Moleskine and Getting More out of Paper

I've been wanting a small, portable notebook to capture ideas, take notes, or make sketches no matter where I am.

Most notebooks or planners are simply too large, and PDAs have never really worked either (despite having bought four over the years, from Palms to Axims. I blame it on once working for a mobile sync company).

Paper still stands as one of the easiest, most portable, and flexible formats for capturing ideas. You can draw anywhere on it, write stuff, and you're not constrained (unless you want to be) by conventions of usage.

I saw the Pocketmod awhile back and spent like 10 minutes trying to fold one up. It's a cool idea, and the software they have makes it almost fun. Still, I wanted a few more pages, and I wanted those pages to align better (I'm terrible at folding and Michelle's not keen on being my designated Pocketmod folder).

Dave Seah has some awesome printable paper solutions in his Printable CEO Series of productivity tools. There's even a Pocketmod-compatible format.

Regular pocket-sized spiral-bound notebooks seemed reasonable and inexpensive, but they weren't durable or appealing design-wise. I also worried about the spiral and having that in my pocket.

Then I found out about Moleskine notebooks. Michelle was into these a few years ago.

I can't be sure, but I think people are going nuts over Moleskine notebooks. Maybe it's always been that way, but only recently did they come to my attention via this Moleskine hacks post at 43Folders and this post by Jerry Brito. Those posts are old, but people still seem to be buying these up. Indeed, even now, they're the hottest item in Office Products at Amazon.

I picked up a set of 3 cahiers from Barnes and Noble last night, to try them out and see if carrying one around can be effortless and useful. Figure I can use it to remember dreams, catch the important parts of books I'm browsing, jot quotes, draw stuff.

Grab a small, ruled Moleskine notebook off Amazon.