How to Keep a Notebook
and why. (Updated: Jan 2025)
It’s a cliche—the writer with her notebook, scribbling away some whistful thought or composing a poem. Although I long fancied myself more of a Harriet the Spy than a Sylvia Plath, I also have a graveyard of partially used diaries to prove that keeping a journal takes more than good intentions.
Now, on the first of each month, I start a new notebook, draw a grid for my habit tracker, write out my meal plan for the month, and move the previous month’s book into my little archive and the new one into my notebook holder. I have kept this ritual of a monthly notebook for six years.
Why keep a notebook?
I tried to keep a notebook off and on for years. I journaled a bit here and there in my childhood and teens, but often either felt my notebooks were too beautiful to write my silly feelings in or I would get partway through, lose steam, and abandon the diary.
In my twenties, I tried again, inspired by the great essay by Joan Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook,” in which Didion encourages the reader to keep on “nodding terms with the people we used to be,” explaining that the notebook is for the writer to keep in touch with themselves:
“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. […] It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.” (“On Keeping a Notebook”)
During this stressful and tumultuous time, keeping a notebook could have helped me process my feelings and organize my thoughts. I struggled with focus and routine. Research now confirms what I knew in my gut: writing by hand is better for learning than typing is. I thought back to the notebooks I kept for my studies back in high school, and how much clearer my mind was. But I felt too scattered and distracted to get the habit back.
In 2018, I read Theft by Finding, the first volume of David Sedaris’s edited diaries. I have long enjoyed his writing, and his explanation of how he keeps his daily diary and why struck me. I was two years out of graduate school and loved my work in a jail library, but my creative life was languishing. The intellectual work of completing my dissertation had made it hard for me to get my brain to do other sorts of writing, and in the time that had elapsed since I graduated, I was simply not writing and also not being honest with myself about not putting the work in. Keeping a notebook in the style of David Sedaris seemed like a valuable first step. I also appreciated that the notebook was positioned as a sidekick project to foster curiosity, the quality about Sedaris I most envy:
“That’s the thing with a diary, though. In order to record your life, you sort of need to live it. Not at your desk, but beyond it. Out in the world where it’s so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.” (Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977–2002))
I got a pocket notebook and started.
Six years into keeping a notebook, I still find Didion and Sedaris inspiring, but on many days, I think Bridget Jones said it best:
“Everyone knows diaries are just... full of crap.” (Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones’s Diary)
How to Keep a Notebook
I have dabbled with bullet journaling, stickers, and various fancy, artistic methods for keeping a journal. I love seeing other people’s beautiful, colorful layouts. My notebooks are comparatively spartan and dull, but this is my method.
When I start my notebook each month, I set front pages for tracking the habits and information that I value having on hand. For me, it takes about seven pages and includes a:
Writing log: a simple record of how long I write each day and on what project.
Habit tracker: more on that below.
Meal Plan: a basic list of what I am cooking for dinner during the month, which helps with grocery shopping and not wasting produce.
Reading log
Prayer list: who or what is on my heart. Writing this list out helps with my anxiety.
Notes about my daughter: firsts, funny quotes, anything that I don’t want buried in the body of the notebook.
The remaining forty pages are simply a journal for the month. I always intend to jot things down outside the home—observations, funny dialogue I overhear, or a nature journal—and sometimes I do, but usually, I sit at my desk and reflect on what happens in my life and how I feel about it. Ideally, I would write a page or two a day, but many days are either too busy or mundane, so I often write nothing for days and then unload my thoughts over six to eight-page stretches. This process is not perfect, but it works for me, keeping me organized while also giving me a contained, achievable journal to finish every month. Keeping one notebook per month creates an achievable, time-bound goal.
What kind of notebook?
I use Field Notes pocket-sized notebooks. They are 3 1/2”x 5 1/3”, 48 pages, and made in the United States. After a few years of subscribing to the quarterly limited edition notebooks, I have enough to last for years, but seeing what the Chicago-based company comes up with next is a joy. To date, the National Parks series is my favorite, but I covet the new Birds & Trees of N. America packs.
Any type of notebook you will actually use is the right kind of notebook. The first year I kept my notebook, I used cheaper books, but once I got in the habit, the Field Notes books felt like a treat I could justify. I use a pocket-sized book, so that it travels easily, with a faux leather holder to protect the notebook in my bag.
My new rule is that no notebook is too pretty to write in. Write in your notebooks!
Using Commonplace Books
My desk is somewhat littered with notebooks, dedicated to different topics. I have a commonplace book for information about the homestead, divided into sections for the animals and plants. I keep a notebook dedicated to what I read in literary magazines and journals, helping me to track trends, ideas, and inspiration. I have a notebook for my current writing project. Plus a planner. Maintaining commonplace books alongside my monthly notebook helps keep information that I need quick access to separate and available. And I get to use bigger, fancier notebooks!
Morning Pages and Other Exercises
If you have ever read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron or even read about it, really, you probably know about The Morning Pages. A tool Cameron insists on as a non-negotiable of doing The Artist’s Way program is writing three pages first thing when you wake up every day. She says not to reread them for the first eight weeks. She half-jokes that when she dies, her Morning Pages should be cremated first. Some people who are devoted to the Morning Pages recommend destroying them as soon as they are written. To me, that means Morning Pages need their own space, their own notebook probably a simple spiralbound notebook.
In a Craft Talk I took last year with Heather Sellers, she suggested keeping a daily observation journal, writing in the same place, in the same journal, with the same pen every day. I tried it for a while and dip in and out of it as needed now, using a notebook my friend Megan sent me for my birthday from a trip she took to Italy (Thank you!).
My monthly notebook ritual crosses between a diary and an observation journal. It’s meant to come with me as I move through my day and be a space I can look back to for ideas, as needed. Sometimes I use it in meetings for groups I volunteer with. Sometimes I take notes after a hike. It’s more flexible than other writing exercises, but still regimented enough to ask for its own dedicated pocket-sized notebook a month and when I do other writing exercises, I use something else for them.
On Habits
Although I have accumulated a box of 74 monthly notebooks, I rarely look back at them. Once, I tried to comb through the archive, looking for writing ideas, but I quickly abandoned the task. Page after page of my own cursive writing felt overwhelming. The notes were often trivial or made me cringe at myself from just a few years ago.
The habit of keeping the notebooks, however, is essential to me. Getting into that rhythm helped build a foundation for writing every day.
The actual habit tracker in my notebook might be the most impactful single aspect of the notebook. On a day-to-day, month-to-month basis, recording which habits I stick with helped me see trends and keep myself accountable. It helped me drink less, shrink my screentime, and take better care of my skin.
The habits on the grid change periodically. For example, when I fell behind on my annual reading goal, I added a column to get me reading daily. I found it was not useful to track how much time we spend outside each day, so I removed that column. There are many habit-tracking apps that I have tinkered with, but nothing has been as effective for me as my little grid. It has truly changed my life in consequential, manageable pieces.
So, month after month, I keep putting pen to paper.
“Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.” (“On Keeping a Notebook”)
Do you keep a notebook, a diary, or some other writing ritual? Tell me about it in the comments.
Oh my gosh Harriet the Spy! What a blast from the past—I swear you just gave me back a piece of my childhood 😄
My goal this year is to be better with consistently writing in a note book. Often, I have all these ideas and forget them almost as soon as I thought them. The notes app on my phone is one way to write them down and I’ve become better at using it. But it doesn’t feel “personal” like a paper version does. Here’s to writing more notes on paper this year!