I’m a hard copy paper and pen girl. Something about the physical interaction really works for me. This is especially true for my to do list and calendars. I keep a thorough google calendar on my phone - if we have plans I’m probably sending you a calendar invite. I transfer all of that over to a hard copy planner and that’s where I add things like what I want to get done that day. I have been known to add tasks I already accomplished just to be able to cross them off.

This year, I decided to try bullet journaling instead of a pre-printed calendar. I got the book from the library (The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll) and got started. Carroll recommends using the method for a few notebooks before you abandon it, and I can kind of see why. I’ll be starting my third journal in August and know I’ll be refining how I do things. But, this post isn’t about bullet journaling. It’s about the notebooks I use.

The first notebook I used was the Zhi Jin Linen notebook. The best thing about this notebook is the paper. It’s really thick and creamy to write on. For my purposes, I realized I wanted a dot grid to help keep my lines straight. As a basic blank notebook I really don’t think you can do better.

This led me to the Bullet Journal classic, the Leuchtterm1917 dotted in A5. The dots are in a 5mm grid. It’s still a stitched hardcover. There’s a pre-printed index and comes with numbered pages. There’s also a nice pocket in the back to shove things. But, the paper quality feels much lower. This was a real issue for me in the first few weeks after switching. It doesn’t bother me as much anymore, but I don’t recommend it for this reason. I don’t love the A5 gridding, either. I feel like I have to write double-spaced or else it gets too crammed. If I could find a quad-ruled (that’s quarter inch spacing) notebook that was exactly like this one, I probably would just stick with that and deal with the paper quality.

My third notebook, that I haven’t started yet is the Rhodia Webnotebook in A5 dot. I already don’t like that Rhodia is prominently embossed across the front. But, I’m willing to experiement.

Here’s what my perfect notebook would be:

Hard Cover in a solid color without any logos
A5 size - I’ve used larger ones in the past, like the Moleskin XXL, but they feel unwieldy to transport.
A quad-ruled dot grid
Stitched binding
Pre-numbered pages (this isn’t a deal breaker but it is a nice feature)
At least 96 sheets

Do you have a notebook you love?

Katy McCoy