Greetings and Salutations, my wonderful Blog readers!

Today I am going to talk about my ongoing quest for the perfect notebook. My entire life I have searched for the perfect notebook, and right when I pick one out, right when (IF) I find one that kind of works, I end up changing my needs.

I have long played with the bullet journal idea, long before I heard of bullet journaling, some times I would find notebooks that had a good size and feel, and use tape, marker, construction paper, whatever, to make the notebook have the sections and areas I wanted.

Because what I needed in each notebook was ongoing and ever changing. Some things stay the same, regardless of my feelings on it.

For example, I always need a section for journaling, and I need to always journal, no matter what nonsense I tell myself. I fall off from it here and there, and I need to always just have a section for it.

But not just journaling, because I need to just take notes and thoughts.

I need a calendar, but not a goddamn planner, but I do need a place to see what day certain days fall on, and when certain day are, reliably, and I need to have a space to put important information for those days on. I used to feel I needed a daily section in my planner to itemize and plan my day, but I am getting better with daily systems, so I can use lists of tasks and goals instead.

I do need a space for lists, and not just regular lists, ongoing grocery lists, or goals lists that are updated and tweaked as I make progress in them.

I don’t really care for habit trackers, I find I tend to track habits naturally in the journaling. Nothing against the habit tracking, it just only works in small ways for me, effectively.

It does work, in some ways, however, to simply have a “did I do ______” section, which looks like a habit tracker, in so much that I am checking off a box every day. Depending on what I am doing, sometimes this helps out in a notebook.

A place for important information is good too. I am inclined to say for passwords and such, but really, its for information I need to keep a hold of, not just passwords, but reminders, codes, recommendations, things you want to keep hold of for a longer time.

I woud like all of this, mind you, to fit in a notebook no bigger than your average moleskin journal.

I have a ways to go on building this “perfect” journal, I think, but if I ever do, I hope I can make them for other people, because if there is one thing I get passionate about, its having the perfect notebook.

Frankly, one of the more practical and only slightly artistic side hustles I would like to one day have, is making custom notebooks and journals for people.

I would like to make custom notebooks and journals, while writing and running my infused foods/coffees/teas cafe combo bookstore.

Sounds lovely, eh?

Anyways, as I get ready to make more and more content and art, and move towards this next part of my life where I invest money and be smart and grown up while also being a giant risk taker and working on my art, I want to have a notebook that helps me on those goals.

So it’s back to the drawing board for creating a new notebook. I have a few pages left in my last bullet journal, and a ton of Washi tape, so I think I will buy a moleskin journal with regular lined pages and cut up some of my craft paper and put some printed out, or maybe even carefully made, calendars that fold on, on those.

Iuno.

Do you have any cool tricks for making your own ideal notebook? Is this even a problem in your world?

Let me know, who knows, maybe one day my dreams will come true and we can work together to build your perfect notebook

Thanks for reading!

❤️

Abbi