a set of three notebooks in a pack, currently priced £8. I got one prototype of the Black Space version and one prototype of the Nomad to try.
[click on any picture to enlarge]

Darkstar cover - Black Space

As before with deliveries from PocketNotebooks, the attention to detail was great. I was addressed this time as "The Awesome Dr Fleet" and there was the PocketNotebooks slogan stamped on the back of the parcel: Forget the app, there's a pocket notebook for that. Inside, the notebooks were wrapped in purple tissue paper with a branded sticker, plus there were two small packets of sweeties (that took me back to childhood).

Nicely wrapped!

So, where do these notebooks sit on the "Pretty-Functional" grid? I don't find them especially 'pretty' but they do have an understated class to them. The black cover is a matte black and the only branding on the cover is a small, satin-finish black star on the front. It's easier to see the branding on the kraft/Nomad cover. Whereas before, the first page of the book also had the Darkstar branding, these open straight into the grid pages on the notebook.

The Nomad notebook, as well as being a lot easier to photograph to show the logo, has a slightly toothier feel to the card. Both the Black Space and the Nomad versions are lovely. In my original review, I commented on the finish being a bit untidy. In these versions, the trim is much better, and the small staples are holding the pages better.

Darkstar Nomad

There are 28 pages (56 sides) in each book in a pretty heavyweight paper (100gsm, same as in the originals). The corners are rounded. Page size is 10cm x 14cm.

The Grid
The grid is actually made up of tiny crosses, though at a distance, to my 40+ year old eyesight, they look like dots:

From a distance

Close-up

Centre-cross to centre-cross is 4.9mm vertical and 5.6mm horizontal (not sure why it's not 5mm in each direction...):

As you all know, the deal-breaker for me is how they perform with fountain pens. I used the central fold of paper to do the pen tests (mostly because almost all of my notebooks have the first page taken up with pen tests and it's harder to remove the first page than the central pages).

General writing feel:
The paper was pretty much the same feel as the original notebooks. The paper was reasonably toothy though more so for some nibs than others. I actually have a killer/probably unfair collection of fountain pens inked up at the moment - either massively broad/calligraphy/wet nibs or ones that always seem to bleed through on the majority of papers. As a consequence, I also tested some hybrid gel-ink pens and some others. The Jetstream uniball zipped across the paper and felt almost frictionless. (For someone so used to writing with a fountain pen, this came as a surprise!)
4.5* out of 5

Feathering:
Well, the pens I used were an evil test!  The Pelikan Script is inked up because I've been writing certificates for Rotary and I fully expected this to be a no-no! However, I was more surprised to see other pens also having issues, especially as they hadn't (with same ink/nib combos) in the original notebooks. The Pelikan did pretty well, really! None of the uniball pens had any issue. Whereas the Jetstream black zipped over the paper, the light blue (finer ballpoint) didn't.
3*/5

Zoom-ins on all of the inks

Given that these are grid, rather than lined, I suspect there are many out there who will eye them up for a small bullet journal and they would be excellent for this. To that end, I also tested them with my collection of Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, as these appear to be a staple for many bullet-journallers as well as the gel pens I have on my desk.

Reverse

Show-through:

Fountain pen test (reverse)

Close-up (fountain pen reverse)

Actually, not as bad as I feared! The very wet/broad nibs have shown through but the others aren't too bad. There is more ghosting than with the original paper however.
3.5*/5 for FP

The Fineliners only showed through to the other side a little.
4.5*/5

Bleed-through:
There is some bleed-through, of the wet nibs: Pelikan, Tombow and Conklin all bled at least a smidgen. Not too horrendous.
4*/5 for FP
There was no bleed-through at all from the Fineliners.
5*/5

Flattability:
The books are pretty much as good as any stapled notebook for flattability. They don't open flat and stay flat without persuasion, but it's easy to make them lie flat!

Overall:
I liked the notebooks. Granted, they're not as pretty as the Papio books, but not everyone will want that. There's a classic, understated feel to the cover that makes it suitable both for business as well as casual use. The paper stood up better to Fineliners than to fountain pens tests which will make them even more suitable for bullet journals.

Leuchtturm Bullet Journal - update

About 6 weeks ago, I got a Leuchtturm Bullet Journal from Bureau Direct (I blogged about it here). At the end, I said I'd give you an update "in about a week"... well, it's been a bit more than a week, but here's the update!

I'd love to say that I've embraced the bullet journal but I'm really struggling to fit it in with the rest of my system (which is not broken and therefore doesn't need fixing!). My current system uses a combination of three things:

• a week + notes diary (where the diary side holds the few appointments I have and notes page is used for the next actions I'm aiming to complete in the week, split into life areas)
• a note book for jotting stuff down while out and about
• an A6 squared notebook (by Clairefontaine) that is used for day planning. This has a page per day, and is the place where I time-box my day, list day tasks, plus it has space for jotting small things down

The first 2 of those are held in my Meadowgate Leather TN which is also my wallet (see here for details); the A6 sits open on my desk.

So, how am I using the A5 Leuchtturm bullet journal?

I was never going to use the first few pages as a 'future log' as all future log stuff can go straight into the correct date in the diary, so I used correction tape over the labels on those pages. So far I haven't used correction tape over the pre-filled entry in the index, and if I do use the index (which, technically, is a table of contents...) I will do.

What it's ended up being is a "book of stuff I've jotted down". I started out with a page for email reminders, then a page for blog post ideas, one for random jottings (lyrics from a song I heard so I could find it online), some marketing notes, notes about how a Facebook ad had done, a list of book finds (for my author blog - I do a book finds post once a month), notes for social media scheduling, and notes about book promotion sites.

It's just over six weeks since I started using it, and I've used 12 pages. One of those is a failed attempt at doing a weekly overview layout (to see if it would work better than my diary. It didn't.). I genuinely don't know what to use it for other than a day book. I started doing marketing notes in it but then decided that actually, I'd prefer to keep all the marketing notes together rather than them ending up distributed throughout the book, so I re-wrote all of them in a different notebook. The rest of my notes are what I would think of as 'day book' notes - and maybe that's where its use lies - somewhere to jot down stuff.

The kind of thing I would usually use
for a scrappy notebook!

I know that other people use them in the way bullet journals are intended to be used - to clear everything out of your head and put it all in one place. However, I don't think my brain works like that at all. I like diary stuff in a diary; I like to journal in my journal; I like to keep scrappy notes (that can be tossed after they've outlived their use) in a scrappy book; I like to keep project notes all together in a notebook dedicated to that project ... you see my problem. I really don't like things all jumbled up together. So, short of using it as a project notebook (which I don't want to do now that it's got all this other stuff in the front), the only thing left is to use it as a scrappy notebook for jotting throwaway things in.

My problem then, is that it's an expensive book for using as a scrappy notebook! I have a zillion other books that I could use for jotting things down that don't need keeping. Anything that does need keeping should have a proper 'home'. But because it's such a nice book (the paper is surprisingly fountain pen friendly - some show through, no feathering, no bleed through) I feel like I'm not doing it justice merely using it for a "book of stuff I've jotted down". It's falling between two camps for me. I will keep using it as a high-class day book but it does feel a bit too nice for that.

I received the notebook from Bureau Direct, but the opinions are entirely my own and unsolicited.

Leuchtturm Bullet Journal from Bureau Direct

I was delighted when Mishka from Bureau Direct emailed me to say that they had the Leuchtturm Bullet Journals back in stock and would I like to try one. Oh, and how was I for washi tape? I said I would be more than happy with anything she sent.
Well, this morning, a parcel arrived for me. I managed to restrain myself enough to take some pictures before ripping the bubble wrap off!

Still in bubble wrap!

And then took a couple of pictures before unwrapping it all completely...

Front cover plus washi

Back cover plus washi

Here's the washi in more detail:

Top to bottom: baby blue, pink, tape measure washi

Okay, but the main part of the parcel was the bullet journal. I was interested to see what was different from a standard Leuchtturm dotted A5 notebook that turned it into a specific Bullet Journal notebook.

On the inside cover is a key for symbols used in Bullet Journalling, including space to note your own versions:

Key on the inside cover

Following that, there is the usual Name and Contact page. As with all Leuchtturm notebooks, the pages are numbered and there is an index at the front. The index in the Bullet Journal notebook is a page longer (total of 4 pages) than in the standard version and has 26 lines per page (as does the standard version). There are 240 pages of dot grid (5mm spacing) c.f. 249 pages to write on in the standard version. In the Bullet Journal notebook, those other pages are taken up with notes on how to use a Bullet Journal which come after the dot grid pages. Whereas a standard Leuchtturm notebook has 2 ribbon markers, the Bullet Journal has 3. In a standard Leuchtturm notebook, the top of every page has space for the date; in the Bullet Journal the pages are unlabelled.

3 ribbon markers
Also note that the page has no pre-printed label to add the date

The index is pre-filled with two things: Future Log and the Instructions. The first 4 pages of the dot grid section are labelled at the top with 'Future Log'. I found this surprising as I thought the point of bullet-journalling was that you did what suited you, not necessarily what someone else did.

Index - pre-filled with 2 items

First 4 pages are pre-labelled Future Log

I'm not convinced that I will use the first 4 pages as a Future Log so this was a bit annoying (for me).

There are several pages of instructions/tips at the back. I won't show you all of them, but here are the first few (there are 8 in total):

Introduction

Rapid logging

More on rapid logging

Tips

Obviously, as it has only just arrived, I've not used it properly yet. I'll post again in a week or so to let you know how I'm getting on with it.

Bullet journalling update: A6 for day to day stuff

The A5 is very much a work in progress, as is the A6, but using the A6 has been an eye opener!

I'm using an A6 Clairefontaine 1951 school style notebook with grid pages, from Bureau Direct. The paper is great, the size is perfect and they are really cheap to buy!

Cover

[I'm not sure why I've written the date range on the front as I shall be throwing it away once it's finished...]

I started using it a couple of days before I went away on holiday and had a day per page for the days before I went away. I used them to jot down everything that needed doing before we went away. I used a simple dot to denote a task to be done, which got crossed through once completed. A  dash indicated a piece of information (but wasn't really getting used). An arrow through a dot meant it was rescheduled.

I didn't leave space for the index. I only remembered about that after I'd started filling things in from page 1 of the notebook. My index is now at the back (which, in fairness, is where most are in books...). Also at the back is a page for 'waiting on' which notes not just parcels/orders I'm waiting to be delivered, but also email replies etc that I'm waiting for. In essence, anything I'm waiting for! Dots indicate still waiting; crossed through indicates arrived.

Another page at the back is for books - books I want to buy/borrow from the library. I managed to be marginally more artistic with this header and draw a banner rather than just a squiggly line. Again, dot next to a title means not yet bought/borrowed; cross means bought/borrowed. There's also a page for noting down blog post ideas, one of things to look up and one for general notes.

The real work is being done at the front though. After the days leading up to the holiday, there are single pages per day for the days of the holiday. I didn't want to take my journal away with me but I wanted to be able to fill it in when I came back, so each day while we were away, I noted what the weather was like (hey, I'm British. We just do that kind of thing...), what we'd done each day, anything else notable, something I was grateful for and something I was proud of. The notes helped me to write up my journal when I got back.

I was also aware, even before I went away, that I needed to remind myself about stuff for when I came back and I knew that I wanted to see if I could find a better system for day to day planning than the hateful ABP2 (which I have abandoned...). I decided I would use a double spread for each day and note things that needed to be done that day on the RHS page and use the LHS for time-boxing. I drew out the little flags and put each date in for each day (I'm seriously NOT very artistic!) and wrote the times of the day down the LHS, leaving some space at the top in case I needed to note things like birthdays etc. The right hand edge of the timed side is to note down anything else important - what my hubby is doing for example and whether the car is with him, or a timed delivery slot. In the picture below, this is what it looks like after things have been allocated, but before I do my day-planning.

The RHS is a combination of brain dump and tasks migrating from the monthly list in the A5. I realise I might be better off with it all in one thing, but A5 is too big for sitting open on my desk and carrying around with me and A6 is too small for the monthly lists, so a combination it is. Since I do a weekly review (and monthly), I can tick things off each week as they get done, during the review session. After I've done the review, I draw out the flags for the dates for the following week, add in the times and then allocate tasks.

My morning routine is to clear my head into the RHS list and review the day before, transferring anything over to the new day that needs doing (or just crossing it out if it's never going to happen!). I've not really done this yet, but the intention for forthcoming weeks is to put tasks relating to goals in colour (coded to the life-area) and brain-dump tasks in black biro/pencil to distinguish between them. The goal-related tasks will get allocated in the weekly review.

Once I have my list, I time-box my day out on the LHS. If anything occurs to me during the day, it gets added to the notebook in the appropriate place. In the picture below, you can see the list of things on the RHS (some of which got re-scheduled, some of which got done) and the time-boxing on the LHS. The pencil is covering up a phone number I jotted down; the crossed out set of numbers was another reminder for something.

An example of what it looks like at the end of a day!

Advantages and Disadvantages so far...

Advantages:
I actually use it. I could have done everything I've just outlined in the ABP2, but I didn't because the line spacing was too tiny and I hated it.
I feel like I'm getting more done and am more organised (but that may be novelty value...).
The system is really simple - any notebook and pen could be used and you can invent your own coding for task/meeting/email etc.

Disadvantages:
I still need my diary. Which means that I now have three things on the go - my diary (in my TN which is also my wallet), the monthly goals (in the A5 - see the last post) and this day to day list. I don't have many appointments, but I do have some. I could have a monthly list in the A6 (in the bullet journal way) and add appointments to it, but I don't have that in there yet and I do like to see an overview of my week. I could draw up a weekly view in an A5 and combine the yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly plans into one place, but the size is too big. I could draw up weekly views in the A6 but that would take up too many pages. I could draw up weekly views in another A6 and put both that A6 and this day planner into the Fauxdori I made myself and go back to a wallet and A6 TN... and then I would forget one or the other when I left the house probably.
I could also easily stick with what I'm doing and just accept that things are a bit scattered while I work out what's for the best!

I've not quite cracked it yet... no doubt more soon!

How are others using a bullet journal? More conventionally (all in one book) or more scattered (or scatty?) like this?