One of my favorite advertising campaigns of all time was from Apple (natch). It featured a number of Mac using celebrities giving a list in response to a simple question – “What’s |nsntt|referrer|kdreh
on your Powerbook?“. What was great about this campaign was that it not only gave you an idea of what the product was possible of doing, it gave you the sense of what you could do with the product. That somehow, by buying this product, you too could write the next great American novel, a hit movie, or edit an award winning photo.
Well, in the spirit of that fine example, I challenge you to answer a similar question. It does not have to be comprehensive, just a sampling and there are no right or wrong answers.Are you ready? Good. I’ll start…
“What’s in your notebook?”
The Notebook: Field Notes Brand Pocket Notebook
Contents
– Notes from Edward Tufte, Presenting Data and Information conference.
– Recommended allocations for my 401K.
– Design idea for a new website.
– Early Childbirth Class notes.
– Stroller research.
– Weekend project list.
– Layout and amperages of my circuit box.
– Notes from first meeting with our Doula.
– Dimensions of the nursery closet.
– Phone number of a friend that I had not see in years that I ran into.
– Addresses/numbers/info of possible daycare providers.
– Notes from Minnebar 2008.
– Details and math on the offer on the house we have for sale.
There you have it. Like I said, it is just a sampling but it should give you a good peek into the sorts of things that have been ruling my life for the past few months. OK, now it’s your turn.
What’s in your notebook?
Leave the details in the comments…
What’s in your notebook?
One of my favorite advertising campaigns of all time was from Apple (natch). It featured a number of Mac using celebrities giving a list in response to a simple question – “What’s |nsntt|referrer|kdreh on your Powerbook?“. What was great about this campaign was that it not only gave you an idea of what the product … Continue reading “What’s in your notebook?”
Well, its not a notebook, but do my Levenger Pads count? I still rely on them heavily when I’m testing software. Yes, you heard right, I take notes, on paper, when I’m testing software. Ever since switching mousing hands from right to left, I can mouse with my left hand while taking notes on my Levenger pads with my right. This is quicker than switching apps any day.
My Levenger pad contains sheets all conforming to the same template: Header contains date and product/version tested; left column contains brief notes about the test I’m doing and the OS versions on which I’m doing them, and the body contains notes on results/steps to reproduce issues.
My smaller Levenger pads I use daily to make an outline the day’s To Do list (work + personal) from a 30,000 foot view to keep myself on track throughout the day.
And since you were going to ask anyway … Now Playing: Waterman Hemisphere with fine nib + Waterman Blue-Black ink.
In my SPB:
** – Miscellaneous @ index cards with unintelligible contexts. Example: @blogograph = ?!?
** – A dozen incomplete process diagrams that allude to something of mystical proportions.
** – A stack of un-filed business cards and moo cards from SOBCon and a Pulver Breakfast.
*** I actually enjoy the act of productivity-puzzling (creating artifacts that describe only ‘part’ of a process.)
Here’s what’s in my Moleskine Reporter, written with either a bog-standard HB pencil, a Lamy Safari or a Mont Blanc something-or-other.
From the front (work):
– Notes on Ellipsis, a show of video art and photography at Dundee Contemporary Art
– Notes on Jonathan Monk’s solo show at Tramway, Glagsow
– Notes on a show of Renaissance Italian painting and drawing at the Queen’s gallery, Edinburgh
– And the rest is filled with notes on about thirty of the shows in the Glasgow International visual art festival
From the back (non-work):
– Thumbnail sketches for two websites I’m making for a friend’s performance piece/ARG, and notes from a meeting about the project
– Ideas for my cousin’s wedding present
– Reminder to get good quality prints of photos of my other cousin’s baby
– Notes on exposure times from taking pinhole photos
In the pocket: receipts for taxis and magazines; artists cards, business cards; two first class stamps.
In the tiny little miniature Moleskine (always in my back pocket): sets of directions to and from places I go to fairly often, but not often enough to remember where they are. All organised by city, usually from train station to destination. (It’s embarrasing how many of these are for places in Glasgow, where I live, and Edinburgh, where I spend a lot of time.)
My Moleskine Reporter has:
– a nice black fibre tip pen,
– a couple doodles,
– a few story ideas and starts that I really should transfer to the laptop
– handwritten set lists from a couple concerts in my custom shorthand,
– two phone numbers,
– three email addresses,
– 1 woman’s name,
– three other notes I do not understand.
The name, phone numbers, and email addresses are neither connected, nor do they have any context I can recall; effectively rendering the information useless.
Being more a tech junkie than a paper nerd, my laptop is better considered my notebook. It has all the real information in it:
– Calendar with concert schedule, personal appearances, homeowner’s association meetings,
– Spreadsheet to track photo sets,
– Several thousand photos awaiting shot selection,
– Task list with photo ideas for mytwincities.net,
– A couple hundred story ideas,
– Roughly 20 stories and blog entires in-progress.
Losing my laptop would be like losing my mind. Backups happen regularly and automatically.
My notebook:
Field Notes Brand Pocket Notebook
– Notes from Geek Gather events.
– Lists of podcasts and websites to check out.
– Random thoughts about fountain pens, research regarding fountain pens, short journal type entries made with aforementioned fountain pens.
– Sermon notes
– Diagram of Patrick’s dash/plus markup system.
– Various quotes I like.
– Directions to a friends new house
– A list of retail stores to call every day when i was scouring the planet for a Wii.
– More notes about fountain pens and ink.
– Short list of movies and DVDs I want to purchase.
– Random doodlings and scribbles on many of the pages
– A running total of birdies I have made while playing Disc Golf this year.
🙂
~R
My notebook is a Moleskine and has been filled with handwriting courtesy of a Lamy Persona fountain pen, oh and sometimes a Conway Stewart Silver dinkie.
It contains the up’s and down’s of the past few months
It has a pretty girls writing in it
Each entry details where I am, time, date, music I’m listening to at the time
It would make tedious reading
My notebook a ruled Moleskine pocket sized one
It contains
Songtexts
Notes I took by reading different books about story writing
a link and email list
some vocabulary notes I took while reading English novels (I´m from Germany)
quotes
Story ideas
Name lists
some Gaelic words
notes out of some wicca and witchcraft books
notes on Darkover/Cottman IV
“The Lady of Shalott” a Victorian poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
and it is signed by an German Fantasy author who is in the agencies I would like to join.
(if they take me ^^)
And I´m only at page 40. so it could become quite interesting in the future.
Going backwards in my Moleskine squared pocket notebook (p.112 at present):
* handwritten calendar attempting to plan my month-from-hell
* reminders for my month-from-hell
* wordcount estimates for a project (I’m an editor)
* notes from some financial software testing that I’m doing (looking for something to replace Quicken on my Mac)
* diagram capturing thoughts about office layout
* writing drafts (lots of these)
* notes from recent recruitment interviews
* interview questions for a podcast
* list of requirements for a dress I want to make
…and the list goes on
My blue pocket flexible Miguelruis notebook contains:
*Model numbers of dining chairs from a furniture store.
*The address of the Carl & Anne Braden historical marker.
*Titles of books I’d like to read (“Alice Waters & Chez Panisse” by McNamee, “This is your Brain on Music,” and a book about William James).
*Many notes about a play I’m writing.
*Address of a friend’s grown up kid, so I can send her a note.
*Quotes from things I read: “There is no enlightment outside of daily life.” Thich Nacht Hahn
*Names of restaurants that I hear about and then want to eat at (both local and ones to travel to).
*Things I hear people say: A guy at Maker’s Mark distillery telling me that “Very few can taste or feel white lightning on the tip of their tongue. Those that do have a very sensitive palate.”
*A note that my beloved is one of the very few who can taste white lightning on the tip of her tongue.
*Things my beloved tells me to write down, like “easel, Sharpie.” and “Joseph & the Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
*Words from magazines glued into my notebook: e.g., Crossroads.
*For some reason I wrote down the dimensions “24 x 25 x 4” and I don’t know why.
I have 10 Moleskine notebooks all going at the same time. Very much like the character in “A Confederacy of Dunces” with Big Chief tablets littering the the floor. Some strictly for my diary, a watercolor notebook I have not touched, and a new softcover pocket-sized weekly planner (as for some reason I didn’t get around to buying one fast enough back in December). This is how bad I am: I never did figure out if a notebook computer and a laptop computer were the same thing.
What an intriguing question…
I use a Moleskine squared notebook with a vast selection of cheap pens I buy from gas stations, drug stores, Walmart, etc. This is the brand new notebook I am currently working in, though there are about 10 more that are in various stages of progress:
-Poem I am working on written within the confines of a drawing of a tree.
-Journal entry surrounding poem draft and tree.
-Page covered completely in pen ink.
-Song lyrics (“Hey you, with the pretty face…Welcome to the human race…” -Mr. Blue Sky)
-Mini inspirational cards tucked in for a future art project.
Gear: Moleskine squared pocket notebook, Pilot V Ball Grip extra fine (0.5) or a Staedtler lead-holder with 2mm lead
entries of late:
– dates and times of several appointments, to be transferred to the Backpack calendar
– phone number for animal control, to help get rid of the raccoon in the garage
– two story ideas
– one very dodgy draft of a poem
– list of bike parts needed for a project
– list of bike parts to sell
– small scale sketch of our vegetable gardens
– list of plants in said gardens
Uniball Vision Elite, bold, with blue-black ink; with 2 Moleskines:
Black 3 x 5 pocket size contains:
~ Packing lists
~ Gift ideas
~ Lists of books to read
~ Lists of DVDs to Netflix
~ Lists of music to potentially buy
Red 2008 Weekly Planner + notebook contains:
~ Work schedule (meetings, etc.)
~ Personal appointments
~ Family events
~ Birthdays, anniversaries
~ To do lists (despite efforts, haven’t completely converted to GTD & the next actions)
~ The occasional fortune from a fortune cookie
~ Lists of creative projects