moving to the moleskine
Over the last couple of years I’ve been extremely rude to friends like Jeremy Wagstaff and Marc Orchant (to name only two) who have told me how they had partially abandoned technology in their search for productivity and had regressed back to using a pen and paper. Not just ANY paper mind you. The infamous Moleskine. In certain geek circles, using a Moleskine is almost as de rigeur as having a Mac notebook. Secretly I’ve always wanted to join their ranks (on both counts, but for now we’ll discuss the moleskine) but I bravely fought the urge because I wanted to force myself to develop a strategy for using technology that worked.
Well, as listeners of The Productivity Show already know, I finally broke last week and have abandoned technology as my primary productivity tool/s in favour of a Moleskine. The one I’m using is a large lined notebook. And okay, there is something strangely primitive-yet-seductive about writing, with a real pen, on real paper. You got me. It’s just like a Tablet PC but strangely different. It doesn’t take ten minutes to boot. I don’t need to calibrate the book each time I use it. The battery life is pretty good, the fan is quiet, and it doesn’t get too hot on my lap. It doesn’t make any loud booting up noise when I open it in a café. The screen resolution is pretty good in sunlight. And I don’t need to synch it between multiple PCs and PDAs. I won’t get separate out of date versions of my task list appearing in multiple folders scattered across my PC.
Of course if I lose it, I’m screwed. Which is why I moved away from my Franklin planner eight years ago. It got stolen out of my car and I lost ten years of important shit. After eight years of using PDAs, I’ve decided - ENOUGH!
Now I’m becoming addicted to reading blogs with Moleskine hacks. And all of those annoying pens which people have given me as gifts over the last ten years when I speak at conferences, I can now finally put to good use. I apologize to all of you for being rude as well.
Now, I need a Moleskine system. That’s part of the seductiveness of the book I think. You can create your own mods without learning AJAX. I need a system that will allow me to capture and process. Is there a Moleskine hack which stops you from reading blogs about Moleskine hacks and makes you get back to work?
September 12th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Good Luck with the Moleskine.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with the technology.
Every time you write about synchronising or rebuilding, I pray for you!!
You can use the technology but without linking it so much.
I still use a small diary filofax which I can carry in my pocket, for my calendar and note taking.
Outlook at the mid-level for tasks and task lists.
And MindManager for the high level overview and listing Projects and Tickles, but none of it is synchronised so I don’t face those problems.
I’m with you on the Tablet. It’s never been quite comfortable and convenient enough to use for note taking in meetings, but in meetings where I know there’s a danger of falling asleep, I take notes with the tablet pen on MindManager, just for the novelty to keep me awake!!
It will be interesting to see how you go with a paper based system. I wonder how you’ll create and keep your lists updated. Personally, I like MindManager and Outlook tasks for lists, which I’ve started printing out and carrying with me.
What are you going to use for your calendar? A paper diary?
September 12th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
[...] My brother has been spruiking the joys of Moleskins for a while. He certainly wasn’t the first, but he seems to have been an early adopter of a growing trend in geekdom. [...]
September 13th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Tell me again: what’s the deal with the Moleskine? It’s a notepad, right? blank sheets of paper in a fancy binding? Would a spiral notepad from Officeworks do the same job?
OK, hit me: I suspect that I just don’t get Moleskine-foo. Teach me the ‘M’-Zen.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Well the classics like the Moleskine are what e-paper and alike need to aim for, to get acceptance!
Tony, the Moleskine is for your Brainstorming point lists, 1st & 2nd drafts of new diagrams etc. The kinda stuff you keep to prove that patent really is yours. The classic engineers workbook. Stuff you think you could want to come back to in 2 years time.
ToDo and shopping lists still go in the spiral notepad or scrap half page of A4.
Gnoll110
November 28th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
[...] Cammeron Reilly pointed me to a blog post of his when he first made the leap to a paper lifestream, and the concern he had about losing it. I never really had that problem. Maybe naively I assumed nothing would ever happen because I was always careful. But this one day when I rushed instead of took my time, really messed me up. I guess now I have a reason to write more blog posts on the subject. [...]