I'm ahead of myself - 2023 diary
One of my great pleasures every year is buying a new diary.
I love Moleskine diaries and notebooks, so beautifully made to last, paper that is a pleasure to write on, rounded corners that don't get scuffed, a handy bookmark, the little pocket in the back for receipts and billet doux, an elastic closure keeping it all together, never mind the illustrious heritage of Chatwin and Van Gogh, Picasso and Hemingway.
Every year, I turn the silky, unmarked pages, looking at the year-at-a-view, the international dialling codes, the map with the time zones, the pages of national holidays. It's a cosmopolitan diary, ready for any travel opportunity or maybe some stranger you may meet in a bar, like a paper version of a girl guide with her handy Swiss army knife.
I'm always mystified by the monthly planners. Pages of little boxes, each representing one day. Sometimes I add the school holidays, or I plot a series of events, but more often I fill them with extra notes that won't fit anywhere else. Shopping lists and phone numbers and scribbled instructions for making bread or finding a hidden art work.
I used to have two slim A5 notebooks each year: the diary and then another one for recording meetings, experiences, chance conversations. I imagined, when I bought the first ones, that these would become important artefacts that I would refer back to for ideas, information, inspiration. That was not the case at all. I barely look at them ever again.
A year or two ago, I decided to combine the functions. Now I buy the diary with a week view on one page and, on the other, a simple lined page. It's sharpened my note-taking: a few key points as that is all the space there is. It works well, I refer much more to my single notebook diary, a material database of every day working information.
I like to choose a different colour cover each year - easy then to distinguish this year's diary from next year's in the melee on my desk, or reaching into a capacious hold-all for a trip to London for the day. It's useful for those tricky few months of the Autumn when, again, you have to carry two volumes, rather than the single stalwart that accompanies you the rest of the year.
This year, I was taken by the beautiful covers of the Moleskine x Missoni collaboration. What a beautiful idea. What a beautiful cover! So chic! It's a clever way to add a premium to your product, twice the price for a limited edition. Will this one last longer than its predecessors or, as usual, will it find itself confined to the re-cycling box six months after the end of the year.
I guess I'm an ephemeral girl, born for the Internet with its sly trickery of seeming ever in the present, verging on the future, hiding its geological strata of previous incarnations, your digital footprint stamped indelibly for as long as there is electricity to trace it.
Oh, I haven't seen that one yet ! I often look at the Moleskine... It's very nice. I'm on Muji A5's, more sober and slim than the huge notebooks I used to take, I think I fill about one every two months and at the end of the year, I compact them all into a one year pack...
Fifteen years I've been doing this, it's quite an archive and as you say, I think in the internet age it's all the more important to do this !
Thanks for sharing this reflection about your purchase, it makes me want to talk about notebooks again!
Have a good day and a good weekend :D
Hello @anttn, pleased to meet you 🙂.
The cover is beautiful, I love the way the colours catch the light and seem to glow. I'm already enjoying having it around.
I make lots of notes on anything to hand and carry round dog-eared scraps until either I lose them or they're incorporated into something else. I've never been good at keeping things, I like to slough past iterations 😍.
Hi, really pleased to meet you too :)
Yeah, I liked your anticipation about buying and having it ! The best about the journal practice, like in everything else I believe, is to find your own way. For example, my brother write on blank paper then cuts them and stick in a notebook, for me it’s just writing and sticking ‘important’ things, sweet memories !
You inspired me an article about journaling I wanted to write since a long time.. I hope you’ll not mind the mention (?) :)
Take care 🌱
Not at all - look forward to reading your post 😍
I also buy Muji notebooks these days. Muji is possibly my favourite brand due to its minimalistic style , high quality and green credentials.
It’s the same for me about some products, such as notebooks..! Moleskine are great but a bit expensive when you’re a compulsive writer haha !
I usually buy a notebook once every two years since often I skipped journaling and sometimes I say very short things that one page can fit for 2 days worth. I also do scrapping esp for tickets or any images that are memorable to me. I don't really do any color code or picking different colors but that's a great idea actually. I think I have to buy something like that just to differentiate each year.
I noticed precisely that - that some pages in my diary had nothing written in them (especially the long summer holidays when I have no work appointments). It seemed silly to have a diary and a notebook hehe.
That's a wonderful habit. The way you organize the diary according to month and year amazes me.
I used to do that during my teen years. Your post reminded me to start that again.
I hope you enjoy having a diary 🙂
I would. I think I need to start writing journals again.
Thanks for your inspiring post.
😍
I have a posh Louis Vuitton diary and I used to buy the refills every year. Those were my good years when I was working and had a pretty active social life. The refills were pretty expensive as expected, but it was the little luxurious treat for myself every year. I still got the diary, but I don't use it anymore. Nowadays, I can go out with just my mobile phone and not even a handbag if I don't drive, as I started using Google pay recently. How things have changed over the years!
Yes, things have have changed. I enjoy deciding which things from the past I'm going to keep and which ones I'll have from the future. It is always terribly embarrassing in the stores when I try to use my digital loyalty card. The most recent person trying to help me suggested I take a screenshot and "kept it somewhere safe" 😂.
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Thank you for the reminder!
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Thank you!
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very nice notepad! I like how you came up with it. I also buy a notebook every year to plan the schedule for the day and take notes 😀
Thank you, it's so beautiful, isn't it? 😍
I like just having it on my desk or the dining table!
agree! it cheers you up when you see or pick up such notebooks 😀
I love writing on Moleskine notebooks, whether in ink or pencil, the paper is just perfect.
As @anttn mentioned, Muji notebooks are great.
I must confess earlier today I have been looking at, and thinking of buying a new filofax. My old filofax used to hold my entire life, in much the same way that phones do now...it's just that a filofax won't fit in your pocket.
Have a great weekend @shanibeer :-)
You're right - the paper is gorgeous, so thin and silky, but so sturdy! I had a look at the Muji notebooks. I get some inexpensive ones from Paperchase for my knitting projects (it was a revelation to me to keep a separate notebook for each project)!
Filofax were the thing, weren't they? I never had one, though, always a diary (and address book)! My diary will fit in my handbag at a pinch, but I rarely take it out the house now. If I did it would be in a work bag. Interesting what @livinguktaiwan says in another comment - sometimes she doesn't take a bag at all now.
I will and you, too 😍
Oh, lovely!! I love the Moleskin notebooks!! They are a little bigger than I ever thought I would need/use, but, I find that it suits me perfectly. The paper goes without saying how nice.
What a delightful write-up @shanibeer!! You are absolutely the first to do one on it, which surprises me as we are a boatload of bloggers on here. Thank you!
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I do see the value of paper. I use it for quick notes now and again. Yet I find the digital form so much easier to travel down the past. I think of my YouTube videos and even some photography as a form of a diary as well. It is so easy to page through the years in Google Photos, I often find myself happily lost in the past 😃