15 minutes of effort for a big creative reward
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Previous notebooks
Of late, I’ve taken to writing short lists of things to do in a small notebook. I enjoy paper, pens and ink so it has become a tactile pleasure in a world filled with glass surfaces we’re too often forced to peck at to get anything done.
Rounded corners are important
To stop myself running out, I bought a small stack of blank books in different colours picking ones with two specific features. Firstly, they have curved corners so they don’t snag and bend at the edges when going in and out of pockets and secondly, they don’t have too many pages. This helps when stuffing them with things like receipts, ticket stubs or other keepsakes, and also means that you’re not carrying around anything too big for too long. It’s exciting to finish and start a notebook and chasing that dragon helps keep this project moving.
Once they arrived, with the stack staring at me on my desk every day, I found myself wondering what else I could use them for. The answer came in a trip to deliver birthday presents.
Yesterday we went to Glasgow for the day. The boys are off school this week so I turned the trip into a family outing, “Glasgow-ing on an adventure”.
I scribbled a title on the book I was going to use ahead of time and shoved it in my top pocket, squirrelling away little receipts, train tickets and instax prints as the day went along.
Notebook of memories
Then, at the end of the day I spent 15 minutes over a cup of tea sticking the collected bits and bobs in the book with tape or glue. I also find that popping a little elastic band around the outside keeps everything together when you’re done.
It’ll now go onto the shelf next to similar books I have made on work and family trips of the past. From time-to-time I’ll be able to pause, away from a screen, and look back on days out like this and remember what we did. It’s a quick and cheap way to record my life and make something. It felt wonderful to do it.
Highly recommended, will do again. Let me know if you make something similar. I’d love to see it.
Next Week:
From iPhone 15 Pro Max to iPhone Air
The phone I bought at an airport, how it preserves my one camera rule and what I think of that single camera.