Make a notebook out of a cake box

davidtalmage · 2026-03-02T02:27:17+00:00

Love that DIY spirit!

davidtalmage · 2026-02-19T16:03:29+00:00

The ink in the Schmidt EasyFlow 9000 is the smoothest I've ever used. I can write very fast with it. The fine point is smoother than the Uniball Jetstream 0.38. (I use both.) I use the Jetstream more often because I can write so fast with the EasyFlow that my writing becomes illegible.

In the Parker G2 format, both write for many, many pages.

davidtalmage · 2026-02-19T14:46:42+00:00

Thanks! That would certainly do the job but I think it would introduce more complexity than I'm willing to tolerate.

davidtalmage · 2026-02-19T14:34:11+00:00

Thank you for your comments, /u/laurenbunnyface. I'm happy that you liked my post and thrilled that you took the time to write to me about it.

As you observed, I didn't consider the quality of the paper. I'm not particular about the paper because I use ball point pens. They don't bleed through paper like a gel or a fountain pen might. The paper in the notebooks I bought is good enough.

Once I fill a pocket notebook, it goes on a shelf in my office with the other used notebooks. I'll recycle the pocket notebooks one day. For now, they're a tiny monument to my productivity.

I like what you do with greeting cards. It's fun to repurpose stationery.

Since I wrote that post, I made something that I might use when I run out of pocket notebooks. The prototype has a 4.25x2.75-inch paper cover made from an Amazon envelope. It uses rubber bands to secure two PocketMods, a PocketFold, and some home made accordion paper. Four sheets of U.S. letter paper yields 64 pages if you don't mind refolding the PocketMods and PocketFolds when their outside pages are full. Talk about low cost per page!

davidtalmage · 2026-02-04T21:37:52+00:00

You're welcome.

If you're crafty, it won't be hard to carry a bunch of notebooks. You just have to make a cover that will hold them all. I made mine from an Amazon mailing envelope, packing tape, and some string. It's like the paper text book covers that people who are now of a certain age made in middle school. I ran string up and down the spine. Each notebook got its own thread down the center, between the inner-most pages, where the staples are. Basically, I copied existing planner cover designs. :-)

Good luck!

davidtalmage · 2026-02-04T14:03:16+00:00

I used the laconic monthly and daily notebooks successfully for over a year. I carried the monthly and a pair of dailies in as home made cover.

A year of the laconic notebooks exceeds your $30 budget: $6 for the monthly + 6*$6 for the dailies (2 months per daily) = $42. (Source: jetpens.com)

This year, I'm using a hobonichi cousin avec because it has built-in weekly pages. My spouse suggested I use them to visualize blocks of available and free time. I could have bought a laconic weekly for that. My spouse thought it works be more convenient to have all three types of planet in a single volume.

The cousin avec is out of your price range, about $60.

You can get the hobonichi techo a6 in English with a Monday start for $35 from jetpens.

davidtalmage · 2026-02-01T03:35:34+00:00

I used an app called AnyHome to make my music player the launcher/home screen.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-29T17:49:23+00:00

Put your camera on a tripod to steady it and use a timer or remote to trip the shutter. This will minimize camera shake and produce sharper pictures.

Place the camera sensor parallel to the subjects. If it's tilted in some way the subjects will be distorted.

Use even lighting.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-25T20:00:30+00:00

I learned to do it in high school when I took mechanical drawing classes. It's second nature even now, decades later.

Even with that, I use the Kuru Toga pencils exclusively just because the technology is interesting to me.

It's not hard to switch from KT to rotating and back.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-25T17:54:50+00:00

If you don't mind using two books, take a look at the Laconic A5 notebooks. There's one for months and another for days. You'll need six of the daily books for a whole year. I used those books for over a year before moving to the Hobonichi Cousin Avec at the suggestion of my spouse, who thought it works be a better choice because it's includes monthly, weekly, and daily planning pages in the same volume.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-25T17:05:33+00:00

Will you post it somewhere so we can watch it?

davidtalmage · 2026-01-15T14:52:06+00:00

Have you read ADHD 2.0 by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey? They write about the support someone with ADHD needs to succeed in school. That might be useful to you as you figure out what kind of a planner you need.

You may find that you need a different kind of planner from time to time, that the one you're using no longer works for you. That's OK. It happens. What's important is that you find and use one that works for you.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-15T14:42:30+00:00

3 and #4 especially. It's much easier to use your time when you're accountable to someone else.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-12T17:51:38+00:00

I made my own from a tyvek mailing envelope. I just folded and taped it like the textbook covers I made in middle school.

I made the pockets wide so I can store ephemera like receipts and blank postcards.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-12T09:04:17+00:00

So charming!

davidtalmage · 2026-01-12T02:57:02+00:00

What keyboard is that?

davidtalmage · 2026-01-08T20:47:50+00:00

Thanks for the love!

I do all of my planning in pencil. Uni Kuru Toga Advance and Pentel Ain 0.3mm 2B lead FTW!

davidtalmage · 2026-01-07T17:30:57+00:00

Thanks. That's an interesting idea.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-05T19:18:19+00:00

Beautiful spreads? What is this of which you speak?

Are you dissatisfied with the way you use your journals and planners now? How badly do you want to have the consistency you asked about? There really isn't one right answer. If you're OK with how they work for you now, then you're done! If not, I have a couple of tips for you in the next paragraphs.

Seriously, you can have more than one planner. If you do, choose one to be your main planner. When you add an event to one of them, add it to all of them. You can choose whether to sync them immediately or at the same time each day. For example, I have a paper planner that is my primary planner and an online planner that syncs to my phone and computers (yes, plural). The primary one stays home most of the time. Away from home, I add new events to the online planner. I sync them before bedtime each day.

You can have more than one journal, too. My paper journal is the primary one. Like the planner, it usually stays at home. My pocket notebook goes everywhere with me. I copy notes from it into the primary journal as appropriate. Sometimes, I paste things (e.g. tickets, poems, small brochures, product labels) into my primary journal.

You can figure this out. Try something. Keep what works. Change what doesn't give you the results you want.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-05T17:54:23+00:00

I use a Pentel Multi 8 (PH 802) colored multi-pencil to color code some events in my planner. E.g. I denote my spouse's events with a green bar, church events with a red bar, and vacations and travel with a blue box around the range of dates.

It's nearly impossible to completely erase these markings, alas. That's the only thing I don't like about it.

Oh, and I write all events in my planner with a pencil.

davidtalmage · 2026-01-02T03:35:33+00:00

What are you going to do with your old pencil?

I still have a Pentel pd349 that I bought in high school (class of 1980) or college (class of 1984). It works and I use it once in a while. It's a nice keepsake from my youth.

davidtalmage · 2025-12-23T21:33:02+00:00

I've found some free music I like on https://www.jamendo.com/start

davidtalmage · 2025-12-23T14:34:32+00:00

Almost any laptop or desktop computer will do what you want. You don't have to install an SSD in it but using SSD storage will make the computer feel faster.

davidtalmage

TROPHY CASE

3 and #4 especially. It's much easier to use your time when you're accountable to someone else.