What will I be using in 2017?

I've pretty much settled into a system now and so I'm all set up, ready to go for 2017. In this post, I'll tell you about the components of the system; in the next post, I'll show you how it all fits together.

The System:
One carry-around. This is my Meadowgate TN and it contains a week + notes diary, a monthly insert and a notebook
An A6 daily planner
A separate notebook with Goals to Projects to Next Actions.
An A5 day per page diary to write up my day in

Back in a Ciak (again...)

A5 day per page Ciak diary

Most years, I've had an A5 Ciak which I've used as a daily diary/journal. It's not used for planning, but used to record the day and also my thoughts. One year I made the terrible, terrible mistake of buying a Moleskine. I still shudder when I think about 2013.

2014 saw me back in a Ciak, as did 2015. This year, I won a Quo Vadis Forum page per day diary. I've been struggling womanfully through the year with it (see this post and this post for how well/badly it's been going). I won't buy another though. It's been okay to record highlights of the day and a quick summary, but what I really want is somewhere to not only do that, but reflect on the day too. I used to do that in the Ciaks and will go back to it next year.

As ever, I got my Ciak from The Journal Shop (no affiliation, just a happy customer). I was amazed to see that they were only £4.99 when I got mine. And... I had a 20% off code so in fact, I got it for £4 which is just amazing! They are normally about £15 and seemed to be back up to about £13 when I next looked.

Why do I love the Ciaks so much? The paper quality isn't fabulous and back in 2012, it was the paper quality that pushed me to a Moleskine (which was then even worse than the Ciak). I'll try it out, but I'm not convinced it will cope with fountain pen, but then I'm not sure there are many A5, day per page that do cope with fountain pen. Ciak seems to have stopped claiming that it's okay for fountain pen.

One thing that I demand from a diary/journal is that Saturday and Sunday each have their own page and don't get forced to share a page!

Separate days for Saturday and Sunday

I also love the horizontal elastic closure which is snug enough to hold a pen against the edge of the pages.

All in all, I'm pretty happy to be back in a Ciak for 2017.

Back in a Ciak!

Cover with label

At last. I have suffered with the execrable Moleskine diary through the whole of 2013 but AT LAST it is 2014 and I am back in an A5 Ciak. I should never have left.

As ever, I bought the diary with a red ‘leather’ (bonded leather) cover. I don’t think there are many differences in the diary since I last reviewed it, early in 2012. It is a true A5 size (not a pretend A5 like the Moleskine).
[click on any picture to enlarge]

Front cover

Back cover (the label peels off easily)

The first page has a few lines as a title page, though I rarely fill these in. Following this is a page that is blank apart from “2014 daily diary . agenda giornaliera” across the top followed by a page for personal information (in Italian and English). There then follow some calendar pages which any regular reader will know that I don’t either use or value: 2014 on one side and 2015 on the other as small monthly day/date things, then a month per page for 2014, with Saturday and Sunday sharing the same space as a weekday. These squares also have the holidays written in so some of them end up a little cramped but nowhere near as bad as they were in 2012! Since I don’t use them and this is entirely a reflective journal and not used for planning, these pages will stay blank anyway.

Title page

Personal information page

Calendar pages: 2014 (l) and 2015 (r)

First double spread of monthly pages

After the month per page section, there is a map of the world showing time zones, followed by a double page spread of International dialling codes  (no, Malawi still doesn’t make it into the list. It’s +265 in case anyone was wondering...).

Time zones

Dialling codes

After this are weights and measures which are SO pointless even for the English speakers of the world, never mind the Italian speakers of the world... (WHO measures anything in rods??? Come on... WHO??? Why would you need to know that 1 rod = 220 yards = 201.2m??? And let’s not start on short tons versus long tons for weight (which as anyone with a smattering of physics knows is mass not weight anyway. Oh, don’t get me started...!)).
Rant over... moving on...

Weights and measures

There is then a page of international clothes sizes and (perhaps the most useful of all) a page indicating world temperatures across the year (though sadly, Malawi still doesn’t make it into that list either).

Clothing sizes (l); world temperatures (r)

Lastly, before the diary itself starts, there is a page indicating holidays for countries around the world.

The diary itself is fairly plain. It is in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian) with the days of the week in each language across the top of every page. The month is indicated in three languages per page: English, French and Italian on left-hand pages and German, Spanish and Italian on the right-hand pages. There are time slots indicated down the left of each page, starting at 9am and finishing at 6pm. Holidays and phases of the moon are indicated on the top of the page by the date/day/month. Starting at the 9am line, there are 22 lines per day with a line spacing of 7.6mm. I ignore the time slots and just write a reflective diary about my day.

January 1

The pages are sewn and glued and the diary doesn’t lay flat without a bit of persuasion (as evidenced by the paperweights in the pictures). There is a ribbon marker in black to match the elastic closure – no clashing not-quite-the-same-red as the horrid Moleskine had – and it’s a decent length one too, though it does need a knot tying in it to stop it fraying. The horizontal elastic closure is strong and holds a pen firmly against the page edges.

After all the diary pages there are 6 pages of squared paper (2.5mm x 2.5mm squares) then 10 pages for notes (4 more than there were in 2012) then pages with “a . b . c . d” “e . f . g . h” “i . j . k . l” “m . n . o” “p . q . r . s” “t . u . v . w” “x . y . z”. I use these as more notes pages and have put correction tape over the letters. The last page(s) will be used for recording the books I read in 2014; the other pages will be to do a reflection of the year – highs/lows/significant incidents etc. The (hateful) Moleskine had four unlined notes pages, two of which I used for recording the books read in 2013. I haven’t been able to do a reflection of the year in the diary this year but I may do one and tape the pages in/attach them somehow.

Squared paper

Notes pages

Address pages (which I will use for more notes)

The paper seems to be the same paper that was in the diaries in 2012 which was NOT fountain pen friendly. I have tried a tiny bit of fountain pen in this one and think it won’t be an option for daily writing after all (I drew a small cloud and raindrop underneath on today’s page to indicate the weather and it shows through on the reverse quite significantly). The paper is described as recycled, acid-free, pH neutral and chlorine free. The blurb on the label says ‘acid free paper suitable even for fountain pens’ but it lies. It’s a light ivory in colour.

I love these diaries, faults and all. The cover is sturdy and quite tactile, the elastic closure is brilliant, the notes pages are really useful for a yearly reflection and the line spacing is just right. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be back in the Ciak, even if fountain pen isn’t an option in it.

Book-planning notebook - which one to choose?

I’m starting to plan a new book. Yes, I know none of the others are published (yet) but there’s one beginning to demand to be let out of my head.

Now, although I will use Scrivener to do the computery bit, I know I will do a huge amount of planning and writing in a notebook too. I always do. There’s something about writing on paper that triggers my thoughts and imagination in a way that typing straight into white space can never accomplish.

But which notebook to choose? I have, after all, rather a large selection to select from!

Discounting anything significantly smaller than A5 (I need space to plan and to write in and smaller books just won’t work), in the notebook emporium currently there are:

[links are to reviews of the notebook by me]

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Top row, L-R: cat book, Age Bag with A5+ on top, Ciak, Habana
Bottom row, L-R: A4 spiral bound, Moleskine, exercise book, Oxford Activebook, Cartesio

How to whittle that down to one book to use?

Okay, well, it has to be fountain-pen friendly paper, so that’s the two Cartesios out.

It has to be lined, so that’s the Moleskine out.

I’m not a fan of spiral-bound books as I find the binding gets in the way, so that’s the cat books and the three A4 books out (despite all being surprisingly fountain-pen friendly!).

I’ve tried the Clairefontaine A5+ book before and although it’s lovely to write on, the very wide margin is too annoying and it won’t lie flat.

The Quo Vadis Habana book won’t lie flat enough (I use another one as a running log and it drives me batty for this!)

The Midori World Meister doesn’t have enough pages (it has just 92 sides) although otherwise is glorious (review coming soon)

The school exercise book also has too few pages (96 sides)

I’ve tried an A5 filofax before and although it worked reasonably well, I eventually reverted to a bound book, so that’s the filofaxes and the Oxford Activebooks out (though the Oxford paper would have been a dream to write on and the paper could be filed in either filofax or Mulberry A5 binders).

So what am I left with after that initial whittling?

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

The Ciak A5 notebook or the Clairefontaine A4 Age Bag notebook.

I’ve gone for the Clairefontaine. It lies flatter than the Ciak (though admittedly, not as flat as a bat, but not far off), the paper is divine – far smoother than the Ciak – and the acres of space invite free-flowing thought (I hope!). I used the same kind of notebook for the last book (just with a green cover) and it has been glorious to work in. Fountain-pen just glides across the paper and with 192 pages, there is more than enough space to write.

Sources:

Bureau Direct:

Clairefontaine A5+ notebook

Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook

The Journal Shop:

Quo Vadis Habana notebook

Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks

Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook

Midori World MeisterDainel A5 book

Amazon:

Oxford Activebooks

A5 filofaxes

Tesco:

3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Gifts:

Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)

The spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover

Review of Ciak A5 DPP diary

[click on the pictures for an enlarged version]

I have bought Ciak diaries for the last few years. I buy the A5, day to page version and so far have always bought them with a red cover.

They were described on The Journal Shop site as having a leather cover, but the Ciak site (English version) says:

The daily diary is 15x21 cm with a day per page, it has 208 sheets (416 pages) and it is printed in one colour on recycled ivory paper 70 gms.. The languages printed are English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. The daily diary Ciak has a printed address book at the end of the book. The cover is in man-made leather, with a patented elastic horizontal closure in black colour and it is packed in a shrink wrap. The original Ciak has its logo embossed on the spine of the book.

I checked with The Journal Shop and they said that it was in fact bonded leather - very small pieces of leather bound together, but leather nonetheless.

The layout of the diary is as follows:

As usual, around the outside is an elastic band which is useful for holding a pen against the edge of the book. There is also a ribbon (which usually frays unless you tie a knot in the bottom of it).

Diary with elastic closure holding my biro and knotted page marker

Inside, the first page has a title space:

Then a page for personal information (in English and Italian). After that is a full calendar for 2012 on the LHS and 2013 on the RHS, followed by a month per page which includes holidays. Unfortunately, on common holiday days, this information completely fills the square for the day, so you’d better not plan to do anything then.

better not have any plans for Jan 1st...

After that is a world map with time zones across a double-spread, then international dialling codes (although not all countries as Malawi isn’t there). Then comes a series of pages on weights/measures and their conversions, international sizes, world temperatures and then the diary. At the end of the book there are 6 pages of graph paper (2.5mm x 2.5mm squares), 6 pages of notes, then 7 pages of address pages. The notes pages and the diary pages are feint ruled at 7.5mm. The paper is described thus: contains recycled post-consumer waste and FSC fibers. It is  produced with pH Neutral ECF fibers and it is Acid-Free.

[American spelling and Odd Capitalisation are from Ciak]

The diary is page per day (with none of the irritating sharing of weekends going on you get in other diaries), with the day and month in a variety of languages across the two pages.

biro showing through on LHS.

I have to say, after several years of buying these, that I have been disappointed with the quality of the diary in the last couple of years. The paper at 70 gms is too thin.  You can see in the picture above that the entry for the 19^th has shown through to the 20^th and I’m only writing in biro! Even Filofax paper isn’t that poor.

In comparison, the notebooks from Ciak (same size) have 100 gms paper, which holds fountain pen beautifully. The first diary I bought from Ciak had the same quality paper and I wish they hadn’t changed. It’s actually so poor now that if it is the same for 2013 I will buy another brand.

All in all:

It’s archival quality paper, but otherwise quite poor quality. Unless it improves I will spend my money elsewhere.

Review of the Ciak notebook

Well, now that work has calmed a teensy bit I have got chance to review the stationery that I ordered from The Journal Shop.

It’s taken me a while to work out what I’m going to use all the notebooks for, but I think I have finally decided (at least for some of them). Some of the decisions needed to be made according to the qualities of the notebooks (lying flat etc).

I bought two Ciak notebooks, two Cartesio notebooks, a set of two Habana smooth and a 2012 Ciak diary. The diary is obvious, but what about the others?

Well, one of the Ciak notebooks is going to go to my sister for part of a birthday present (even though I think I might have given her one before, several years ago…). The other Ciak is being used for my ‘scribble book’ where I (not frequently enough) write for ten minutes without stopping. This isn’t a journal or necessarily about anything important – it’s just what crosses my mind in those ten minutes.

The two Cartesio are sitting in my notebook drawer and will end up being writing notebooks (though I may give one to my sister…).

The Habana smooth do not lie flat on the desk and so cannot be used for a notebook in which to plan novel #4. I will probably resort to another A4 Moleskine for that (unless anyone has other good suggestions??). One of them is now being used for my running log (since I somewhat foolishly announced to my Rotary club that I would run a half marathon to raise money…). The other is sitting in a drawer.

I’ll review each of them in turn, starting today with the Ciak.

The notebook arrived nicely wrapped. I was alarmed about the Eco sticker, having had bad experiences with fountain pens and recycled paper in the past. As described on the front label, there are 224 ruled pages in ivory inside.

More navy than on this picture

These notebooks are described as having leather covers, though they don’t smell of leather and they don’t quite feel like leather (and rummaging around on the Italian Ciak site, they are described as either “coagulated soft” (various translation sites) or “made leather” (Google) but not quite what they are made of). However, the feel is okay and the cover is stiff enough to write on, leaning on your knee and squashy enough to flex.

more this colour

wrapped version holding it open!

The paper is just off-white and the line spacing is 7mm. As you can see from the pictures, the notebook doesn’t lie flat without a bit of persuasion (though it’s much better than some). The front page has some simple lines to allow you to give the notebook a title. The first lined sheet is (as is the case in many books) stuck slightly to the front page along the spine-side and so not easy to fold back fully to write on. I therefore skipped this page and started with my fountain pen test on the next.

Not too much feathering

As I said earlier, the Eco sticker had alarmed me. Several years ago, Ciak paper wasn’t recycled and was (in my opinion) higher quality. Certainly my diary last year was significantly lower in quality than in previous years. I was therefore interested in how my fountain pens would fare.

As you can see, they’re not too bad, although the ink takes a little moment to dry. The paper is described (on the Italian site, assuming my translation’s okay!) as being 100g/m². It feels thicker than printer paper but not too stiff. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality to be honest. But, did the fountain pen ink bleed through to the other side?

Well, yes. But not horrendously and the level is acceptable (to me at least). In reality it isn't quite as bad as in the photo.

Acceptable level of bleed-through

All Ciak notebooks have a ribbon marker, and in my experience, all of them start to fray from the end within a few weeks, so I always tie a knot at the end. Why they can’t bind the end or fuse it, I don’t know. The ribbon in my diary for 2011 not only unravelled really quickly but it actually wore through too. Maybe Ciak should spend a little bit more attention on the ribbon because in comparison with a Moleskine’s it’s poor.

Rubbish ribbon

There is an elastic closure on the notebook that fits into a notch in the cover. I have always loved this aspect of Ciak notebooks because I have yet to lose a pen that’s been held against the edge by the elastic. Other notebooks with vertical elastic closures just cannot hold a pen firmly.

Overall? I would give this 3.5 out of 5. It loses marks on the poor quality of the ribbon, the fact that the paper isn’t quite as nice as it used to be and because it doesn’t lie flat. However, the cover is sturdy (though probably not leather?) and the design is lovely. I personally like the 7mm spacing though I know for some this is perhaps too generous.