On small notebooks, field notes and the pressure to be organized
A short essay/journal entry/brain dump about how I found the best way to keep and use a journal for me. There is a whole lot of info on journaling on the internet but I always found it really hard and overwhelming? In this post I would like to explain how I use my field notebook and declare my love for this little guy.
Journaling and notetaking were always two things that I personally found really hard to do. Keeping a notebook with notes on one specific topic kind of felt like a bullet point from a to-do list more than an actual help to get anything done. Nevertheless, I persisted, and for one final time I bought a notebook to keep as an academic journal in hopes it will help me stay on top my thesis. After writing down some initial notes, I forgot about the notebook for a few days and later found it in my bag just when I needed a piece of paper to write some super quick notes on. Since the notebook was already ‘ruined’, I decided to keep it for these quick notes on the go. Sometimes I just really need things to fit into categories, especially things like academic journals, since I feel like if there is not one clear designated role for the journal, it’s not organized. And if it’s not organized, than I somehow failed and I have to start again and do better asap.
So since I had already failed and there was no way to fix this journal, it kind of got turned into a junk journal. Not that junk journal that people use to keep little scraps and pieces of stuff but like a ‘bad’ journal and catch all thing. And omg how I need that lol. With this catch all journal, I felt like I could actually use it, since I wasn’t worried about keeping it pretty, organized and aesthetic. This unlocked a whole new sea of possibilities for me. I could write down shopping lists, silly little quotes I heard or read and wanted to remember, note down things for presentations, work meetings, get rid of my thoughts and plans and stuff that stressed me by writing it down. I could also plan stuff to talk about during therapy sessions, draw a little doodles, write down poems I wanted to learn because they give me that great stimmy stimulation. I could suddenly do anything!
That is how I learned that the ideal journal for me is a one in all kind of thing. I can write down a shopping list and note a thought about my thesis on the same page if I need to, my brain is suddenly free to actually think and try to solve stuff when it doesn’t have to deal with a tiny madeup policeman looking over my shoulder yelling at me that my notes aren’t pretty enough. And oh how I love my little field journal. (That’s what I think I might call it?) I also figured out the best size for me is this small pocket one. I can just carry it in my pocket where my phone would normally be and not worry about anything. My writing is also kind of small, so I don’t have to worry about filling the pages up way too soon. I also really like these spiral ones as shown in my pictures, because I can simply stick my pen in the spiral and not worry about losing it. The only thing I just found out as a bought a field notebook no 2 is that the paper kinda matters too. I really like to write with a pen that’s kinda wet, if that makes sense, and I also really like to stain my pages with coffee or tea when I’m traveling as a little souvenir from the trip. My new notebook is made of paper that makes the ink bleed and my coffee stains are huge and leak everywhere. It’s okay, I just have to be a bit more careful not to ruin past pages. If you would like to endevour a similar adventure, I definitely recommend checking out the paper too. (Oh and also probably don’t add food or anything with sugar in your journal, lest it starts to get moldy. I personally would stick with water/black coffee/tea for souvenir stains haha.)
I have finished my first journal a few weeks ago and it felt great but also sad at the same time. Before I fill up my new notebook at least to some degree, I’m definitely gonna miss all my past notes, drawings from my trips, coffee stains from cool cafes I’ve been to and such. I also love flipping through the pages and seeing all the adventures (the academic ones and the ones less so, everything that makes up my life in one place). It’s such a great feeling to finally find something that works for you. I think I really like this about getting older, having this feeling more and more often as I keep trying to figure stuff out.
Thank you for reading until the end! If you would like to add anything and make this monologue a conversation, it would make me really happy! 🤍 The second picture in this post is from the national archive, It’s not really journal related but I felt it had similar vibes. The pages of my journal were kinda hard to photograph since they are quite personal but I think I chose pretty good example pages. kaja
