Last November, I did something I didn’t think possible: I finished a notebook. Something I am notoriously bad at. And yet! The proof rests in my hand. A year’s worth of writing and keepsakes. Part of that success was letting myself just do whatever felt fun and useful to me. That included taking layouts and systems that worked for other writers and modifying them to suit my own style. Annnnd stop continuing things that obviously haven’t worked.
A Rest for the Old–
Sizing
I started with my most obvious but stubborn change: notebook size. While I still appreciate bigger notebooks and planners, I was restricted to using them solely at home since my preference for smaller bags made the books inconvenient to carry.
I’d still prefer a notebook that’s a tad bigger but otherwise, my previous one got the job done better than almost every notebook I’ve owned. It’d be silly to switch up a choice that’s been instrumental to writing in those spare moments during normal day-to-day activities when I’d otherwise be distracted with my phone.
Dedicated Sections
When I first bought my notebook, I loosely sectioned it off into three parts. Now I’m filling the pages with souvenirs and tiny momentos I’d rather have inserted as I acquired them and not because I’m trying to minimize the amount of blank pages before I eventually retire the notebook.
I’m sure I had grand plans when I first divided up those pages. I’ve come accept the truth: I hate sectioning off my notebook. Regardless of how much or little the number of pages or whatever specific purpose I was going to use them for, I’m quick to abandon the setup in favor of just mashing everything together as I go, regardless if those things are continuous of the previous page or not. Confusion on what bit of note belongs where is rarely an issue, nor have I had a problem with tracking down a specific page within my notebook for reference. So yeah, pre-sectioned pages are outta here.
In With The (Sort of) New
Though I’ll still be referring back to it for some time, I’ve been deciding what to carryover from my old notebook. Over the course of the year, there’s been two things I tried out that I can’t see myself going without as I set up my new notebook for 2026. The first:
Commonplacing
As much as I enjoy hoarding my screenshots of quotes and other inspiring passages, they’re usually forgotten until I happen upon them as I scroll through my phone gallery looking for something else.
My book was not a commonplace book, in the traditional sense. Commonplaces are filled with information both useful and intriguing to the respective owner. I’d go as far as to say my notebook is a sort of catch all notebook. With people using commonplaces as a way to offset their endless doomscrolling and as a place to observe how they interact with their media, I get to reap the benefits that is a plethora of book spread inspiration. I’ll be organizing all my gathered wisdom and any other inspiring tibits on a monthly basis. Speaking of monthly things–
Writing Tracker
This was directly inspired by Helen Redfern’s post about how she organizes her writing week and month. She sets aside two pages: on the left page, she plans out what she wants to write and work on for the month. Afterwards, she transferred those ideas into a four week grid on the right page. The grid allowed her to plan her month in advance and shuffle posts around as needed.
This one post from September 2018 was a game changer. My initial grid was a three by three layout representing my blog posting schedule while following the same list setup on the left page. It gave me a general overview of my writing plans for the month and reminded me of the tasks and ideas I might want to work on. Because I had this monthly visualization, I was also able to make changes that suited me better throughout the month while not feeling overwhelmed or losing time figuring out what I wanted to focus on.
I also have other things I normally track in my notebooks: a book buying list, a couple of pages to collect neat names, project ideas and random story plots. From an outside perspective, I imagine it doesn’t look like much but that just means what I currently have is good. It makes me want to pick up my notebook more often than not. I’m already looking forward to utilizing the changes in the new notebook.
My main concern now is that I might fill my new notebook faster than the last one!
.chel
Reading Rites 