PaperBased.net

I wrote yesterday about my first Moleskine and what a great little journal it was. I retired it at the end of 2006. I then went and did something very silly. I had a pile of blank notebooks I’d acquired over the years and rather than spending money on a new Moleskine straight away I thought I should use these other notebooks up first.

My new journal for 2007 was a pocket sized Debden lined notebook with a textured red cover. The red cover was cool - it went very well with my Moleskine 2007 red pocket weekly planner + notebook. The pages were a lovely off-white colour, a little more yellow than a Moleskine but still pleasing to the eye. The price tag wasn’t painful at all - I could afford to have a whole stack of these for the cost of one Moleskine! That was about as good as the notebook got though … you really do get what you pay for.

Firstly, there was no back pocket. Nowhere to stash the cool little bits and pieces I pick up and mean to someday glue into the journal. Then there was the fact that my ink bled completely through the page - I could only write on one side of each. (At least that meant I’d be finished with the book sooner.) Also, after only a couple of weeks, the cover was beginning to look grotty from bouncing around in my bag all the time. The Moleskine cover had obviously been a lot harder wearing, and the black had hidden any marks The most annoying thing of all though was how the notebook wouldn’t lie flat properly. It was such a pain to write in that I began to feel reluctant to journal at all.

By the first week of February I’d had enough. It had to go. The next Thursday evening I dropped into Borders and selected a nice pocket sized lined Moleskine. No price tag hesitancy this time - I knew this little notebook was going to be worth every cent. That night I carefully transposed the few journal entries I had made and then ceremoniously tossed the Debden notebook in the bin.

Lesson learnt!

When I first read about Moleskines it was in a post on 43Folders. I’d been link surfing through various articles on David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) method and came across the post. The notebooks sounded cool, but I remember thinking “what’s all the fuss - they’re just a notebook?”

Soon after I dropped into the Brisbane Borders store to grab a copy of David Allen’s book and noticed that they had Moleskine’s in stock. I picked up a pocket sized one for a look and was immediately struck by the feel of the notebook. I don’t know how to explain it, but they really do feel different from other notebooks. They’re very solid and have a nice weight about them. The pocket sized ones feel good in your hand. I liked them immediately.

They are a little expensive … I have to admit the price tag made me hesitate. I rationalised that the notebook would become my new journal and therefore a priceless possession to me, thus making the initial cost negligable. Ha ha! There was not arguing with that. A squared pocket sized one ended up coming home with me.

That little Moleskine became my new journal and has seriously been the most comfortable journal I have ever owned. It was comfortable to write in, comfortable to hold, a comfortable size to throw in my handbag (which meant it went everywhere with me), and even a comfortable colour with it’s plain black cover and off white pages. Beyond comfort though, I just enjoyed it. It added something extra to an already enjoyable pasttime. It was a sad occasion when I retired it at the end of last year, but 31st December 2006 seemed such a fitting day for an ending.