Best Results Organizing

THE MOD SQUAD: MODULAR NOTEBOOKS

The key to organizing is knowing what works for you; one size rarely fits all, and this is especially true when writing down your thoughts. 

Some people just need a drugstore composition notebook while others want to feel their notebooks are as special and magical as their thoughts. To make a notebook truly your own, one option is to select modular, customizable notebooks where you can decide what goes into it, what order everything goes in, and have the ability to change it whenever you want.

Simple perforated notepads, like legal pads with the paper perforated at the top (as I described last time) have the advantage of not being too nice, so you’re unlikely to experience perfectionist procrastination. You can just tear out your mistakes. But alas, they give you no customization.

Similarly, saddle-stitched and perfect-bound notebooks, which give you the feeling that your notes or journal are being created in an already published book and you’re just adding the words, have great aesthetic appeal, but you can’t move the pages around. 

The next category of notebooks are spiral bound, whether the down-market one-coil spiral notebook you might use for school, or the double or Wire-O binding we’ve seen in some of the nicer notebooks in this series so far. But again, everything is always stuck in the same order.

Of course, you can opt for ring binders; there’s a reason three-ring binders have been popular with students for the past century. They come in myriad sizes and can be customized with a quick opening of the rings and shuffling of the papers; add tabs for labeling, and voilà. But ring binders, even the smallest, are bulky, and it’s difficult to write on the left side or reverse of pages (or at all, if you’re a lefty). And with a binder open, it takes up a lot of desktop real estate.

Hence the rise in popularity of disc-based notebooks.

DISC-BASED NOTEBOOKS

Disc-based notebooks are classic; they’ve been popular in Europe since the middle of the last century. They are attractive, versatile, and most importantly for their fans, customizable.

Each disc-based notebook has the following components: a front and back cover, loose sheets of  paper that have been punched—not with three round holes but with a number of sideways umbrella or mushroom punched shapes, and button-like disks (often metal or plastic) that align with the punched section.

Because the punches are made very close to the edges of pages, you lose little real estate for writing. Further, because (unlike with three-ring notebooks), you can fold a disc-bound notebook back on itself, you don’t take up a lot of desktop space.  

Generally, you can purchase a variety of paper styles: blank, lined, dot-grid, planner pages, etc. But if you buy a disc-based punch (like a hole-punch), you can then punch anything you want, provided it’s not too large to be accommodated by the notebook: printed photos, article clippings, puzzles, math or programming cheat cheats, foreign language translation/study words, etc.

They key is that everything in a disc-bound notebook is repositionable! Any time you want to change the order of the sections, just gently remove the pages and press them back in wherever you prefer. Additionally customize the sections with poly tab dividers that come with the notebooks or are accessories in that notebook brand’s line, or make your own with after-market index tabs like those from Post-It or Avery.

 

Want even more customization? You can add tape flags, rulers, pockets (and combined pocket dividers) to create your ideal notebook.

LEVENGER CIRCA

Early on, the best known variety of disc-bound notebooks was the Circa line from Levenger. Circa doesn’t just have a system, it has a whole eco-system, with discs as small as 1/4″ that can hold up to 50 sheets of paper to 3″ discs that can hold up to 450 sheets. (Obviously, once you get that large, you’re giving up the size advantages of disc-bound over ring-bound notebooks.) 

To start, you can pick from two notebook cover types: leather covers or leather “alternative” covers.

The full-grain, pebbled leather covers come a variety of styles. For example, the Circa Leather Foldover Notebooks are available in black, purple, red, saddle (brown) and pine (green) in two sizes, Junior (7″ wide x 8 5/8″ high) with 8 discs, and Letter (9 3/4″ wide x 11 3/8″ high) with 11 discs, both designed with 3/4″ discs to accommodate up to 120 sheets of paper; however, the notebook comes with only 60 sheets of 90-gsm ruled paper. A similar option is the Carrie Foldover, in the same size but in British Tan, Blush, or Classic Blue, and there are more upscale padfolio, portfolio, and planner folio styles.

The notebooks have black twill lining and pockets for business cards, index cards, and loose pages, and an elastic pen loop.

For those who prefer a tiny notebook, there’s the Circa Jotlet, which comes with leather covers in the same colors as the Circa Leather Foldover Notebooks (with black leather lining), but measure only 3″ wide x 5″ high and comes with 30 notecards (250-gsm paper), ruled on both sides, with 1/2″ black discs and a sturdy leather cover. 

Like cows too much to go for leather? The Circa Leather Alternative Notebooks come in a wide variety of styles and covers similar to the leather versions. The Lev-Tex (leather-like) covers come in black, French blue, purple, red, and hickory (a dark brown), and the Junior size is an inch narrower at 6 1/2″ wide x 8 5/8″ high. There are also a variety of patterned covers. 

Next, once you’ve got your cover picked out, you can customize to your heart’s delight.

Let’s talk discs. If you’ve seen notebook discs before, they’ve probably been black, white, or clear plastic, or perhaps a shiny metal, but Levenger’s Circa line of discs goes beyond that to true fashion-forward customization, like their shiny Aluminum linen of discs in rose gold, oxblood, berry, cobalt blue, copper, gold, platinum, silver, and ultra-violet:

and colorful plastic Prima and Chromatic discs:

The more fashionable discs come in sets of 11; the more quotidian plastic versions in sets of 22. Pricing generally ranges from $20 to $35, but Levenger often has sales on different sets.

If ruled paper isn’t your jam, you can separately purchase any of 70 different page refills, including rainbow-hughed lined/ruled paper, Jotlet message card and project planner refills, address book page refills, blank paper, college ruled, and more:  

• Annotation Ruled refills (300/pack) in Junior and Letter sizes
• Engineer Grid refills (100/pack) in Letter size – 1/8″ grid (8 squares per inch, 64 squares per square inch)
• Things To Do refills (100/pack) in Junior, Letter, and Compact sizes
• Multitask Organizer refills (100/pack) in Junior – This format is what we might consider weekly planner or agenda format.
• Shopping List refills (100/pack) in Junior – with excruciatingly granular grocery options listed.
• Storyboard refills (100/pack) in Letter – with three boxes for diagrams, drawings or key points, and 10 lines for notes per box.

Refill packs for 100/pack items vary in price by style and size but are generally between $10 and $25; items in greater bulk (like 300/pack) can be $35+.

Oh, but you say you want to customize more than just your covers, discs, and paper? You want goodies, too? How about accessories for the inside and outside of your notebooks, like zipper pockets, sheet protectors, business card holders, checklist pads, and more:

• Notebook belts to keep your papers private (and hold a pen) in gold and silver
• Reinforcement strips to protect the punched edges of your most-used, most-often moved pages
• Vivacious plastic covers in turquoise, yellow, orange and green for spotting your notebook quickly and keeping it protected under rough-and-tumble circumstances. There are also Vivacious plastic tab and pocket dividers.
• Tab dividers for top or side use, and annotation tabs, so you can sort your notebook however you’d like!

And, of course, Levenger has Circa punches so you can customize any fairly-flat, paper-ish thing you want to put in your notebook.

As you can imagine, Levenger’s Circa line wasn’t (and isn’t) just the fanciest of customizable disc-based notebooks, but the most expensive. A Circa could run you $55-109 for a notebook, plus up to and beyond $100 more for customization. Whew.

ARC 

On the plus side for those of us who are a little (or a lot) more budget conscious, there have been a lot of copycats of the Circa line. Well, they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The first to flatter Circa was Arc by Staples (also called M by Staples Arc Customizable Notebooks). 

With Arc, you have fewer options, but you also won’t break the bank. Start with what they call “pre-assembled notebooks.

Arc leather covers come in three sizes/styles:

• Junior: 6 3/4″ wide x 8 3/4″ high in black, blue, or pink, with 8 black plastic discs, for $17.29
• Standard: 9 1/2″ wide x 11 1/2″ high in black, brown, burgundy, or purple, with 11 black plastic discs, for $26.99 
• Top-Bound: 8 1/2″ wide x 11″ in black, with 8 black plastic discs along the top instead of the left side, for $29.49 (This version has been discontinued, but you can still find it in a few places.)

All three come with 3/4″ discs, 60 narrow-ruled sheets of paper, and a pen-holder.

If you want to fancy-up and go for a stand-alone cover, there are occasionally limited-edition designer alternatives. In addition, there’s a small line of Martha Stewart-branded Arc notebook covers that run from $15-$26. However, I’m somewhat hesitant to recommend them, as I’ve had a number of purchases of Martha’s products (especially label makers) turn out to be duds over the years. Caveat emptor.

You won’t find any fancy discs with Arc; they’re all black. Want a fatter notebook? A 12-pack of 1″ expansion discs will set you back $4.79. For 1 1/2″ discs, it’s $4.99.

Your Arc paper choices are narrower than with Levenger, too. You can have standard narrow-ruled paper, college-ruled Cornell-style annotation pages (the kind with a section to the left for marking key points), graph-ruled, to-do, and project page refills, all in 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ or  8 1/2″ x by 11″. For the top-bound notebooks, the only options are white or canary-yellow 8 1/2″ x by 11″ pages. Page refill packs range from $7.50 to $14.

Accessories include a variety of plastic, tabbed index page dividers in black and multi-colors, sheet protectors, pocket dividers, and stickers. 

So, less pricey, but less inspired.

BUT GUESS WHAT? Staple’s Arc covers, discs, papers, and most accessories are interchangeable with Levenger’s Circa items. Per the much-missed Office Supply Geek blogger (who has been AWOL a few years), the only differences are that, “The Staples version of the pages are about 1/64″ wider but it does not impact their functionality at all. The mushroom shaped punch outs used to bind the paper to the discs are also different sizes on both brands. The stem of the mushroom appears to be the same size on each but the dome of the mushroom is larger and wider on the Levenger paper.” 

So, you can mix and match, going for lower-cost covers and a higher-priced set of discs, or just augment your basic Arc system with the wide variety of refill options at Levenger.

TUL

You didn’t think one Big Box office supply store was going to let the other get a leg up, did you? In between the high-end Circa and the stripped-down Arc, there’s TUL, with a name that sounds like it should be sold at IKEA rather than Office Depot.

Tul notebooks are, like Arc, compatible and interchangeable with Circa (and, obviously, with Arc).

To build your TUL, you start with with selecting your preferred cover in one of three notebook styles: Junior (5 1/2″ wide by 8 1/2″ high, with 8 discs), Letter (8 1/2″ wide x 11″ high, with 11 discs), and Top-Bound (8 1/2″ wide x 11″ high, with 8 discs).

The Top-Bound notebook only comes with a black leather cover and runs about $28. There are a variety of covers for both the Junior and Letter sizes, including pebbled leather (rose gold and gunmetal) and smooth leather (purple, grey, brown, and black) with black discs. There’s also a navy blue leather version with gold foil polka dots in the Junior size! The cost of the leather versions vary by size and style but are priced between $20 and $38.

For non-leather options in the Junior size, there are polyurethane covers (pink, teal, and black) with color-coordinated discs for $16.39. In Letter size, TUL offers black and navy “soft-touch” poly covers with color-coordinated disks for $20.39.

Paper options are fairly limited: narrow-ruled (in white and assorted colors), graph, to-do lists, and undated appointment and planning pages. Generally, refills come in packs of 100 pages (50 sheets) or 600 pages (300 sheets) and prices range from $5 to $30.

Accessories are similar to those available for Arc: color and white tab dividers, pocket dividers, and insert-sheets of tape flags and task sheets, as well as a page of pads of lined sticky notes. A package of one dozen black, plastic expansion discs in 1″, 1.5″, and 2″ dimensions run $4-$4.59; they also come in a variety of fashion colors, including rose gold, pink, marble, clear, and gold, for about $7.

ELEVEN DISCS

Do you like the idea of developing your own disc-based notebook, perhaps with a mix of high-end and more moderately-priced elements? Eleven Discs is a Worthington, Ohio-based family-run business that specializes in disc-based products, including two kinds of notebooks:

Poly Cover Notebooks: The 1 mm-thick poly covers come in mint, pink, purple, black, and translucent in both Junior and Letter. Junior notebooks come with 50 dot-grid sheets and 8 of the 3/4″ discs; Letter notebooks have 40 margin-ruled sheets and 11 of the 3/4″ discs. Priced from $19+.

They also sell Brushed Poly Cover Notebooks in orange, light blue, green, grey, and black, but other than the texture, the details are the same as above.

In terms of paper, Eleven Discs offers:

Junior sheets: blank, 3 versions of dot-grid, margin-ruled, ruled, to-do lists, project planning forms, expense logs, mileage logs, daily agenda sheets, square grid sheets, engineering grid sheets, and weekly planner sheets. 

Letter sheets: blank, 3 versions of dot-grid, margin-ruled, ruled, square grid sheets, engineering grid sheets, to-do lists, project planning forms, daily agenda sheets, and ledger sheets.

Both sizes run $15 for a pack of 40 double-sided sheets.

Tab Dividers: Eleven Discs has monthly tabs for Junior ($12) and Letter ($13) sizes, as well as packs of five poly, semi-translucent tab dividers with label stickers in Junior and Letter sizes for $8.

Expansion Discs: Packs of 11 aluminum discs come in 3/4″, 1″, and 1 1/2″ sizes, in silver, gold, champaign gold, black, and tungsten for $23+. Plastic discs come in packs of 22 in the same sizes plus 1/2″, in black and translucent, for $9.

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When I set out to write this part of the series, I’d anticipated only one post on customizable notebooks, mostly intriguing new-on-the-horizon items I’d found, but in researching old topics, I learned that two of the most popular Paper Doll posts over the years were on modular, disc-based notebooks, so I’m hoping this post has given you some ideas of what you can do to make a notebook truly your own.

Next time, we’ll continue with more customizable notebook options, including a new Rocketbook product with magnetic, swappable pages; a notebook you can have made-to-order with page options that reflect who you are (coffee fiend? pop culture fanatic? chef? business leader?); a landscape-orientation customizable notebook; and more!

Have you missed part of the series? Never fear, the posts are always here:

Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 1): Re-Surveying the Landscape
Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 2): The Big Names in Erasable Notebooks
Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 3): More Erasable & Reusable Notebooks

Last week, in Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 2): The Big Names in Erasable Notebooks, I talked about some of the advantages of a hybrid notebook to organize your notes, one where you can write on paper (or a paper-like substance), digitize what you’ve created, and erase it. It helps the environment and gives you the one-two punch of creating ideas or art without tangible clutter.

But a conversation with my colleague Seana Turner in the comments section reminded me of another advantage I hadn’t considered including: perfectionist procrastination and the problem with fancy notebooks!

I’ve spoken before about my beloved purple legal pads. While I’m not helping the environment, the legal pads I use aren’t too fancy. I’m never afraid to mess up a page with a scribble, a splotch, or a stupid idea. The same isn’t true (for me, and for many people) when it comes to gorgeous, sumptuous notebooks.

Seven years ago, in Notions on Notebooks: Organize Your Paper Picks, I talked about some key points to consider when selecting notebooks: price (and branding), portability, binding, paper quality, lines (or dots, or graphs, or none), and color. I also pointed out: 

CAVEAT: Over the years, I’ve had many clients who loved the sensory delights of fancy-schmancy notebooks: the colors, the materials, the bindings. They haunted bookstores and stationers and gift shops and bought them giddily, as if they were guilty pleasures. But they never used them. Why? For the same reason we save the “good” china for a special occasion and never wear that perfect outfit because the event doesn’t live up to the dream occasion we imagined when we bought it.

Could you dare write “broccoli, Lemon Pledge, dental floss” in a $52 leather-bound, crimson notebook? If not, either stick to manhandling those sexy notebooks in the stores (but skip buying them) or purchase notebooks with fancier covers but replaceable inner workings. Switch out the paper parts of the notebooks when you’ve filled them with brilliance or drivel, but keep your signature-style colors and fabrics on display as you desire. 

So, perhaps, the erasable Rocketbook and Wipebook notebooks we discussed last week offer that solution, an opportunity to create temporarily without fear of sullying a notebook. While last week we covered the big names in erasable, reusable notebooks, there’s too much of a bounty not to discuss other options.

SORA REUSABLE PLANNER

SORA, created by the Toronto-based IPPINKA team of designers, is a multi-sectional, customizable, reusable planner that features removable whiteboard pages. Like many of the modern products in Paper Doll’s Noteworthy Notebook series, SORA began with crowdsourcing via a Kickstarter. Although the campaign only started in Fall 2020, SORA is already a star.

Note merely a blank notebook, SORA was designed to work as a planner to help improve and simplify professional and personal life with “whiteboard pages that stimulate goal-oriented and idea-driven scheduling over and over again.”

Each notebook comes with one Staedtler Lumocolor® correctable 305 F Dry Erase Pen in black, which can be erased using the pen’s built-in eraser, a tissue and a little bit of pressure, a damp cloth, or EXPO whiteboard cleaner. (So, unlike last week’s discussion, no microwave oven is necessary!)

SORA is formatted as an A5 (UK/European) notebook measuring 8.27″ x 5.83″. Its thin, flexible pages mimic traditional paper, and the notebook comes with 30 erasable whiteboard planner and tracker pages: 

• Yearly Planner – This erasable planner lets you see your entire year so you can plan well in advance. The planner is undated for maximum flexibility.
• Two Monthly Planners – Two erasable planner spreads enable you to plan both the current and upcoming month, viewing recent past accomplishments and planning going forward. These planners are undated.
• Weekly Planners – Two erasable, undated, weekly planner spreads let you envision and organize essential events and tasks for the current and forthcoming week. 
• Wellness Trackers – SORA’s two wellness tracker pages let you select two different health and fitness goals to improve. More water and more steps? More cardio sessions and a greater variety of vegetables? Strength training sessions and meditation? You pick!
• Habits Trackers – With five habit trackers, SORA help you track your professional and personal habits and make sure that you “don’t break the chain.”
• Blank, Lined, Dot-Grid Pages – It’s not really a notebook unless there’s a place to write and draw, so SORA includes 6 pages each of blank, lined, and dot-grid pages.

[Paper Doll’s suggestion: I’d prefer three weekly and monthly planner spreads to allow you to refer to the prior, current, and upcoming weeks and months so you could flip forward and backward.]

Aside from erasability, the key feature of SORA is that the arrangement of the pages is completely customizable, so you can rearrange the pages to suit your needs.

SORA uses eight 16mm binding discs, similar to what we saw when we discussed customizable  notebooks like the Ampad Versa Crossover and the Sorta. So, instead of perforated notepad pages you can only use once, twist-prone wire binding, or loose sheets bound in bulky three-ring binders, SORA’s disc system lets you use the notebook open, or folded back on itself at any page to minimize desk space used.

SORA’s pages are waterproof and smudge-proof, so the notes won’t smush or accidentally erase like a typical dry-erase marker would. 

The individual pages are removable, so they are camera-ready if you want to scan your pages and upload them to your preferred cloud service. (Unlike the notebooks we discussed last week, SORA doesn’t have a proprietary app.) 

You can purchase a SORA notebook planner for $34 directly from the official site.

nuka ETERNAL STATIONERY

Ukrainian creators Katya Michalko and Nikita Vladykin, aged 17, joined by Eugene Shylo, aged 20, developed something novel with nuka Eternal Stationery. Rather than creating yet another whiteboard notebook with an erasable pen, they went back to basics and invented a better pencil and paper!

It all started with, you guessed it, a crowdfunding campaign. They began last spring, and though the community embraced their little vision quickly, everything from COVID to Chinese New Year to international manufacturing kerfuffles slowed down the process. But funders received their orders in April 2021, and soon the nuka Eternal Stationery (AKA: notebook) will soon be available for traditional purchase, too.

Let’s start with the nuka pencil. This is not your Grandpa’s old #2. The nuka pencil seems like an ordinary pencil, but it never needs to be sharpened and there are no inserts like with a mechanical pencil.

Instead, the six-inch nuka pencil writes with a metal alloy tip which oxidizes polypropylene paper. According to the nuka team, this technology makes pencil inkless (but also, y’know, graphite-less), eliminating any concern of about ink blobs, smudged writing, or wearing what you’ve written on your cuff or the sides of your hands. 

Oh, and the pencil is magnetic. That’ll be important a bit later.

Next, there are 96 sheets of “virtually indestructible” paper in the 8″ x 5″ notebook. The paper is water-resistant and sturdy. You can’t tear it, and you definitely won’t rough it up by erasing too hard. And yes, you can erase the pages.

Although the team hasn’t explained how they’ve done it, or what by secret process they’ve developed it, the pages are waterproof, so even if tiny humans (or furry friends) spill all of your coffee onto your notebook, you needn’t fear losing your million dollar idea or key dialogue for your novel. Your writing also won’t fade over time. All the team has said (and remember, Ukrainian is their first language) is, “We don’t use traditional materials as timber neither for notebook, nor pencil. That definitely helps to save our planet resources.”

But nuka IS a rewritable notebook. Erase small portions with any ordinary eraser, but you can eliminate a whole page by wiping it with a bit of hand sanitizer. (Given the past year, you probably have a LOT of that!)

Although you should use the pencil, the nuka team did research how other writing implements interact, and they report, “Out of the 200 writing instruments we used to test the notebook’s ability to be wiped off, only two types of instruments proved to be difficult; gel pens and permanent markers. While you can use these instruments on the notebook, you might not be able to remove them at all afterwards.”

The silicone cover over the bound pages of the notebook has space for a magnet in the spine, so you’ll never lose your fancy-pants nuka pencil because it’s always attached to the notebook! (Just don’t take it into an MRI machine!)

Finally, there’s the forthcoming nuka app to help you digitize and synchronize your notes across any smart devices so that even when your notebook isn’t at hand, or after you’ve erased something previously uploaded, your works of genius can be retrieved from the cloud. 

The combination nuka eternal stationery (notebook and pen) sold for $69 during the crowdfunding stage; watch their social media to see when it’s available for traditional purchase. (And watch this video. It’s fun!)

INFINITY NOTEBOOKS

For something a little more down to earth, there’s the Canadian Infinity Notebooks. 

First, Infinity Notebooks are durable. The pages are made from a long-lasting polyester paper. The company claims the covers and the pages are highly tear-resistant and completely waterproof, and pages are designed to be added or removed “thousands of times” without damage.  

Next, like everything in this category, the notebooks are reusable. Write or draw in your Infinity Notebook using any of the following supported writing utensils:

• Pilot FriXion Pens (You’ll recall these from the last post.)
• Uniball R:E Pens 
• Pilot FriXion Highlighters (Wait, did you know there were erasable highlighters?) 
• Pilot FriXion Stamps (Like fun little analog emoji for erasable notebooks.)

[The website notes that: Pilot FriXion Markers can also be used with the Infinity Notebook, and while they erase well, they are not recommended because the ink takes longer to dry and is prone to smudging.]

Whichever of the supported writing/marking solutions you choose, the ink will bond with the paper to stay put, but will erase cleanly with a damp cloth or paper towel. You can also use the eraser that comes with the pens, which lets you make small, incremental corrections without risking erasing a larger area of your work.

Next, Infinity Notebooks are customizable. We’ll be talking more about customizable notebooks next time, but, like the SORA described above, the Infinity Notebooks use disc binding so that you can add, remove, or move pages or sections to wherever you want.

You can also swap covers and pages, so while you only have to carry one notebook to class, you could return to your desk and move each class’s notes to one dedicated to a specific course. Or, you can just designate different sections of your notebook for planning and goal-setting, journaling, task lists, etc., and move pages accordingly.

In addition, because Infinity Notebooks are compatible with most popular discbound systems, you can use accessories and features from other product lines, like planners, trackers, calendars, sticky notes, tape flags, and more. (The company also plans on expanding its own line of discbound products to accessorize the Infinity Notebooks.)

Currently, the Infinity Notebook only comes in Executive size, measuring 8.5″ x 6″. There are six choices of colors for the poly covers: Par Blue, Black, Azure, Forest, Purple, and White. 

Each notebook includes eight black binding discs, the two poly covers, 30 ruled pages (15 sheets), 6 checklist pages (3 sheets) and 4 mini checklist pages (2 sheets). Each also comes with one Pilot FriXion pen and use and care instructions.

The Infinity Notebook is $36 on the website; packs of 5 additional pages (in either ruled, checklist, or mini-checklist) are $7.99. They also sell the fun Frixion stamps, imported from Japan, for $3.99 each.

(HOMESTEC/GUYUCOM/NEWYES) SMART NOTEBOOK

Maybe you want to explore erasable notebooks at a lower price point, in case you don’t like the experience?

I’ve found that three different companies are marketing the same “Smart Notebook,” with identical marketing copy (complete with the same grammatical quirks) so whether it’s Homestec, Guyucom, or NEWYES, you’ll find the same product, available in five different sizes, for between $10 and $14. In fact, if you look at the Amazon page for the Standard B5 (UK/EURO sizing)/6.9″ x 9.8″ version of the Homestec Reusable Smart Notebook and scroll down to the graphics that compare the other sizes, you’ll see NEWYes referred to in the chart. 

There’s no reference to what, if anything, makes the paper special, which makes me wonder if it’s just standard paper. It simply references using NEWYES erasable pens, for which you should allow 15 seconds for the ink to dry, after which you can erase using the eraser that comes with your erasable pen, a damp cloth, or a hot hair dryer! (Well, at least it’s not another microwave oven!)

After writing and before erasing, they recommend downloading and using either of two apps, the NEWYES Note or CamScanner, to send notes to Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Box, OneNote, iCloud, and email, either as PDFs or jpegs.

The marketing copy claims that each notebook can be reused over 500 times. Interestingly, these warn not to use your notebook in the sun or when it’s above 140° F/60° C (yikes!), or the ink may disappear.

Why do I get the sense that this will become some kind of reverse-invisible-ink plotline on a sitcom?

This version of the notebook has a black cover with wire-O binding and comes with 7 planning pages, 30 lined pages, and 30 dot-grid pages, as well as one NEWYES-branded erasable pen, and a set of colorful adhesive indexing tape flags for bookmarking or noting important pages, all for $13.58.

There are three other main sizes of the SMART notebook (no matter the branding): 

• Letter Size (11.2″ x 8.7″) with a black or navy blue cover, 2 NEWYES reusable pens, and 1 set ofcolorful adhesive indexing tape flags
• Notebook Memo Size (6.7″ x 4.2″) with a black cover, 1 NEWYES reusable pen, and 1 set of colorful adhesive indexing tape flags
• Notebook “Standard” Size A5 (9.1″ x 6.9″) with a black cover, 1 NEWYES reusable pen, and 1 set of colorful adhesive indexing tape flags

All of the above versions are designed primarily for notetaking; there’s also an A6 (6.7″ x 4.2″) sketchpad version with 40 lined pages and 40 dot-grid pages for $11.88.

All blogs and videos I’ve found reference that you can replace the NEWYES pen with a Pilot FriXion erasable pen.

OUTLIERS NOTEBOOK

Finally, after reviewing many erasable notebook options, I came across, well, an outlier. In fact, the Outliers Notebook. The web site says that the design team formed in United States, but all of the employees are in Turkey; the headquarters in Delaware is a virtual office but all the prices are in Euros. 

The notebooks come in three sizes: Executive and Standard Outliers notebooks both measure 8.66″ x 5.9″, and the Pocket version is 5.5″ x 3.54″. The Executive comes with either a faux-leather or cloth cover, magnetic closure, and 224 pages of 80 gsm acid-free paper; in addition to blank or ruled options (you can’t mix them in one notebook), there’s an annual planner and habit and goal trackers. 

The Standard Outliers version offers the same features as the Executive, but with a cloth cover. The Pocket version is only 191 pages, has an elastic closure. (It appears to have a cloth cover.) Cover colors include black, dark grey, light grey, red, navy, purple, light grey, orange, and green.

Each notebook comes with a proprietary Outliers pen.

Aaaaand because you knew there had to be one more, Outliers recommends erasing the notebook in a microwave oven. No microwave? That’s OK, they say; you can use your hair dryer. They also warn, “Notes on your Outliers Notebook disappear at 60°C and come back at -10°C. Unless you leave your notebook in environments that are either too cold or too hot for long periods of time, your notes will be safe and previously erased notes will not return.” 

I’m thinking this will also show up in the sit-com!

However, taking us all the way back to the concerns about the original Rocketbook Wave we discussed last week, they say, “You can erase your notebook in the microwave for an indefinite number of times; however, the notebook should ideally be reused up to a maximum of 5 times due to natural wear and tear that may occur through usage.” So, it’s not super reusable, but just a little reusable!

Each page of the Outliers notebook contains QR codes that indicate the page numbers. Outliers (iOS and Android) apps include QR code scanners, which read the QR codes, recognize page numbers and automatically index all your pages in the correct order as PDFs. Users can add keywords to digitized notes and search within the Outlier app, and of course, share via email or to cloud services.

Outliers claims superior image processing by augmenting the page resolution, stabilizing the brightness, and providing automatic perspective corrections by detecting the scanned page area, no matter the angles from which you shoot. 

Outliers Notebooks can be purchased directly from their site, but again, please note that pricing is in Euros. The Executive versions are 28 and 26.5 Euros (faux leather and cloth versions), the Standard Outlier is 25 Euros, and the Pocket version is 18 Euros. (That’s about $34, $32.23, $30.40, and $21.88, respectively, as of the writing of this blog.) If any of our Paper Doll readers in the EU are up for sampling this option, please report back on your experience.

Next week, we’ll move on to a new category, notebooks you can customize and truly make your own. Until then, if you’ve missed anything, you can catch up at:

Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 1): Re-Surveying the Landscape
Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 2): The Big Names in Erasable Notebooks

CHILD’S PLAY

Do you remember the Etch A Sketch? Invented 61 years ago, the iconic red tablet (long before iPads) was shaped to look a bit like a flat-screen TV (long before flat-screen TVs), but required no electricity, batteries, or WiFi (which is good, because the internet hadn’t been invented yet, either). By turning the horizontal and vertical knobs (designed to look like old-time TV knobs) you could create words. (Sorta.) You could make art!

Granted, most of it didn’t look particularly artistic, but you got to be creative, and when you were done and ready to create a new masterpiece, you just shook the entire Etch A Sketch and the whole screen was erased, and you could start fresh. (If only life worked that way!)

There was another toy, less iconic, but no less common. You may not know the name Magic Slate, but I bet you had one. As it dates back to the 1920s, I bet your grandparents even had one! On top of a stiff cardboard backing, there was a black slate, and atop that, a sheet of plastic. Using a stylus, you could draw or write; to erase, just lift up the sheet of plastic, and your Magic Slate was ready for you to start anew.

A few years ago, some savvy designers realized that while we like all of the features of computers, tablets, cell phones, and the internet, we also really like to write and draw by hand. And while the newest tablets offer some of those features, writing and drawing on glass just doesn’t feel the same as drawing on paper.

So, one after another, a series of designers came up with notebooks that are somewhat (more or less, depending on the product) like writing or drawing on paper, but you can erase what you’ve created.

No, you don’t have to write in pencil (and fill your desk with erasure crumbles). And yes, you can retain your content and still use your notebooks over and over. And you can be gentle to the environment by not requiring whole forests to be cut down. The natural grandchild of the Etch A Sketch and Magic Screen are erasable notebooks.

ROCKETBOOK

If the Etch A Sketch represented the early and mid-20th century, Rocketbook‘s wide variety of fancy-schmancy, modern, erasable, reusable notebooks are the future. (In fact, when Rocketbook went on the TV show Shark Tank, they described their products as they do in all their videos, explaining that they make “notebooks for the future” with sustainability in mind.)

The initial Rocketbook was the Wave, a crowdfunded spiral-bound notebook that appeared on the scene in 2015. You could write on the pages with any of the colorful Pilot FriXion erasable pens, and fill every page, edge-to-edge and top-to-bottom.

Once your notebook was full, instead of buying a new one, as you’d do with paper notebooks, you could capture the contents of the Wave by scanning it with the special Rocketbook app. Tiny icons at the bottom of each page directed the app to send your creations to the cloud, and specifically to the right service in the cloud, like Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, OneNote, or even to email. Done scanning? You’d just erase the contents by putting the Wave in the microwave.

Yes, in the microwave. (Hence the Rocketbook Wave.) When the logo on the cover turned from blue to white, you knew the notebook was erased.

Weird. I mean, everyone thought that was weird. I had a small microwave oven, and the first time I saw the notebook, I realized that while the Wave would fit inside my microwave, the design would make it hard to get INTO my microwave without rolling or folding it. Plus, I had some serious hygiene concerns with putting something one carted around all day into the same device where I cooked my food. (OK, where I boiled water and made popcorn, but still…)

Also, each of the notebook’s 80 pages could be erased only five times. FIVE times? I tried to recall how many pages of transcription-like notes I took in college classes, how many pages of notes I take during a client session, and how many I write in almost any educational setting. At that rate, I’d be buying new Waves every month or two. That might be sustainable for the rainforests, but not for me!

Bit by bit, people embraced Rocketbook’s Wave, and I enjoyed seeing it up-close at NAPO conferences when my colleagues would take notes, but my love for the environment and for gadgets was not as profound as my love for keeping food and non-food things in separate realms, and my dismay over the limited number of uses.

(I also wish I’d asked where they were finding microwave ovens at the conference hotel; I take almost a full legal pad of notes during a three-day conference. Were they uploading, erasing, and starting over every day? Inquiring minds…)

Rocketbook, however, wasn’t worried about naysayers like Paper Doll, and continued to expand the product line and make some of the most goofily entertaining office supply promotional videos on the market. As they went along, everything they invented with their accent on creating notebooks “for the   future” focused on four key attributes of their products: write, scan, share, reuse: 

Next came Rocketbook Everlast, which was later renamed Core, as it serves as the core of the Rocketbook lineup. The pages of the spiral notebook were created from a polyester composite rather than wood, but still felt like paper, and while marks made with the Pilot FriXion erasable pens would stay smudge-free, entire pages could be erased with the wipe of a damp cloth. The Core is “infinitely” erasable, they say, and while I’m not sure anyone can test that claim, infinity is definitely a higher number than five.

As with the original Wave, the Rocketbook app lets you scan the page using the QR code at the bottom, and whichever of the tiny icons you select will direct the app to send your work to be stored at the right cloud storage site. iCloud, Slack, and Box were added to the original options.

Note: the icons on the bottom page are generic: Rocketbook’s logo, diamond, apple, bell, shamrock, star and horseshoe. You configure each icon to link to whichever service you prefer, so as Rocketbook’s integrations grow, so do your options. 

Another cool features: if you hand-write hashtags (# marks) around the title of your page at the top, it will transcribe your handwritten note as text to create as the title of the document.

The Rocketbook universe (see what I did there?) continues to expand. Among the erasable notebooks, there are:

• Wave, the original Rocketbook, comes in two sizes, Standard (8.5″ x 9.5″) and Executive Size: (6″ x 8.9″), each with 80 dot-grid pages on acid-free, fine-grain paper, with a blue cover. The left-side spiral binding is polypropylene. Each page can be erased five times by microwaving. $27 for the Standard, $25 for the Executive, directly from Rocketbook, or $21 for the Standard and $27 for the Executive at Amazon.
• Core (formerly Everlast), comes in two sizes, Letter (8.5″ x 11″ with 32 pages) and Executive (6″ x 8.9″ with 36 pages) in either dot-grid or lined formats. The covers come in eight colors: Infinity Black, Atomic Red, Midnight Blue, Neptune Teal, Beacons Orange, Deep Space Grey, Terrestrial Green, and Scarlet Sky, and the left-side spiral binding is polypropylene. A microfiber cloth is included, and all pages can be erased by wiping with a damp cloth. The Letter size is $34 and the Executive is $32 at Rocketbook, or for $28 and $24, respectively, on Amazon.
• Fusion looks like the Core from the outside, coming in the Letter and Executive sizes, with the same eight cover color options and connects to the same cloud services. But Fusion takes the Rocketbook a step beyond with formatting . The 42-page Fusion uses seven different page templates: task list, weekly planner, monthly calendar, idea list, plain, lined and dot-grid pages, and an ORK goal template (with space for objectives, key results, an action plan, and reflections). The Letter size is $37 and the Executive is $35 at Rocketbook with similar pricing at Amazon.
• Panda Planner is a Rocketbook extension of the popular Panda Planner line of happiness-inspiring personal planners. The exterior features are similar to the Core (though it’s only available in Infinity Black, Neptune Teal, Midnight Blue, and Scarlet Sky), and it comes in Letter (32 pages) and Executive (36 pages) sizes. Instead of the Rocketbook logo, the Rocketbook Panda Planners bear the panda head logo. Pages include undated monthly, weekly, and daily templates to organize your tasks and appointments, and goal and motivation templates for “building happiness.” Like the Fusion, the Rocketbook Panda Planner is priced at $37 for the Letter size and $35 for the Executive, at both Rocketbook and Amazon.
• Matrix comes in only one format, the 32-page Letter size (8.5″ x 11″) with cover colors including Infinity Black, Midnight Blue, Neptune Teal, Deep Space Grey, Terrestrial Green, and Scarlet Sky. Instead of dot-grid or lined, the Matrix uses a graph pattern specifically designed for STEM classes and technical note-taking. In addition to 30 graph pattern pages, the Matrix includes a scientific index page to track and improve organization, imperial and metric rulers for field measurements, and a place to label the 1/4” square units. The Matrix runs $24 at Rocketbook and on Amazon. (There’s no word as to whether Neo and Morpheus will help you with your STEM homework in the Matrix. I suspect that will cost extra.) 

All of the versions of the Rocketbook referenced so far have the spiral binding on the left side. Although Rocketbook has not (yet) created any landscape formatted notebooks, they offer two options with the spiral binding at the top:

• Rocketbook Flip is billed as “the galaxy’s first ambidextrous notebook,” and it’s definitely a boon to lefties with the spiral running along the top. The covers come in Infinity Black, Midnight Blue, Neptune Teal, Deep Space Grey, Terrestrial Green, and Scarlet Sky, and the pages themselves do double-duty, as each page is formatted with lines on the front and a dot-grid on the back. (A version with blank pages is also available.) Like the Core, it comes in Letter (8.5″ x 11″ with 32 pages) and Executive (6″ x 8.9″ with 36 pages) and runs $34 for Letter and $32 for Executive at Rocketbook and $30 and $27, respectively, on Amazon. 

• Rocketbook Mini takes the Flip and shrinks it down to 3.5″ x 5.5″ to fit easily in a purse or pocket. As with the Flip, the spiral binding runs across the top, and the cover comes in Infinity Black, Midnight Blue, Neptune Teal, Deep Space Grey, Terrestrial Green, and Scarlet Sky. The Mini is 48 dot-grid pages, and costs $16 at Rocketbook and a little less on Amazon.    

All versions of the Rockebook come up a Pilot FriXion erasable pen, and all versions except the Wave come with a grey microfiber cloth.

And now, there’s a new product on the horizon, the Axis, which has just completed its Kickstarter campaign. Because the Axis has some special features beyond reusability, we’ll be returning to it in a few weeks when we cover customizable notebooks. 

While Rocketbook is the biggest name in erasable notebooks, it’s definitely not alone.

WIPEBOOK

Wipebook imagines its products as a blending of traditional notebooks with whiteboards, but instead of using erasable pens, Wipebook’s works with either correctable markers or dry-erase markers. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

Instead of focusing on notetaking, we’re supposed to consider Wipebook notebooks as the ultimate reusable whiteboard notebook for brainstorming on-the-go. You can write or draw, make temporary notes and squiggles, and then erase without wasting paper. In fact, they have a nice little motto: “Go ahead and make a mistake. Nothing should be permanent.” To that end, they’ve upgraded their pages to a new hypergloss film designed to make erasing and reusing an even smoother process.

Every Wipebook contains 32 graph, ruled or blank 8 1/2″ x 11″ pages. The ruled notebook has a green cover; the graph version’s cover is blue, and the one with blank pages is red. There’s nothing fancy to look at, but the focus is on the use. 

Depending on the longevity you need for your doodles and masterpieces, Wipebook recommends two options. First, they like Staedtler Lumocolor correctable markers as they won’t smudge on the hypergloss pages, but the ink can be removed with the integrated erasers (for a small area) or a dry cloth, either when you’re finished, or to correct mistakes. They come in two styles, fine and medium tip, and unlike traditional dry-erase markers (which you can also use), they provide a more semi-permanent solution.

 

If you choose to use dry-erase markers, you can wipe the ink off with your finger, a dry or damp cloth, or if it’s been a few weeks, a spritz of dry-erase cleaning solution. They recommend Expo Ultra Fine dry-erase markers.

Wipebook has its own Wipebook Scan App, compatible with iOS or Android, so you can scan your creations and upload them to the cloud to Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote or OneDrive. I should note that while the Android app’s rating is slightly below a 4 on a 5-point scale, the iOS app rating is only 1.5. User beware.  

All versions of the original Wipebook are $29.99.

As with Rocketbook, Wipebook has developed fancier iterations:

• Wipebook Workbooks – Each workbook is just four pages (think: front and back cover and two internal pages) with one ruled, one graph, and two blank sheets, all 8.5″ x 11″. 

A packet of 25 workbooks (say, for a classroom of students) is $49.99.

• Wipebook Pro is the next step up from the bare-bones Wipebook. It still measures 8.5″ x 11″, but has tanned faux-leather front and back covers with a lay-flat wire-O brass binding. It has 20 pages, which are ruled but with “non-intrusive” grey lines so as not to detract from the work, and comes with a correctible marker. The Pro runs $44.99.
• Mini Wipebook Pro applies a shrink-ray to the Pro, sizing it at at 5.8″ x 8.3″ (or A5 in UK/European terms) but otherwise offers all of the features of the Pro. It’s $39.99.
• Wipebook Pro+ is almost identical to the Pro, but has a black faux-leather cover and includes both graph and ruled pages (10 of each) and the cover has a pen-holder. It’s also $44.99.
• Mini Wipebook Pro+ shrinks the Pro+ down to 8.3″ x 5.8″ (again, A5 in UK/European terms) but otherwise has the same features as the Pro+ for $39.99.
• Pocket Wipebook Pro has the tanned faux-leather cover but the lay-flat wire-O brass binding runs across the top, like with an assignment notebook. The 20 pages (10 ruled, 10 graph) measure 6″ high x 2.5″ wide, has an attached penholder and comes with a correctible marker. The Pocket Wipebook Pro is $24.99.

JUST THE BEGINNING

While Rocketbook and Wipebook are the bigger names in the erasable notebook world, next week’s post has some real magic with a look at erasable options from around the globe. There’s a notebook that erases with a hairdryer instead of a damp or dry cloth, and an erasable planner with trackers for all your goals and customizable pages. There’s a notebook with an “eternal” pencil so you never have to buy another marker or pen. And there’s yet another notebook that thinks that we want to erase our notebooks in the microwave.

If you missed last week’s post, you can catch up on Noteworthy Notebooks (Part 1): Re-Surveying the Landscape. Next time, we’ll be looking at more intriguing reusable notebooks, and later in the series, customizable, indestructible, and just plain quirky notebooks, all designed to help you find a solution to organize your information in ways that meet your needs and preferences. See you next time!

Notebooks. Bullet Journals. Diaries. Sketchbooks. Whatever you use, notebooks are essential to capturing words, feelings, designs, and brilliant ideas so they don’t fade away into oblivion.

We’ve talked a lot of notebooks here at Paper Doll HQ, everything from waterproof notebooks to notebooks for left-handers. We’ve discussed various types of hybrid paper/digital notebooks, like Ampad’s Shot Notes and Versa Crossover, TOPS’ Focus Notes, and Evernote’s Smart Notebook by Moleskine. We’ve dug into magnetic notebooks, dry-erase notebooks, and customizable notebooks.

The blog has also looked at the 5 Key Points for Organizing with Notebooks, and in Notions on Notebooks: Organize Your Paper Picks, we delved into all of the considerations to take into account when choosing a notebook solution, including: price, branding, portability, binding, paper quality, lines, and color. 

We’ve even looked at the shape of notebooks before when we presented Paper Doll Surveys the (Paper) Landscape. Because, sometimes, you just want something a little different. Today, we’re going to embrace three very different notebook styles.

PANOBOOK

Most notebooks have a portrait orientation. It’s rare, other than with sketchbooks, to see a notebook with a landscape orientation. Panobook, however, takes landscape one step further and delivers a panoramic (landscape-orientation, but wider) notebook designed to sit on your desk (in that bit of space between your abdomen and your keyboard), and eventually, on your bookshelf.
 

Created by Texas-based Studio Neat, known for a variety of innovative products, from wooden charging docks to cocktail-making tools to video-related apps, Panobook began life as a Kickstarter and quickly gathered community support.

It’s easy to understand why. Depending on the width of your desk, you may or may not have space to the left or right of your body. But your monitor is generally straight in front of you, and so is your keyboard, so unless you have an L-shaped desk, the real estate in front of you is pretty tightly packed.

If you want to take notes, maybe you can scroll (I mean, slide) your body to the left or right, or you may have to swivel in your seat to use the left side of the desk (or the right side, if you’re left-handed) to take notes. Unless your arms are long (and your eyesight so pristine that your monitor is very far away), there’s just not that much writing space in front of you. (And I’m pretty sure you don’t want a notebook poking into your tummy.)

Panobook was created to solve this problem of limited space. The panoramic format, measuring 160 mm x 288 mm (6.53″ x 11.34″) is designed to sit squarely in front of, or if you prefer, behind, your keyboard. (Turned vertically, of course, it can sit to the left or right, if you have that much space. But then you’d probably be using a traditional notebook or legal pad, right?) 

Panobook is made of high-quality (Finch Fine Soft White Ultra Smooth 70 lb text-quality) paper and designed to perform with a variety of writing instruments and inks without causing bleed-through or smudging. Both the front and back of Panobook are rigid, made of Neenah LaCrema 617 Charcoal-colored 50 pt black chipboard. It’s all bound with sturdy black Wire-O (12.7 mm (0.5″) diameter), so Panobook will sit flat when opened on your desk. (For some of us, this is a huge deal!)

Each notebook contains 50 sheets (100 pages). Instead of being lined or blank, Panobook has a subtle dot pattern with grid spacing at 5 mm (0.20″). And there’s a quirky little twist. There are guide markers on each page that make it easy to quickly draw three rectangles on the page, sized ideally for web designers doing smartphone user interface design or creative types for doing storyboarding. There are also edge guides to divide each page and provide cues for layout. They’re subtle, so if you don’t need them, you might not even notice them.

So what do you do when you finish the notebook? Panobook is designed to let you archive your creations and comes with a slip case in a French Paper Kraft-Tone Standard White 100 lb Cover (for people who know about such things). Write on the spines to catalog your notebooks and keep your collection together on a shelf.

See the Panobook in action:

You can buy Panobook directly from Studio Neat for $20/notebook for one or two; they’re discounted to $19/notebook when you purchase three or more. 

TRIANGLE NOTEBOOK

When I first saw the Triangle Notebook last summer, it seemed vaguely familiar. Back in 2012, there were quite a few posts on the design blogs about this product and it was selling at the Metropolitan Museum of Art shop. However, by the time I planned to write about it, the Triangle Notebook had already sold out and been withdrawn from the marketplace. Now it’s back in an improved form.

The Triangle Notebooks (both the original and improved versions) were created by Tan Mavitan, a creator based in Istanbul, Turkey and best known for his sculptures. As you can imagine, artists need someplace to collect designs and thoughts, so who better to imagine innovatively designed notebooks?

The Triangle Notebook appears to be just that: When closed, it’s a triangle. Flipped open, the notebook is square. The hard front and back covers and spine are encased in fabric, and the 160 interior (90 gr acid-free paper) sheets are narrowly ruled.

The Triangle Notebook comes in 13 solid colors, including Black, (light) Blue, Dark Green, “Green” (which looks more like chartreuse), Navy Blue, Pink, Purple, Red, Yellow, Dark Amber, Ghost White, and Mustard. There are also three Special Edition Triangle Notebooks: Triangle Thoughts (white with black avante garde style, and Yachtsman Blue (pictured below) and Yachtsman Red. All notebooks are 21 cm x 21 cm (8.26″ x 8.26″).

Personally, I find $33 to be a steep price, even for an admittedly lovely hardcover notebook, but my larger concern is that the pages may not lay flat when the notebook is open. Of course, at about 8 1/4″ square, you could place a small book weight in the center without obscuring too much of your content.

All versions of the Triangle Notebook are available from Amazon or from the Tan Mavitan Studio shop. The price in both venues is $33. The Studio often has discount codes listed at the top of the page; as of this writing, WELCOME2019 yields a 20% discount. However, there’s no shipping rate information on the site, and the notebooks do qualify for Amazon Prime two-day shipping, so check both options to see what works best for you.  

SIDEKICK NOTEBOOK

Remember what I was saying about real estate on your desk being at a premium? Panobook isn’t the only option for handling this problem creatively. The Sidekick Notebook appears to be a mostly normal (if narrow) portrait-oriented notebook with a bottom margin cut strangely on the diagonal.

When closed, the Sidekick Notebook measures 21.5 cm x 8.5 cm (8.46″ x 3.34″). But once it’s flipped open, the Sidekick is actually an L-shaped notebook designed to hug the corners of keyboards, iPads/tablets, mousepads, books, and other square-ish items.

Instead of a portrait or landscape orientation, the Sidekick delivers both options simultaneously

The Sidekick, which comes 160 sheets (of 90 gr acid-free paper) per notebook, has a hard fabric-encased cover and comes in four colors: Red, Black, Navy Blue, and Light Gray. The layout is dot- grid style.

I suspect that the Sidekick won’t serve well for sketching large designs, but with both landscape and portrait writing areas, it’s good for taking notes and creating fiddly, small-detail designs.

The Sidekick is available for $24 per notebook from Amazon and from the Tan Mavitan Studio store, with the same discount and shipping caveats as noted above for the Triangle Notebook.

As always, the content you create and capture in your notebook is more important than the size, shape, color, or design. Sometimes, if a notebook is too spiffy (or expensive), we are reluctant to put anything but our “best” notions in them, which may mean procrastinating on doing anything at all.

If a unique design inspires you, embrace an unusual landscape or angle. Just give yourself permission to create first, and judge your work later.