Taming my Brain...or, My Notebook Setup for 2025

What I am using this year to try to keep it all on track, and in perspective

Left untamed, I have a rather disorganized brain…and rather a lot of things I am responsible for and interested in. This can make for a life of chaos. As a young adult, I struggled to stay organized, keep on top of things, and follow through. It was not a lack of interest or desire, but I was simply never taught how to organize my world. Early on, I must have been intelligent enough to overcome this through decent recall, but overtime it became untenable.

When I met my wife, I found the personification of peak organization and efficiency. I admired (and very much still do) the filing cabinet that is her brain. We call her the “human card catalog.” Over the years, I have learned, to some extent, how her brain works, and begun to create my own “cheat codes,” to replicate what comes naturally to her. I would not say that she possesses a photographic memory, per se, as really the ability to file information. She recalls names of people she met 20 years ago, can recall the birthdates, relatives and other minute details of pretty much everyone she knows. At first, it seemed like a fun quirk…a party trick. What I came to see and know over time is that it’s also an incredible outward example of how much she truly cares for people.

I wanted to try and be more like my wife, so I started to search for and build a system for myself to:

• Attempt to sort my brain (capture and organize)

• Stay on task, both personally and professionally (focus)

• Have better follow-through in life

• (Hopefully) demonstrate my own care and love for those close to me by remembering details, as my wife does

Quest: /kwest/ noun: An expedition undertaken in medieval romance by a knight in order to perform a prescribed feat.¹

Yep, I’d say quest is the correct description of what we are doing here.

I’d think that any good quest would commence with the identification of the ultimate goal of said quest. For example, the goal of one famous quest was to find the holy grail. So, I suppose my quest would begin with the bulleted list above as the common set of goals. OR… I could just spend five years buying ALL of the notebooks and pens and hoping to back into my ultimate goals.

It’s true. I did buy most of them. Though completely backwards and nonsensical, the end result is that I have moved closer to a kind of system which accomplishes most of what I set out to do. I also have a few giant boxes full of half-used notebooks and paper. Everyone needs a hobby, right?

The System:

After much (much) experimentation, I have finally come up with a pretty good setup², which I will share with you below, with some context behind the decision making process.

Go Everywhere Capture: Like all of us. my life is full. I am a husband, father, businessperson, a member of my community, parish, and a Netflix subscriber. Sometimes it’s a lot to keep up with. I need something with me all the time, to capture my world. I’ve chosen Field Notes as my daily note taking companion. I’ve been buying (hoarding) Field Notes brand notebooks since about 2018. If you aren’t aware, Field Notes is a Chicago-based company designing and building fully made in the USA pocket notebooks and other stationary goods. The standard Field Notes offering is a 3.5” x 5.5” pocket notebook which is bound together with simple staples. They fit well in blazer pockets, jeans and almost any bag and are thus super portable. At 48 pages, there is just enough space for me to fill approximately one notebook per month.

In my Field Notes, I write a new “to-do” list every day, with the act of re-writing each day helping to solidify in my brain what is what. In addition to my lists, I jot down quotes that I hear, thoughts in my head, motivational and devotional stuff, and lists for the grocery and hardware store. I also have endless doodles and sketches of all kinds of things.

Sometimes my Field Notes go in a leather cover, and sometimes they go nude, straight into my pocket.

Calendar/Planner/Schedule: Perhaps I can go into greater detail in another post about the depths the quest endured trying to figure out if and how I would use a planner. Suffice it to say that I’ve settled on another Field Notes product for this category, opting for a special edition 56-week Date Book. The dimensions of the book are identical to my daily carry books, but this one is formatted with one week per page, or two weeks per spread. It’s just enough space to note down appointments, meetings, birthdays and other reminders. And yes, I also use a digital calendar, so please don’t start. I also just like analogue things, and writing down my calendar makes me happy.

Bullet Journal/Longer Notes: For any topics of substance, whether it be detailed meeting notes for work, or complex vacation planning notes, I need something bigger and better suited for longer-form writing. Again, I’ve tried everything…seriously. What I keep coming back to for this type of note taking are the products made by Write Notepads & Co. This is another made in America brand, this time based in Baltimore, Maryland. Write & Co. builds spiral notebooks, bullet journals and other stationary and it’s all, yes, built in America. That said, the real reason I use Write Notepads is that, to me, there is no better paper. On the planet. I’m currently working my way through a spiral edition called “Le Voyageur,” and it just might be perfect. Double spiral bound, sturdy cover, and simply the smoothest, best paper.

So, that’s my setup. For now. It’s serving me well and keeping me focused. Hopefully this is interesting or helpful to others. In a subsequent post, I’ll put down my thoughts on pens, which is fun for me, but far less of an obsession.

TTFN

1. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

2. I reserve the right to change this pretty good setup at any time, for any reason…even if that reason is because I have found a new notebook or system with will solve all of the problems of my life, and therefore must make a purchase.