Papelote mini notebooks review

I have been fairly remiss in my reviews, but a while ago, I showed you some A6 books in my Midori-style homemade leather notebook holder (see here for the post).

Homemade leather notebook cover

The notebooks I bought were the mini Papelote notebooks from The Journal Shop. Unlike both Field Notes and the Clairefontaine “A6” books I have (which are smaller than A6), these little notebooks really are A6.

I’ve been using these small books (in the leather cover) as general notes/scribbles books – a place to jot something down to process the information later.

So what are the notebooks like?

Cover - matches the insides

They are marketed as simple and indeed they are. The cover matches the insides and is a thick paper/thin card. The paper inside is 80gsm and off-white (slightly greyish). I had anticipated the paper to not be at all fountain-pen friendly and was pleasantly surprised.

The first page is a title page, and there are 64 pages in the notebook in total.

Title page

I did a pen/fountain pen test on the paper and found little or no feathering (depending on the nib/ink combination) and little or no bleed-through. I would tend not to be using a fountain pen in them, but more likely to use a Pilot V5 hi-tecpoint, so I tested this too and found the result absolutely fine.

Little/no bleed-through

Back cover

Narrow ruled notebook to the left; squared to the right

Overall, I was very pleased with them. I was after something simple and cheap to pop into the leather cover I made and these fit the bill perfectly.

The notebooks are also available in A5.

Back in a pocket-size

The title says it all really… Do I need to do a blog post?

Oh, okay then. I’ll do a why I chose the pocket and a walk through of what’s in there!

First up, it’s the Baroque pocket, not Loki, or Miss Aston (or indeed the red classic that’s winging its way to me… ahem, ahem… More on that another day!).
The 19mm rings, the four card slots and the multitude of (admittedly sometimes daft) pockets made it an easy choice. That and the nagging voice in my head saying that I had yearned after it for long enough, I really should use it. The downside is of course that I prefer colour and the Baroque is black.

So why did I go towards the pocket and not the Holborn?

Size really. Red was feeling like a brick and my hubby has been using my his pocket Portland a lot recently and I started to covet the small size. I’ve also downsized what I’m carrying a little as it struck me as unnecessary to be carrying all of my planning around, rather than just the outcomes of the planning. I don’t need, on a minute by minute or even day by day basis to see what my bigger goals are and how these are converted into next actions. I just need the next actions alongside my schedule, right?
Also, the day per page sheets were just not getting used. Half the days I’m at work (and didn’t use them because I don’t have my filofax open as all my work stuff is planned using the green A5 Mulberry); the other half of the week I’m not at work and wasn’t in the habit of using them. I’m also frequently caught between planning my day and ending up feeling too constrained, and not planning my day and feeling like I’m not getting anything done. Sometimes a weekly list split into ‘must do’ and ‘nice to do if time’ gets me out of that (which is what I’ve been using more recently).

Walk-through:
First up, the pocket Baroque (like all of my Baroques) lies as flat as a bat, immediately. Even with all the weight of the insides on one side, it lies flat. Major plus.

Flat as a bat

In the four card slots are my bank and credit cards plus my Waterstones card (read in to that what you will. Every pun intended!). Tucked into the pocket behind are books of stamps. In the (less than ideally placed) zipped pocket behind that are other cards I like to have on me but don’t need easy access to. This zipped pocket is utterly useless for change as any cards in the card slots make it too stiff. In the pocket behind are vouchers. And in the last pocket of the inside cover there’s nothing as it is too difficult to get things in and out of it.

On the rings are other vouchers, then there are 4 sections:

1. Notes:
Blank paper for, um, notes. This is the ‘in-box’/capture/whatever you want to call it.

Notes - not much on my mind!

2. Diary:
In order – list of monthly goals and things to remember for this month (birthdays, car tax etc.), list of weekly goals for this week with a page marker, weekly review check-sheet, weekly goals for the rest of the weeks of April (page per week), monthly review check-sheet, list of monthly goals (and things to remember for that month) for the rest of the months of the year (page per month), forward planner for 2014, forward planner for 2015 (basically a lined page with 2014 or 2015 written on the top – used for remembering when my vaccinations are due!), 2013 week to view diary (in Italian as the Baroque was from the Italian sale).

Not that I've nothing to do... just haven't filled it in yet

LHS - back of the weekly plan sheet; RHS - review check-sheet

Italian LINED week to view (hoorah!). 'Festa' = holiday

In general, I have tried to set up yearly goals (planned elsewhere, not in this filofax), from which stem quarterly, monthly and weekly next-action/goals lists. In the past these have also trickled down to day lists but then I can start feeling over-planned so I am sticking with the weekly list for the moment and trying to split it into ‘must do’ and ‘nice to do’. It’s working okay so far.

3. Lists:
Lists of things I’m waiting on, lists of OS maps we have, lists of books to keep an eye out for… stuff like that.

List of waiting on...

Lists of OS maps I have

4. Info:
A note of the car insurance number, travel insurance number, other random things like that, then addresses.

Right at the back, after these sections, is a card-holder with bank card, donor card, and a couple of store-cards I use reasonably frequently. Then there is a mini-zip-loc bag for loose change. I keep paper money in the pocket in the back cover.

Pooh Post-Its just to hide my cards

Money in the 'notepad' pocket

Total mass: 380g for the Baroque against 530g for Red.

What do people think?

Here we go round the Mulberry bush

Choices, choices.
I have before me four different organisers and I’m not sure which one to use. I have:
Red (A6 Mulberry)
Loki (pocket Mulberry)
Pocket Baroque
Personal wine Holborn

Clockwise from top left: Wine Holborn, Red A6 Mulberry, pocket Baroque, Loki (pocket Mulberry)

Logic says I should be in the Holborn. Or the Baroque.
Heart says I should be in one of the Mulberry ones.

What’s wrong with Red? I mean, I’ve been in that longer than any of the others…

Red is heavy and a very stiff binder. She’s short on card slots and pockets so the ones she has are a bit jammed full and it’s difficult to get things in/out of them. I thought she was lighter than the Holborn but I’ve just weighed them (filled) and she’s not.

So why not just move into the Holborn…?

I may well do that. The Holborn has card slots and pockets galore and is a much softer binder. I suppose what’s been holding me back is the rewriting of diary entries (and the aspect ratio of the page always winds me up after a bit), but I have some time this weekend so I could do that. I also hate the filofax diary, but I could just re-write to the end of May or June on the filofax one and get the 18 month Paperchase diary for after that.

What about pocket Baroque and Loki?
Well, Loki has teensy rings and however much I adore him, he’s a bit small. And suffers from the stiffness, lack of pockets and card slots issues that Red has.

Pocket Baroque has some daft pockets, but does at least have pockets (and 4 card slots). And I am hankering after being in something smaller (but, realistically, I possibly carry too much stuff to make that feasible!). I did work out of a pocket Aston for a long time. I’ve also realised that I don’t need to carry all the notes about my goals around with me – I just need to have lists of next-actions lined up for the day/week. Oh, yeah, and the day-per-page diary is just not getting used, so I could abandon it and then I could possibly work out of the Baroque.

I think it’s time to have a play with them all and see where I land up. Advice??

Midori style notebooks

The other leather came yesterday and today I made the notebook cover for the 9cm x 14cm notebooks (Field Notes; Clairefontaine).
Here they are together (new one at the top; A6 at the bottom):

And here they are open:

And with the other notebook showing (each has one lined and one squared book inside; the A6 notebooks are the ones from Papelote, bought at The Journal Shop):

Aren't they lovely?? I'm really pleased with them!

Making my Midori-style cover

Well, the leather came, the mini-punch came and the elastic came! So on Thursday, I made myself a Midori-style notebook cover.

I wasn’t feeling confident enough to cut a larger piece of leather to size, so I bought some pieces from eBay that were already the correct size for what I wanted. I didn’t want a notebook cover the size/dimensions of the real Midori, but one for A6, so I bought some leather that was 25cm x 15cm. Folded in half around A6 notebooks this would be about the right size (A6 being 10.5cm x 14.8cm; the 25cm would cover the width of the notebooks plus their thicknesses). The leather I bought was 1.8mm thick (the Midori notebooks are 2mm thick leather apparently) and is burgundy, with suede on the inside (it’s gorgeous!).

Let me walk you through making it.

Tools needed:
Leather
Punch
Elastic
Scissors
Small hammer
Board
Needle and thread

The way this style of notebook cover works is to have elastic thread in the middle of the leather cover into which the notebooks are slotted. I wanted to have two notebooks in the cover so I made two small holes (using the punch) at the top and the bottom of the ‘spine’ of the cover, a centimetre apart and 6mm from the edge. I also punched a single hole in the dead centre of the leather:

I then put a single thread of elastic through the holes at the top and bottom so that on the inside it looks like this:

...and on the outside looks like this:

The hole in the very middle is for the elastic band to hold the booklet closed. I knotted a piece of elastic at the right length then looped a small piece of cotton thread through the elastic loop, threaded the cotton onto a needle and used the cotton thread to pull the elastic through the central hole.

I was amazed at how easy all of this was (and have to thank Ray Blake for the inspiration! See his post here. In fact, read all of his blog because he’s great!).

So this is what it (sort of) looks like:

Open, with Clairefontaine A6 notebook showing

Open: Clairefontaine on L, Field Notes on R

Why ‘sort of’?

Well, because the notebooks I have put into it are the wrong size for the size of cover! I bought a couple of Clairefontaine “A6” notebooks from Bureau Direct (which aren’t A6, but are the exact same size as Field Notes books (9cm x 14cm). Both of them are shown in the cover. I have also bought (from The Journal Shop) some Papelote mini notebooks. I’m going to make another (smaller) leather cover for the Clairefontaine and Field Notes books and when the Papelote books come from The Journal Shop, I will put them in this cover.

The notebooks will be used as a general ‘clearing my mind’ notebooks – you know… where you have a zillion things running around your head and you need to just get them out before you can make sense of them and focus. Once they are out, I can sort them into proper to-do lists and so on, without having cluttered up my Mulberry. [Actually, I am having a little bit of a wobble with the Mulberry, but that’s for another time!]

What do people think?

eBay sources I used:
Leather came from: Leather4Craft
Mini punch came from: Silvercoasts
1mm elastic cord came from: k2-accessories

Catching the Midori bug

Do I need another notebook?
Um. No.
Do I have umpteen unused notebooks in a drawer of my desk?
Um. Yes.
Have I been hankering after a Midori for ages and ages?
Um. No.

So why have I just ordered a piece of leather and some elastic cord, to make my own Midori-style notebook?

I blame Ray Blake. I do. It’s all his fault. What, with his easy to make inserts. And then an easy to make Midori-style notebook. He just shouldn’t be so talented! Or have such a brilliant blog! (Go check it out once you’ve read this!)

Anyway, I am not making a full-size Midori notebook (the aspect ratio doesn’t appeal and anyway, I wanted something small). I am going to try and make something closer to the passport size one (suitable for taking both passport-size Midori inserts and also Field Notes) – about 10-12cm x 15cm (about 4.5” x 6”).

Keep you posted.

To Plan or Not to Plan

To plan, or not to plan: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

[with apologies to Shakespeare!]

For the first time in a long while, I didn’t plan this week. I normally sit down at the weekend and plan the week ahead, and also sit down each morning and confirm my day. This week I did neither. It wasn’t a conscious decision not to, I just didn’t do it. And did I suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as a consequence?

Er.

Yes.

I know there are two camps: one camp says to plan things or you’ll drift aimlessly and get sod-all done; the other camp says don’t plan, be free and enjoy yourself. To be honest, I find getting the right balance between those positions really difficult. Sometimes I plan myself almost to death and stop enjoying life as it feels it’s just a series of tick-boxes to get through, at which point I stop planning and end up doing sod-all. Or doing stuff that’s not important. Then I get annoyed that I’ve done sod-all and plan things to death again!

So how did this (unplanned) week pan out?

On my DPP pages, I have boxes to remind me to do yoga each day and to clear the ‘hot-spots’ of clutter. I also have check-boxes for fruit and vegetables, and water Intake.
In my weekly to-do list I had these items:

• Blog post for Chimwemwe
• Philofaxy article
• Edit February Focus
• Write next 2 scenes of book #4
• 3 runs
• Read a book
• 2 blog posts on PPI
• Read the screenplay books
• Birthday (x)
• Birthday (y)

This week:

• I have done no yoga
• the house looks like bombs have gone off in several places
• I didn’t edit the February Focus newsletter (though mostly because I hadn’t been sent it!)
• I haven’t been running
• I haven’t read any books never mind a fiction and two screenplay books
• I did no blog-posts for Paper, Pens and Ink
• I missed two people’s birthdays
• I have no idea if I’ve hit my fruit, vegetable and fluid intake targets.

I did manage to:

• do a couple of quick blog posts for Chimwemwe
• do the article for Philofaxy (which you can read here)
• write the next four scenes of my novel

But, I knew I had to do all those other things – they were already on my weekly list after all – so what happened?

I had a busy Sunday last week and never managed to get around to planning the week ahead (where I normally allocate things from my weekly list to the daily sheets).
On Monday and Tuesday, I went down the rabbit-hole, writing, and didn’t even emerge for a run! And those of you who know me, know that that’s a serious down-the-rabbit-hole moment! It was bright and sunny all week and PERFECT running weather!
Wednesday to Friday I was back at work and ended up working late each day, then the evenings seemed to fill up with things that had appeared since I drew up the weekly list and which were much more important to do.

At the moment, I feel annoyed with myself that I didn’t do most of the things I was supposed to be doing, but I also know I can’t quite blame it on the fact I didn’t plan, as even if I had transferred the weekly list onto the days, I would still have had to do all the ‘extra’ things that popped up in the week.

I think I need to split my task-list into ‘must do’ and ‘want to do’ so that I don’t feel bad if the ‘want to do’ list has unticked things at the end of the week.

How do others deal with tasks that pop up out of nowhere? What do you do to keep your week on track? How do you
‘take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?’?

Indie and I are back!

Hello everyone! Muli bwanji?*
Indie and I are back! We got back to Scotland at lunchtime yesterday after a bit of a punishing 30 hour journey. It’s nice to be home though Heathrow appears to be staffed by horrible, rude, inept, jobsworth staff. I was ashamed to be British when I arrived, Heathrow was so awful.

Anyway, how did Indie get on? Well I’m sad to say there are no pictures of him out and about with me because it’s the rainy season in Malawi at the moment and BOY it was rainy! Far too rainy to have him out in it while I faffed about taking pictures of him. But apart from that, he worked pretty well. In the end, I didn’t use him much for note-taking as we were using the Whitelines Link paper (more on that in another post) to take meeting notes, but I did jot things down in him and I did use the diary pages. He was also superb for holding money and cards and for my cheat-sheets for Chichewa. I had given him a bit of leather-treatment before we went and I’m glad I did as otherwise he would have suffered a bit in the climate, which was very humid, warm and rainy.

He’ll certainly be with me on my next trip out there and since that will be after all the rains, I will try and take pictures.

*this means: How are you? in Chichewa. The response (assuming you are well!) is Ndili bwino, kaya inu? (which means: I am and well, and you?) or Ndili bwino, zikomo (which means: I am well, thank you).

Indie and I are off to Malawi!

Heavens, it’s rolled around quickly, but I am off to Malawi again. [And I have a head torch. And it flashes. Yes! – tell me in the comments if you know where that’s from!]

Anyway, away I will be and Indie is coming with me! He’s now almost all set up for the travels to act as my wallet and my organiser. I will be putting the few cards I take with me in the card slots, but otherwise, he’s all set.

Indie - my beloved Mulberry agenda

First up: my basic Chichewa phrase sheets. I am SO bad at Chichewa (though at least I try! None of my colleagues have ever bothered in the four years we’ve been going out to Malawi). I can manage muli bwanji and on a good day, trot out ndili bwino, kaya inu? in response. On a really good day, I can even manage mwaswera bwanji (late afternoon) or ndaswera bwino, kaya inu? in response. Maybe I’ll manage to learn a bit more this time…?

Then I have my flight itinerary (folded and punched, with the edge trimmed slightly to fit – another joy of the binder being A6!). This is followed by a series of packing sheets (printed on index cards, cut in half – the card is sturdier than paper).

Reverse of my flight itinerary (can't show you the front!) and one of the packing lists

Then I have a diary for the time I’m away – appointments on one side (from the A4 two pages per day file from Philofaxy) and notepaper for the other side. Again, the delight of A6 is I can just print four to a page, slice and punch. Perfect.

2DPP from Philofaxy (just the date part) plus notepaper

After that, some straight notepaper, printed on Clairefontaine cream paper, for extra notes during the trip.

At the back (though they will get moved to the front to make writing on the paper easier…) are two plastic document wallets (A6), punched to hang on the rings. One of them has Malawian kwacha in it (don’t be fooled by the 500 or 1000 into thinking that there is loads of money there – there are 600 kwacha to the pound!); the other has Bank of England notes, ready to swap at the bureau de change.

In the zipped pocket at the back I’ll pop a data stick or two and any other cards I need.

So, that’s him all set to go. I think his rugged Indiana Jones’ notebook look will work well in Malawi! What do people think?

As I will be away from Friday, tionana! I’ll be back blogging after the 18^th.

Stickers have arrived!

[Warning: picture heavy!]

Well, my diary is now looking MUCH more decorated, thanks to the arrival of a heap of stickers from Etsy (shop = rikyandnina).

Lovely parcel, wrapped with the Union Jack flag bag:

 

This is what my diary looks like now…

As well as adding stickers (at the end of the day…) I have also been adding a couple of cartoons or drawings (nothing fancy… I am a scientist, remember!).

The stickers I ordered were some cartoon rabbits (because they made me laugh), some pandas and cats (because they made me laugh), some colourful ones (because they had diary tabs) and some washi tape that looks like stamps (because it looks like stamps).

Picture time!

The rabbits:

The pandas:

The cats:

The colourful ones:

The washi stamps:

[Apologies for all the crooked/poor quality pictures!!]

I’m fairly pleased with it all. There are more than enough stickers to be able to choose one that sums the day up and I may even keep my diary at the end of the year (I normally toss them as they are usually dull and only have planning in them).